Cartoons were an established feature of newspapers by the time of the war. The larger papers often contained separate pullout sections known as the "Funnies", which were mainly reproductions of American strips such as Little Willie or Nemo. British cartoons were slightly different: usually a single panel depicting a scene with a caption below it, rather than a "strip" of sequential images. During the war, this began to change as cartoon technique developed in response to the demands of both the public and the propaganda bureaus. Punch, the leading satirical magazine of the middle classes, started to pioneer sequential techniques, and modernist artists such as Fougasse and Raven became increasingly popular. Cartoons were becoming an increasingly popular type of humour, their succinctness and the combination of visual and linguistic joke appealing to a large audience. As the war drew on, propaganda posters drawn by cartoonists began to appear, as the government began to realize the immediate impact cartoon images had on the entire population. However, although this type of art had its roots in the Great War, it was not until World War Two that propaganda posters became heavily based around the images of cartoonists and caricaturists.

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The most famous cartoonist of the Great War is undoubtedly Bruce Bairnsfather. Bairnsfather drew for The Bystander. If Punch is contemporaneous to today’s Private Eye, The Bystander was similar to Viz, with a solid working class readership. Like Punch, The Bystander was circulated to troops at the front by relatives and friends. Bairnsfather served at the front before producing his cartoons, joining the 1st Royal Warwicks and achieving the rank of Captain. The first of his Fragments From France was published on 31^st March 1915, whilst he was recovering from wounds in hospital, and after this he contributed regularly to the paper. Several compilations of his drawings were printed as the war went on, and these books were still being reprinted in 1938, when the editor of The Bystander included the letter of a fan in his forward to Bullets And Billets:

As well as the anthologies, a series of cartoons were also sold as presents for soldiers at the front. There were four packets; each containing eight cards depicting aspects of trench life. The cards and their packets were in great demand at the time and very difficult to acquire, however many of the cards survived and are now even more highly prized as collectors pieces.

The cartoons initially suffered a certain amount of resistance from the home front – Parliament described them as "vulgar caricatures of our heroes", but his popularity with the troops overwrote this initial civilian objection and eventually his cartoons were so universally successful that Bairnsfather was promoted to Officer-Cartoonist and transferred to the intelligence department. Another indication of his popularity with the troops is the bus facing entrants to the Imperial War Museum. It was used to transport soldiers in France and is named after Bairnsfather's most famous character, "Old Bill".

Because of his active service at the front, Bairnsfather’s cartoons have a degree of realism not attained by the civilian illustrators, who preferred more allegorical depictions of the war. This, and his apparent lack of condescension towards the working class Tommy made him immensely popular amongst the soldiers at the front. Bairnsfather’s characters were however, not particularly original: instantly recognizable as standard figures of war satire. The most identifiable of these was the recalcitrant "Old Bill" Busby, a pipe-smoking, large mustached captain who grumbled often but never gave up and exemplifies the B.E.F. ethos of "Keep cheerful" by regarding the war with appropriate irony and managing to survive whilst apparently begrudging everything around him. Old Bill had a basis in reality; Lance Corporal Thomas Rafferty (also of the 1^st Warwicks) who was killed in action in 1915. However all of Bairnsfather’s characters were original enough to be believable whilst depicting classic roles – overenthusiastic young recruits, blustering generals and world-weary Tommies.

Bairnsfathers cartoons managed to amalgamate a degree of sentimentality whilst depicting the war in a more realistic way. His pictures were two-tone or black and white, but they drew mud and destruction in a way which the home front cartoonists steadfastly avoided. Many of the cartoons also involve "taboo" subjects such as lice, boredom or sympathy with the enemy, and the weather is a key feature – it is often raining and always muddy in Bairnsfather’s world. The emphasis of the cartoons focuses on a daily trench life that was universally recognized by the soldiers – a Poilu "Old Bill" was created and the Germans also appreciated Bairnsfather’s work.

Despite this realism, it was the overriding sentimentality in the cartoons that appealed to both civilians and Tommies. Bairnsfather was praised for "telling it like it was" by the army, but the ultimate aim of the cartoons is to display an ethos the troops were desperate to maintain – that they struggled happily through considerable adversity but nevertheless did it with courage and cheeriness. The spirit of British wit was always present despite the awfulness of their situation. Bairnsfather neatly bridges this gap – his cartoons are more graphically grim and offensive than those the civilians were used to seeing and also convey the idea that the British Press was concealing the truth of the war. However, they negate this subversive view by describing the Tommy as steadfast and brave "despite all". This made the civilians aware that their pre-war idealism was false, but it also maintained their belief that the soldier was a brave and true Englishman; doing his bit regardless. The soldiers appreciated both the more realistic depictions and the sentimentality of the cartoons. Despite their knowledge that the theatre of war was being represented unrealistically by most of the civilian press, they still wished to uphold the idealism contained in Bairnsfathers work - the steadfast working class man "doing his bit", the references to Blighty as a place worth fighting for, and the idea of grudging acceptance to any situation. Bairnsfathers most famous cartoon "A better ‘Ole" is typical of this attitude.

Bairnsfather’s characters were never mean or unpatriotic – despite their moans they upheld a concept of Englishness the Tommy still wished to retain. This is the reason that Bairnsfather was so successful both then and now. He produced a more realistic portrayal of the war that still encapsulated the ethoses of both British Nation and British Expeditionary Force.

Bairnsfather Cartoons. The Wipers Times and Punch. Comics and the First World War. Troop Entertainment Menu

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