The Underrated Cartoonist !

 The Underrated Cartoonist: An Artist in the Age of Algorithms

   My favorite passtime is to read the newspaper. Not for the news but the hidden stories and look for the intricacies behind the actual news reporting. I am amused at the use of language in local newspapers sometimes. The frame is used in a photograph reported in an article or mostly the graphics and the cartoons.That actually made me think and discover the fact that how the cartoon section has reduced on pages and more AI-generated content is occupying the space. Before, I could know this art, I find it easy to prompt a machine to do it for me.

Source: Line of No Control by Sandeep Adhwaryu (n.d.)_Times of India-Lucknow

Aligned to my concern I actually began the thinking process with a question - How many cartoonists do we actually know? For me, to recall only a few of which the vetran was, R.K. Laxman ji.

Source: USA - India relations - I. (n.d.). Pinterest. https://ca.pinterest.com/pin/620089442414511148/

But here I am not focused on the ones whose memes land on our WhatsApp chats or the ones AI generators spit out in seconds, but the true cartoonists—the paper-and-ink warriors who squeeze humor, pain, and truth into a few strokes of a pen.

Think for a moment:

When was the last time you paused on a newspaper’s cartoon column? Chances are, fewer than before. Once, editorial cartoons were the heartbeat of public opinion. A single sketch could bring down egos, puncture power, and comfort the common man.

 Today, they often drown under layers of trending reels, stand-up acts, and auto-tuned covers of “someone else’s original.”

It isn’t that people don’t draw anymore. Artists still sketch, doodle, scribble on napkins, or pour ink into satire. But the ecosystem has shifted. Graphic tablets replaced the pen; AI image generators replaced the imagination. The stage that once celebrated sharp wit on paper now gives the spotlight to algorithm-fed graphics.

The irony of ironies—sometimes AI itself tries to draw cartoons about AI. (That’s like a robot writing jokes about its own batteries running low.)

Look at society’s career map: dancing has dance academies, acting has theaters and OTT platforms, singing has competitions and reality shows, writing has prizes and platforms. But cartoonists? Where’s the ecosystem? Where’s the applause for the individual who distills politics, economics, and cultural chaos into a single panel that makes you chuckle and think?

Source: Sandeep Adhwaryu,(2025)_TOI Lucknow

       Maybe that’s why we can name dozens of singers, actors, stand-up comedians—but when it comes to cartoonists, we pause, scratch our heads, and recall two or three “famous ones” from history. The living, breathing cartoonist of today—the freelancer juggling assignments, the editorial artist battling shrinking column space—remains invisible in the LinkedIn feed.

    And yet, satire on paper has something AI can’t quite replicate. A hand-drawn cartoon carries the tremor of the artist’s pulse, the mood of the moment, the smell of ink that algorithms cannot simulate. AI may generate an image faster, but it cannot “feel” the irony of drawing a minister’s speech bubble empty, or a corporate boss balancing profits over people. That comes from lived observation, not code.
So maybe it’s time we stop scrolling past the cartoons that still survive in our papers and feeds. Maybe it’s time to actually know the cartoonists among us, the underrated professionals foreseeing what others fail to notice. Their job is not entertainment alone; it is cultural critique.

If humor is society’s safety valve, cartoonists are the mechanics keeping it from bursting.

And trust me, no AI—however sophisticated—wants to get its hands dirty with that job.

 

So I too tried to get my hands dirty and enjoyed!