From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia If... (comic)
If... (comic)
If... is an ongoing political comic strip which appears in object (speed cameras, pylons, giant eye, poodle)
the UK newspaper The Guardian, written and drawn by represent him, playing upon his increasingly
Steve Bell since its creation in 1982. authoritarian image.
• Gordon Brown, depicted as a grumpy ruthless Scot
Style and can be used to make any object (bear, snail, lion,
Stalin) to represent him.
If... is a sharp and cynical satirisation of British politics • David Cameron, depicted with a condom on his head,
and current affairs from a left wing perspective. It’s and referred to as ’Rubberman’
named after the famous Rudyard Kipling poem.[1] Suiting
both Bell’s anarchic artistic style and the paper’s political Leaders of the opposition
stance, it consists of a short (usually three-panel) daily • Neil Kinnock, portrayed as a bald man in a suit
episode in each Monday to Thursday edition of the paper, spouting an endless stream of incoherent waffle.
with subjects usually covered in these 4-day-long seg- • William Hague, portrayed as a squat figure
ments. A guest strip appears on Friday, usually The Perry (sometimes a schoolboy) with a very bulbous head
Bible Fellowship. If... occasionally utilises wordplay and like a light bulb or the Mekon.
coarse humour - Bell is fond of using the pejorative Bri- • Iain Duncan Smith, portrayed as a blank faced
tish word "wanker" and its euphemistic variants, for ex- zombie
ample. With the Guardian’s move to new presses, If... start- • Michael Howard, portrayed as a vampire owing to
ed to appear in full colour in September 2005. Initially, comments about his apparent sinister personality by
the title was reflected in the concept, with each week Tory MP Ann Widdecombe and his ancestors being
presenting a separate stand-alone story such as ’If... Di- from Romania.
nosaurs roamed Fleet Street,’ or ’If the Bash Street Kids • David Cameron, portrayed as a jellyfish wearing a
ran the country’. This shifted into a different approach cycling helmet. A recent strip saw him rebranded as
during the 1982 Falklands/Mavinas war, when Bell start- "mild green" in the style of the Fairy (brand) old logo
ed to concentrate on two central characters - Royal Navy of a baby and a play on the "mild green fairy liquid"
officer Kipling and the Penguin he befriends. jingle.
Caricatures Other political figures
Many of the political and other public figures who are • Ronald Reagan, whose persona mutated from a
lampooned gain in-joke characteristics, which often bumbling, heavily stage-managed actor into a senile
build into plot strands of their own. Examples include: yet dangerous robot with a missile like pointed head,
including being deployed in space as a component of
Prime ministers the Strategic Defense Initiative.
• George W. Bush as a chimpanzee, ignorant of events
• Margaret Thatcher, depicted with a mad, staring eye,
around him. Inspired by the film Bedtime for Bonzo, in
a pointed nose, wide neck, big hair and generally
which Ronald Reagan appeared with a chimp, Bell
masculine features.
greeted Bush’s election with a cartoon entitled
• John Major, who began appearing with underpants
"Bigtime for Bonzo", depicting Bush as Reagan’s
on the outside of the trousers of his suit, when it was
chimp. In war themed cartoons, the Bush-chimp
claimed that he tucked his shirt into them. Bell
sometimes appears dressed as Darth Vader, complete
referred to this as "the badge of an essentially crap
with banana-shaped lightsabre. After the 2006 mid-
Superman". (Ironically, this report turned out to
term election he has been occasionally depicted as a
have been false, having been made up by Alastair
duck with a broken leg and a crutch - a reference to
Campbell during his late days on the Daily Mirror [1].
him being a ’lame duck president’.
Nevertheless, it fitted popular perceptions of Major’s
• Michael Heseltine as Tarzan with a loincloth on,
naive suburban incompetence so well that many
sometimes over his suit.
people today still believe it to be true.)
• John Prescott, as a dog called Market who Blair has
• Tony Blair, depicted with the same mad, staring eye
had neutered, a reference to Blair’s control over the
as Margaret Thatcher and a very pointed head
left of the Labour Party.
which, along with his ears, can be used to make any
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia If... (comic)
• More recently, George Osbourne, as a pig with a the penguins live on the island of Rockall, where they oc-
’cute, curly tail’ which voters seemingly like. casionally set up a socialist commune.
• , a policeman of variable (but normally senior) rank
Recurring characters and invariable corruption, and a face that looks like a
bottom seen sideways.
There are also numerous characters whose frequency • , a permanently drunk right wing journalist.
waxes and wanes over time. These characters often have • , a cockney monkey who is highly street-smart and
an exaggerated nonsensicality, fitting Bell’s style - most sharp-witted. John usually resides with the Penguins
obviously their politics, which are sometimes portrayed but is more of a free agent, tending to appear in roles
as hopelessly idealist. They include: The Penguin is unsuitable for (e.g. a benefit fraud
• , an everyman figure who served in the Falklands investigator or tabloid plant amongst the Royal
War. Kipling left the Navy on his return to Britain Family)
after the war, and spends much of the strip destitute • , a French artist who is apparently a caricature of
or on the short end of some satirical device, such as Bell himself. He speaks with a strong French accent,
being trained to be a High Court judge under a which Bell has used to introduce various spoof
Government unemployment scheme. Reg is a French words, including "ouanquère" meaning
committed socialist, and during the late 1980s, "wanker".
having finally having had his fill of Thatcher’s • Numerous other animals including pandas, camels,
Britain he defected to the Soviet Bloc. Bell made the rats, moles, sheep and cats, depending upon the
point of depicting Reg as being much happier there, strip’s plot requirements. The camels are used for
including starting a family, despite the lower strips based in the Middle East, the (radioactive)
standard of living and human rights. moles and two headed sheep for strips outside
• , who stowed away with Reg’s return to the UK from Sellafield, the pandas as misunderstood immigrants,
the Falklands. At first, The Penguin mostly served as and so on. The cats began with a long plot thread
a vehicle to comment upon the absurdity of human starring Bill Clinton’s cat Socks and occasionally
affairs (e.g. "All I care about is fish, matey") and as a return as ’fat cat’ businessmen. In strips depicting
sounding board for Reg, but became increasingly Islamic terrorists and fundamentalists, they are
politicised. Bell often uses the metaphor of obesity often represented as goats.
for wealth, and frequently The Penguin becomes
overweight and highly materialistic; for example,
becoming a stockbroker, running privatised prisons,
References
or running a populist tabloid newspaper similar to [1] "Steve Bell’s If ...". Guardian.co.uk.
Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun. The Penguin is also http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/
embarrassed by his heritage, coming from a very series/if. Retrieved 2010-11-14.
reactionary family of penguins who live on the
Falklands (his actual name is Prince Philip of Greece
Penguin) and who are highly bigoted against
External links
albatrosses. • If... on the Guardian’s "Comment is free" site (the red-
Bell seems to prefer The Penguin character the most, and and-grey bar below the cartoon is a scroll bar
has fun with showing him becoming more reactionary allowing access to a few older cartoons)
as he ages. Over the course of the strip he has brought • The history of If...
in his partner Gloria and fathered several children and • Book: The If... Files
grandchildren, including Prudence who, in a reference • If... screensavers
to mixed race children, had a lovechild with a rat. (The
Penguin disapproved but later flippantly revealed he was
himself half-albatross when drunk on rum). Occasionally
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=If..._(comic)&oldid=461614082"
Categories:
• The Guardian
• Political comic strips
• British comic strips
• Comic strips started in the 1980s
• 1982 comic debuts
• Works originally published in The Guardian
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia If... (comic)
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