Content note. Several cartoons here use racial, antisemitic or dehumanising imagery, including a 1936 Arab-press octopus, a 1942 US caricature of Japanese soldiers and 1943 to 1944 Japanese caricatures of Roosevelt. They are shown as issued; showing an item is not endorsing it.
What are propaganda cartoons?
Propaganda cartoons are drawings, strips and magazine covers that use caricature, labels and visual metaphor to push an audience toward a view of a person, group or country. The collection holds them from 1900 to 1975 and tests each one the same way: who issued it, what it labels, and which technique carries it.
Humour is the delivery, not the test. A satirical weekly, a ministry and a party daily are described by the same definitions.
Content note: Grotesque caricature of Cecil Rhodes with a champagne bottle and share certificates, captioned as Chamberlain's accomplice. This object is shown as it was published. Why 
Before 1920: empire, press and war
The Paris weekly Le Rire put Charles Léandre's caricature of Cecil Rhodes on its 17 February 1900 cover, with mining shares in his fist (Name-calling), during the Boer War.
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New York's Puck, in J. S. Pughe's 6 June 1900 centrefold, drew France as a small officer daring Britain from behind a Russian bear (Name-calling).
Punch printed a snake with King Leopold II's head crushing a rubber collector on 28 November 1906, under the caption "The Congo 'Free' State" (Transfer).
W. A. Rogers's New York Herald cartoon of 9 May 1918, published as the US Sedition Act passed, bundles the IWW with "Spy" and "Traitor" (Guilt by association).
The Zurich weekly Nebelspalter staged the Fourteen Points as Moses-style tablets in 1918, borrowing biblical authority for a political programme (Transfer).
Between the wars: parties and states
The Soviet state publisher Gosizdat issued Viktor Deni's 1930 drawing in which smoke carries three tumbling figures tagged "wrecker", "NEPman" and "kulak" (Scapegoating).
Content note: Antisemitic cartoon depicting 'World Jewry' as an octopus (Star of David on its head) strangling a woman who personifies Palestine. This object is shown as it was published. Why 
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The French Communist daily L'Humanité, on 21 June 1925, drew Premier Painlevé ordering forged diplomatic letters over the Moroccan war (Name-calling).
The Berlin satirical magazine Eulenspiegel put Charles Girod's Mussolini, skull on chest, among gallows on its July 1928 cover (Name-calling).
The Jaffa daily Falastin printed an octopus marked with a Star of David wrapped around a figure of Palestine in 1936, blaming one named group (Scapegoating).
Second World War: all sides
Jim Berryman of the Washington Evening Star, on 15 November 1940, drew Axis powers and Russia dividing the Americas between them (Fear appeal).
Content note: Caricature of a named political leader as an obese figure carrying animals labelled with associates' names, with a slogan calling for his death. This object is shown as it was published. Why 
Content note: Wartime cartoon showing a graveyard of crosses named for British and American warships, with an Uncle Sam caricature. This object is shown as it was published. Why 
Content note: Wartime Japanese magazine cover with a caricature of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (exaggerated jaw, buck tooth, sweat drop). This object is shown as it was published. Why 
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Punch ran L. G. Illingworth's 1942 drawing of Yugoslav partisans above a German-held valley under the heading "Freedom on the Heights" (Glittering generalities).
The US Office of War Information circulated Charles Alston's 1942 cartoon of a Japanese soldier with a halo and a dagger, a claim about Japan's "liberation" of Asia (Accusation in a mirror). See also American propaganda posters.
A Zhejiang provincial anti-enemy propaganda office printed Wang Jingwei as an obese figure carrying animals labelled with his associates' names in 1939 (Name-calling). See Chinese propaganda posters.
Ľudové noviny, a newspaper of the wartime Slovak Republic, ran a three-strip cartoon in August 1942 on Stalin, Churchill and Dieppe (Name-calling).
The Japan Times & Advertiser printed a graveyard of crosses named for British and American warships on 13 May 1942, selecting losses and omitting the rest (Card stacking).
The Japanese military administration of Java used the magazine Djawa Baroe on 1 June 1943 to draw the three Allied leaders as a tangle (Name-calling).
The Tokyo monthly Manga carried a flushed, buck-toothed Roosevelt on its August 1943 cover (Name-calling).
By October 1944 Manga drew Roosevelt as a mask worn by a fanged ogre (Dehumanization). Compare Japanese propaganda of WW2.
Cold War and after
Berryman's 9 February 1949 cartoon sets a cross on one pan of a hammer-and-sickle scale and a pistol marked "police state" below it (Fear appeal).
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An East German display panel of 1952 shows an obese US soldier in a horned helmet shouting at a German woman (Name-calling). Its sponsor is not named.
Tehran's Shooresh newspaper, on 8 August 1953, held up a vote tally in front of gallows labelled with opponents' names (Bandwagon).
Open-air boards in East Berlin in 1957 set a crowned "Krupp" over war-dead figures for 1914 to 1918 and 1939 to 1945 (Scapegoating).
US forces' JUSPAO/MACV leaflet 26 of 1966 drew Mao sitting on sacks of North Vietnamese rice (Fear appeal).
Ollie Harrington's 1975 Daily World cartoon places a South African tank on a road to Angola (Transfer).
What the record shows
The same techniques recur across Washington, London, Moscow, Tokyo, Berlin and Tehran: labels, animal bodies, borrowed symbols. Scale and intent differ. A magazine cover reached a newsstand; a state office or ministry could print and post at national scale, and some issuers here were private satirists with no state behind them.
For wider surveys see propaganda art, Soviet propaganda posters and British propaganda posters.
