Sharp Pencils, Sharper Wit

Adam Solomons | Issue 2 | Magazine

From the Archive

The ongoing cull of political cartoonists by national newspapers has triggered new conversations about the status of this idiosyncratic art form.

Morten Morland didn’t know what he was getting himself into. A Norway-born graphic design student with a vague interest in the strange British tradition of political cartoons, he interviewed The Times’ legendary cartoonist Peter Brookes as part of his research for a dissertation, bringing some of his own drawings as a discussion prompt. An assistant next door, impressed by the artworks, asked if he would cover some shifts while Brookes was away. Seventeen years later, Morland still draws for the paper. Morland is perhaps best known for trialling animation in his cartoons for The Times, the first to do so on this side of the Atlantic. “I was fascinated by how little British cartooning had changed over the years,” he told The Mace. “We were still using the same tools as our predecessors, whereas everyone else in the newsroom had gone digital.” Inspired by Wall Street Journal cartoonist Mark Fiore, Morland began to create his own moving-image political cartoons. “It seemed to me at the ti...

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