The world has definitely not become easier in the past year. The war front in Ukraine has been joined by another in the Middle East. In Russia it briefly looked as if Vladimir Putin’s rule was under threat. And in Germany, a divided traffic light coalition is paralyzing the country.
Cartoonist Klaus Stuttmann always manages to wring something funny out of past events. Which is not easy given the gloomy world situation. Because of course jokes about the victims of war and terror are forbidden. But if a Putin supporter and a Hamas supporter meet on the street and hold the same sign – “Massacre civilians? Had to happen!” – then there is definitely a sad comedy in it.
Racism is also anything but fun. But when Stuttmann draws an old man who wants to “deport all of you foreigners” but says this to the black nurse who is pushing him in a wheelchair – he shows in a humorous way how backwards and stupid this mentality is.
Klaus Stuttmann is printed daily
As in previous years, Klaus Stuttmann has compiled his best drawings in a yearbook in 2023, inviting you to look back on the past twelve months. In his cartoonswhich appear daily in around 20 German daily and weekly newspapers, the illustrator is primarily concerned with domestic politics. He has a lot of comic potential in the current government, whose three parties don’t really want to pull together. Here too, Stuttmann repeatedly finds images that get to the heart of the failure.
Anyone who has leafed through this volume with its 200 cartoons will probably come to the conclusion at the end: 2024 can only get better. However, some people will probably have already thought that last year when reading Stuttmann’s 2022 yearbook.
We therefore have to prepare ourselves for new caricatures from Stuttmann – and can even look forward to them.
“Klaus Stuttmann: Caricatures 2023” contains 224 pages, was published by Schaltzeit Verlag and costs 25 euros. More on the publisher’s website