There are various types of cartoonists who work for newspapers depicting the political events of the day. Those who draw gentle, unconfronting cartoons and those who go for the jugular and force us to look closely at the nastier aspects of our political lives.
Joep Bertrams, a Dutch cartoonist is definitely in the second type of political cartoonist, his drawings are savage, to the point and brilliant (in both senses of the word). The cartoon that won him the Inktspotprijs 2014-2015 prize ( a prize that is given in Holland for the best political cartoon of the year) is fairly typical of his style of working. As you will see, it was his reaction to the murderous attacks on the Charlie Hebdo office last year, and as I said, is straight to the point.
So here is that carton to give you a taste of how he works.
The title by the way of this cartoon is “Onsterfelijk” which is Dutch for “immortal”, and seems to me to be pretty clear in its intentions.
His style is both clean and colourful, carefully drawn and utterly clear in its meaning. He has a great ability to cut through the rubbish around any given issue and produce a clear and to the point cartoon that somehow encapsulates his thoughts on a topic extremely clearly.
To illustrate these points, here are a couple more of his cartoons, and I suspect you will have no difficulty in guessing what they are all about.
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