Satire, caricature, speech bubbles, the writing of captions, etc had been around long before the word ‘cartoon’ was used in an 1843 Punch magazine in the sense that we know it today. In our talk, Ian tracks the early stages of cartoons and their evolvement through the works of Hogarth and James Gillray. Copious illustrations abound from such masters of their craft as John Tenniel, John Leech, David Low, Vicky, Ronald Searle, Heath Robinson and Giles; and, bringing it right up to date, with Gerald Scarfe, Steven Bell and Peter Brookes.