24 cartoons from 2024

2024 cartoons from 2024

Here is my annual Drew's review of the year in cartoons.  2024 was a year of two halves where all my published work occurred in the first half of the year during the period of UK electioneering, and in the second half with the Trump election it all fell apart.

1. Elections

2024 was a year of elections in the UK and USA, but back in January we didn’t know when Rishi Sunak was going to call an election with some people predicting a shock early poll, others a Spring election (they were right), others the Autumn and still others a Christmas campaign.  So this cartoon from the reject pile anticipated a sneaky early campaign.

2 Atlantic Storms

It was another stormy year with Atlantic storms battering the UK at the start and end of the year.  With terrible weather a major conversation starter cartoonists searched for references and I drew this cartoon.  It ended up in the reject pile, but I saw a better published version of this gag later in the year

3. Promises

In an election year politicians suddenly remember the electorate and make all sorts of promises and pledges, that they absolutely intend to keep, to win your vote.  The start of the year with the Conservatives trailing behind Labour the spooky chancellor Jeremy Hunt was looking to see what he could bribe the electorate with paid with cuts later in the parliament.  So this was my rejected cartoon for Valentines day.

4 Willy Wonka Experience

Best local story of 2024 was the Glasgow Willy Wonka experience the amazing AI adverts guided people to a disappointing warehouse close to where I live.  Cue first local news and then international outlets interviewing disappointed families who forked out for tickets, while social media voyeurs revelled in the naff unlicensed characters like 'The Unknown' and the AI generated script.

Kirsty Paterson, the actress who played one of the Oompa Lumpas posted about how they turned up at the warehouse the day before and were given scripts and prompts at the last minute.  She became one of the viral hits of 2024.

5 Labour Bins

Despite having a staggering lead in the poll the Labour strategiests were worried about landing the election victory they desired and so in an effort to appear responsible they ditched some of their green pledges.  This cartoon in response published in March made the Private Eye Annual (first time).

6 Dinosaur Polling

My favourite published cartoon of 2024 was this one from the Eye which showed the polling difference between Mammals and Dinosaurs and fortunately the pollsters were right about Labour v Conservatives (but all over the place in the US).

7 Cartooning for peace

No-one could claim 2024 was a peaceful year in the Ukraine or in the Middle East where conflict escalated to drag in more countries.

The first casualty of cartooning war is the poor dove of peace who gets pictured being battered or ineffective.  I'm as guilty of this as the next cartoonist as this example from the reject pile shows.

8 Doom Scrolling

In a similar vein it has been quite the year for doom scrolling and as a person who likes to catastrophize it has certainly offered plenty of opportunity to anticipate the start of WW3, the end of democracy, the rise of facism, a new pandemic or a hundred other clickbait titles that drive engagement through fear.  As a cartoonist who draws mostly topical stuff for magazine submissions I have to keep slightly abreast of the news but as a human who likes to keep his blood pressure down its also good to ration my intake.

Reject cartoon on the subject of doomscrolling. 

9 National Service

On the topic of new stories that raise the blood pressure the winner by a country mile was Rishi Sunak's desperate headline grabbing pledge to bring back National Service in May which when you looked at the detail behind the ridiculous rhetoric was nothing more than forcing teenagers to do Duke of Edinburgh schemes to convince elderly boomers that they didn't have it too easy.

The military didn't want it, I doubt all the voluntary organisations wanted an influx of young people forced to volunteer, and this parent of teenagers definitely didn't want it especially since it did nothing for them.

The scheme died with Rishi Sunak's election defeat and I hope the idea died as well not to be resurrected by some future right wing populist.

10 Ed Davey - stunt man

Election campaigns are not all trying to halt green policies and dress your teenagers in khakis one party leader Ed Davey of the Liberal Democrats was having a hilarious ball doing various stunts to ensure that at least the photos of him got some media coverage.  Whether it was paddleboarding or going on every ride in Thorpe Park Ed Davey was there like some reality show contestant willing to pitch in for our entertainment.  In the end they did also pick up a number of seats which makes me wonder how the next election campaign will top it.  Here one election illustration I did.

11 Euro 2024

It seemed half of Scotland got on plains, trains and automobiles to head to Euro 2024 in Germany when by some miracle they qualified for the massive tournament only to lose 5-1 in the opening game with Germany.

England on the other hand got all the way to the final for the second time in a row to be beaten by Spain.  On the way it was the usual Gareth Southgate roller coaster with goals and penalties and undeserved wins on the way to ultimate disappointment.  I liked Gareth Southgate but this was his final huzzah so here's a caricature I drew during the England Slovakia game.

12 Jam Tomorrow

Last cartoon I had published in Private Eye from 2024 was in June in the last issue covering the UK election which Rishi Sunak called for the first week of the Scottish school holidays so I was abroad trying to watch election results on Youtube.  Labour won by a lot which was pleasing.

The cartoon ran with a slightly better caption in the Eye but the gist of the joke is that all parties promise jam tomorrow.

13 New Masters

While most people were relieved to get rid of the Tories a new government meant a new cast of characters to draw.  A decade or so of drawing conservatives like Gove, Hunt and a revolving door of PMs left me with only having to draw the opposition figures like Keir Starmer or Wes Streeting who was always on Kuenssberg.  The biggest news in the new cabinet was Rachel Reeves the first female chancellor which you can see a caricature of below.  One tricky thing was my social media following loved to boo the pantomime villains of the Tories but when I started to sketch Labour figures from Kuenssberg I got some push back if I they weren't 100% recognisable or if people felt I wasn't being nice to them.  Since we have at least 5 years of this new administration I'm sure I will get my eye in with the leading figures.

14 Les Olympiques

The other massive sporting event was the Olympic games just across the channel which started with an opening ceremony on the Seine.  We watched some of it but the national broadcaster the BBC only had rights to show a small amount of the events so I drew this rejected cartoon.

15 Kamala

Back in June while our election was still happening Joe Biden had a disastrous debate with Donald Trump where somehow he managed to appear more incoherent and rambling than his fellow geriatric candidate Trump.  The democratic party on the downward slope to certain defeat dithered and then picked Vice President Kamala Harris to be their new candidate.

With not much time to introduce Harris to an already entrenched electorate the DNC had the fact she was (relatively) young at only 60, and a women who could bash Trump on abortion.  She had a much more combative debate with Trump and pundits were predicting a close race (oh how they were wrong).

UK cartoonists looking for a cartooning trope about US presidents quite often settle on the aliens who want to be taken to their leaders.  I must have drawn 3-4 rejected cartoons in this vein but this illustration was probably my best.

16 Aliens and the ISS

One company that had an annus horribilis was American aerospace giant Boeing. In January a 737 Max lost a door plug in flight, and then there were further incidents and whistleblowers leading to concerns about Boeing's quality control and grounding of the 737 briefly.

None of this was helped by Boeing stranding two astronauts in space on the International Space Station due to issues with the Boeing Starliner.  They two astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were due to be on the ISS for an 8 day mission but ended up with a plan to bring them back in 8 months on a SpaceX vehicle.

The latest Aliens movie Romulus was out this year and because cartoonists like linking two events I drew this rejected cartoon.

Story about astronauts stranded on the ISS and release of Alien movie

17 Parents in Halls

Biggest personal story of 2024 was our eldest left home to live in University halls across the country in September.  We knew at the start of the year that she had her place but we spent months preparing for it and buying things for her flat but when it arrived it was still strange.

One piece of advice was not to go visit your fresher child too often so I drew this rejected cartoon.

18 Trump vs Swift

The biggest culture story of 2024 was probably the end of the Taylor Swift Eras tour that reached Edinburgh in early June.   I attended the first night at Murrayfield with my daughter and her friend and then waited for a tram back to the parked car into the early hours.

While I love Taylor Swift particularly the Evermore/Folklore Eras, Donald Trump does not and when he shared fake AI content of her and she endorsed Kamala Harris, he said he hated her.  Trump's strange VP J D Vance called her a childless at lady which she adopted as her sign off to Trump.

There are a million caricatures of Trump and I drew a few in 2024 but this is perhaps my favourite from this year.

19 Second Asteroid

A second dinosaur and asteroid cartoon to go with an amazing science story to say there may have been a second asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs (except the ones that became birds).

In a news story sounding like a JFK conspiracy the asteroid from 66 million years ago was not alone according to scientists from Herriot Watt and so for an online drink and draw I drew this.

20 Catch!

Elon Musk in 2024 was on a quest to become one of those billionaire super villains that appears in Bond and Hollywood movies.  His antics on Twitter/X and attempt to cosy up to Trump to get a place in his administration drove many on the left to X-odus to Blue Sky and other social media outposts.

Musk is not the genius he thinks he is but the companies he owns do occasionally do cool things particularly SpaceX and space exploration.  In October SpaceX caught a returning rocket booster in mid-air with a tower with gripping arms.  I drew this rejected cartoon.

21 Conservative leadership contest

The first 6 months of the year the Tories dominated the headlines but once their ranks were decimated in the election and Sunak stood down the only story for them was a leadership election that eventually whittled down to Jenrick vs Badenoch which the latter won.  I was glad Badenoch won not because I particularly like her but Jenrick has a tendency to say whatever he thinks would get him elected and went after ECHR and a bunch of other Reform-lite issues.  I drew this around Halloween.

22 Trump and the Quack Doctor

The biggest twist of 2024 was the massive US Election victory of Trump which in hindsight is not so shocking but leading up to the polls was going to be neck and neck and involve lawyers and long waits to see who had won.

The US have a transition period where the new president is elected but not yet in power and gets to spend a few months naming his new cabinet which for Trump was a contest to see which of the worst people he could propose.

RFK Jnr is a vaccine skeptic with lots of strange views about fluoride and how to make America healthy again so Trump made him health secretary then made him eat McDonalds burgers on Air Force One.

I drew this cartoon in the style of Isaac Cruickshank's 1807 the Sailor and the Quack Doctor!  

23 Gregg Wallace and Bosch

Another famous painting parody for Martin Rowson now on Blue Sky draw challenges concerned BBC Masterchef presenter Gregg Wallace who was in the news for allegations that lots of women made about his behaviour on set making them uncomfortable with filthy jokes etc.  He tried to defend himself saying it was all from middle-class women of a certain age and some other celebrities tried to rally to his defence but eventually the BBC dropped him from Masterchef and his future is uncertain.

I tried a straight up caricature of Wallace but ended up putting him into a version of Visions of Tondal by Hieronymus Bosch from 1479.  

24 Peace on Earth

So 2024 ends with Christmas and the story of angels proclaiming Peace on Earth while Russia bombs Ukraine on Christmas Day and Gaza and the wider Middle East is still at war.  Maybe 2025 will see peace return or perhaps more escalation but it would be good to have fewer wars to have to comment on in the coming year.