\n<\/p>\n
In a year in which I\u2019ve drawn too many cartoons about powerful people acting with impunity, the fall of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor stood out to me as a rare win for justice and accountability. Dark humour feels vital to make light of everything that\u2019s going wrong, but I\u2019ve also been trying to draw cartoons that highlight reasons for hope, such as the fragile ceasefire in Gaza or Zohran Mamdani\u2019s win in New York.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Virginia Giuffre (3 November 2025).<\/span> Illustration: Ella Baron\/The Guardian<\/p>\n 2025 has been remarkable not for what I\u2019ve drawn but for what I haven\u2019t. In 40 years of cartooning I\u2019ve never known such an anonymous government, where nobody recognises 95% of the cabinet (apart from Wes \u201cface like a full Brazilian\u201d Streeting). Whether this is down to Morgan McSweeney\u2019s shenanigans or them keeping their heads down until the day the nightmare ends doesn\u2019t matter: it\u2019s a tragedy. The wasted comic potential to be milked from Pat McFadden \u2013 dead spit for Death from a Brueghel painting \u2013 is a national disgrace.<\/p>\n <\/span>The march of nationalism in mainstream politics (6 September 2025).<\/span> Illustration: Martin Rowson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n This year I have drawn Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin more than anyone else. They are not people I want to spend my time thinking about, or looking at \u2013 however nobody is beyond satire and they are both sufficiently unpleasant to make a good caricature. I loathe them, but I approach drawing them with curiosity and the eye of analysis. A caricature is as much about the person\u2019s expressions as it is about their features, and while Trump\u2019s face is very active, Putin\u2019s is still: only his mouth seems to move, so I go for his glare.<\/p>\n <\/span>What\u2019s on the table for Trump and Putin (17 February 2025). <\/span> Illustration: Nicola Jennings\/The Guardian<\/p>\n My aim is to ridicule, to decipher the grins and glares, in order to expose the motivation of those in positions of power. And although I don\u2019t believe cartoonists have the power to bring down governments, I do think we can change the public\u2019s perception of those in authority, and these perceptions can stick. Even so, I am sure it is damaging for the soul to draw Trump so many times \u2013 and I am planning to sue for $10bn.<\/p>\n The year has felt a bit like watching repeats of old news broadcasts while being strapped to a dentist\u2019s chair having all of one\u2019s teeth removed. Everything felt painfully familiar, from the unimaginable horrors in Gaza to the continued bloodshed in Ukraine, the ascent of Nigel Farage and \u201cDonald Trump 2.OH-NO\u201d. There were more revelations about (former Prince) Andrew and we even had a Labour government trying to bring back austerity.<\/p>\n <\/span>Starvation in Gaza (25 July 2025). <\/strong><\/span> Illustration: Ben Jennings\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The tricky thing for cartoonists was to keep having something new to say in a year that often felt more akin to a recurring nightmare. However, cartooning remains a versatile and effective medium in order to try and capture the heated climate of our current times (both figuratively and literally); distilling the chaos into a single image and trying to squeeze out the odd laugh here and there where we can. By god, we need it!<\/p>\n <\/span>Keir Starmer\u2019s new stance on immigration (13 May 2025). <\/span> Illustration: Ben Jennings\/The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ella Baron In a year in which I\u2019ve drawn too many cartoons about powerful people acting with impunity, the fall of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor stood out to me as a rare win for justice and accountability. Dark humour feels vital to make light of everything that\u2019s going wrong, but I\u2019ve also been trying to draw cartoons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[14681,3967,21327,12232,14680,9284,3500,8355,1913,12312,20623,19169,81,1569],"class_list":{"0":"post-39263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-baron","9":"tag-ben","10":"tag-bondvillain","11":"tag-cartoons","12":"tag-ella","13":"tag-jennings","14":"tag-martin","15":"tag-nicola","16":"tag-political","17":"tag-prince","18":"tag-rowson","19":"tag-toppled","20":"tag-trump","21":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Martin Rowson<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Nicola Jennings<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Ben Jennings<\/strong><\/h2>\n