I am delighted to share some exciting news: I have joined the incredibly talented international community of cartoonists at Cartoon Movement. As a platform dedicated to showcasing editorial cartoons from around the world, Cartoon Movement connects artists with a global audience, offering fresh, insightful, and sometimes bitingly satirical takes on current events.
For those unfamiliar, Cartoon Movement is an independent platform that brings together professional cartoonists from across the globe. Founded with the goal of promoting press freedom and political commentary through cartoons, it provides a space where artists can share their work and engage with an international readership. The platform regularly features political and editorial cartoons tackling world affairs, culture, and social issues, offering a diverse array of perspectives through visual storytelling.
Through this collaboration, my Ian David Marsden editorial cartoons will now have the opportunity to reach a much wider audience—perhaps finding themselves being scrutinized, debated, and misunderstood in multiple languages before ultimately being used as placemats under coffee cups. I’ll be regularly adding new work to my page, and you can find my latest contributions here:
My Cartoon Movement Page
https://www.cartoonmovement.com/cartoonist/34891
For those who enjoy a good editorial cartoon—whether it’s an incisive take on current politics, a visual commentary on society, or just an artistic way of saying “Well, isn’t this just a fine mess we are finding ourselves in again?”—I hope you’ll follow along.
As always, my work remains rooted in the fine balance of humor and observation, avoiding the common cartoonist pitfall of making the punchline arrive at the station several minutes before the reader does. I look forward to sharing Ian David Marsden editorial cartoons that (hopefully) make you think, smile, or at least nod wearily while contemplating the futility of modern existence.
Visit my gallery
Step into my Cartoon Movement gallery, and you’ll find a collection of editorial cartoons that range from the biting to the bizarre. There’s President Trump being approached by what seem to be two psychiatric health professionals—except one has the face of a cat, the other a dog, which, frankly, seems about right at this stage. Over in another corner, Harry and Meghan sit in their gilded podcast studio, brainstorming their next media bombshell, perhaps debating whether an unprecedented hardship is better for ratings than a never-before-seen crisis.
Meanwhile, Antony Blinken sits dejectedly in an airport, suitcase at his side, contemplating the futility of diplomacy as the world keeps burning—a quiet moment of introspection, or just a really long layover? Nearby, a wide-eyed Flat Earther experiments with an orange and a glass of water, rejecting centuries of science with unwavering confidence, while a dedicated QAnon “truth teller” ruins yet another family gathering by explaining why birds aren’t real (spoiler: they definitely are). Not far away, a survivalist hunkers down in his bunker hiding from the grey aliens, prepared for every possible apocalypse—except the one where his WiFi stops working, and in a more mythical setting, a young girl faces off against a dragon, sword in hand, proving once and for all that toxic masculinity is no match for well-earned confidence. And be honest, did you remember that Queen Elizabeth released a fragrance for dogs called “Happy Hounds Cologne” just before her unfortunate passing?
Elsewhere, history and technology collide as human intelligence seems to evolve from the printing press to the internet, only to devolve into social media idiocracy, while the Great Replacement conspiracy theory gets flipped on its head, pointing instead to automation and AI as the real workforce threat (the robots are coming for our jobs, but at least they don’t have Twitter accounts—yet). And finally, for a touch of nostalgia, Casablanca gets a modern update: instead of an emotional farewell, the lovers are too busy scrolling their phones to say goodbye.
These, and many more fine messes, are now live on my Cartoon Movement page, where I’ll continue adding new editorial cartoons—because as long as the world keeps giving us material, I’ll keep drawing.
About the artist: At 16, Ian David Marsden sold his first cartoons to the Swiss satirical magazine Nebelspalter and shortly afterward to Penthouse Germany—prompting his father to tell his friends, not without pride, that his son was drawing cartoons for a magazine he wasn’t old enough to buy. With a Swiss mother and a British father, Ian is extremely grateful that the humor and sarcasm gene landed firmly on his father’s side. His creative journey has taken him from Zurich to Paris, New York, Los Angeles, and even Barbados, before settling in a small town in the south of France.
Over more than three decades, his pen has wandered into just about every corner of illustration—cartoons for The New Yorker and Mad Magazine (the main expenditure of his pocket money in his youth and home to many of his cartoonist idols), character design for events like the Ski World Championship, mascots and illustrations for global brands, and drawings that have appeared in children’s TV, comic strips, books, and even on Coca-Cola cans.
One claim to fame seems to stick out: Ian was the first-ever Google Doodle artist, spending a year creating playful, iconic illustrations that appeared on millions of screens worldwide. In 2020, he expanded his repertoire further, publishing his first graphic novel, Marvin: Based on the Way I Was by Marvin Hamlisch. As only the second person in history to be awarded the PEGOT (Pulitzer, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), Marvin Hamlisch had an incredible story. This graphic novel adaptation of his biography also includes his family’s flight from Nazi-occupied Austria and their immigration to the United States.
Ian’s approach to cartooning emphasizes visual appeal and subtlety, avoiding the temptation to overstate the point. His inspirations include the elegant works of Sempé, Loriot, Steinberg, Booth, Edward Gorey, Ronald Searle, and Tove Jansson. His love of humor is deeply shaped by the writing of James Thurber, S.J. Perelman, and the early, absurd short stories of Woody Allen. Fluent in English, French, and German, he brings a thoughtful, creative and hopefully multifaceted approach to every project.
For Ian, art, literature, friendship, and civilized cohabitation with our fellow humans aren’t just luxuries—they’re essential. He sees the world as drifting away from the light of the Enlightenment—the Lumières—and toward a seemingly voluntarily chosen darkness and narrow-mindedness. In a world that often feels more absurd than any cartoonist could invent, he holds onto optimism, believing that humanist values and creativity need to be protected and defended, especially in challenging times.