If... (comic)
Encyclopedia
If... is an ongoing political comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 which appears in the UK newspaper The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, written and drawn by Steve Bell
Steve Bell (cartoonist)
Steve Bell is an English political cartoonist, whose work appears in The Guardian and other publications. He is known for his left-wing views and distinctive caricatures.-Early life:...

 since its creation in 1982.

Style

If... is a sharp and cynical satirisation of British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

 and current affairs
Current affairs (news format)
Current Affairs is a genre of broadcast journalism where the emphasis is on detailed analysis and discussion of news stories that have recently occurred or are ongoing at the time of broadcast....

 from a left wing perspective. It's named after the famous Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

 poem
If—
"If—" is a poem written in 1895 by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the "Brother Square Toes" chapter of Rewards and Fairies, Kipling's 1910 collection of short stories and poems...

. Suiting both Bell's anarchic artistic style and the paper's political stance, it consists of a short (usually three-panel) daily episode in each Monday to Thursday edition of the paper, with subjects usually covered in these 4-day-long segments. A guest strip appears on Friday, usually The Perry Bible Fellowship
The Perry Bible Fellowship
The Perry Bible Fellowship is a newspaper comic strip and webcomic by Nicholas Gurewitch. It originated in the Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange. The comics are usually three or four panels long, and are generally characterized by the juxtaposition of whimsical childlike imagery or...

. If... occasionally utilises wordplay and coarse humour - Bell is fond of using the pejorative
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...

 British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 word "wanker
Wanker
Wanker is a pejorative term of English origin, common in Commonwealth and ex-Commonwealth countries, including Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It initially referred to an onanist but has since become a general insult. It is synonymous with tosser.-Meaning:The term wanker...

" and its euphemistic
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...

 variants, for example. With the Guardians move to new presses, If... started to appear in full colour in September 2005.
Initially, the title was reflected in the concept, with each week presenting a separate stand-alone story such as 'If... Dinosaurs roamed Fleet Street,' or 'If the Bash Street Kids ran the country'. This shifted into a different approach during the 1982 Falklands/Mavinas war, when Bell started to concentrate on two central characters - Royal Navy officer Kipling and the Penguin he befriends.

Caricatures

Many of the political and other public figures who are lampooned gain in-joke
In-joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or in joke, is a joke whose humour is clear only to people who are in a particular social group, occupation, or other community of common understanding...

 characteristics, which often build into plot strands of their own. Examples include:

Prime ministers

  • Margaret Thatcher
    Margaret Thatcher
    Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

    , depicted with a mad, staring eye, a pointed nose, wide neck, big hair and generally masculine features.
  • John Major
    John Major
    Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...

    , who began appearing with underpants
    Underpants
    -Boxer shorts:Boxer shorts, or simply boxers, have an elasticated waistband that is at or near the wearer's waist, while the leg sections are fairly loose and extend to the mid-thigh. There is usually a fly, either with or without buttons...

     on the outside of the trousers of his suit, when it was claimed that he tucked his shirt
    Shirt
    A shirt is a cloth garment for the upper body. Originally an undergarment worn exclusively by men, it has become, in American English, a catch-all term for almost any garment other than outerwear such as sweaters, coats, jackets, or undergarments such as bras, vests or base layers...

     into them. Bell referred to this as "the badge of an essentially crap Superman
    Superman
    Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

    ". (Ironically, this report turned out to have been false, having been made up by Alastair Campbell
    Alastair Campbell
    Alastair John Campbell is a British journalist, broadcaster, political aide and author, best known for his work as Director of Communications and Strategy for Prime Minister Tony Blair between 1997 and 2003, having first started working for Blair in 1994...

     during his late days on the Daily Mirror http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/02/13/do1310.xml. Nevertheless, it fitted popular perceptions of Major's naive suburban incompetence so well that many people today still believe it to be true.)
  • Tony Blair
    Tony Blair
    Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

    , depicted with the same mad, staring eye as Margaret Thatcher and a very pointed head which, along with his ears, can be used to make any object (speed cameras, pylons, giant eye, poodle) represent him, playing upon his increasingly authoritarian image.
  • Gordon Brown
    Gordon Brown
    James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

    , depicted as a grumpy ruthless Scot
    Scottish people
    The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

     and can be used to make any object (bear, snail, lion, Stalin) to represent him.
  • David Cameron
    David Cameron
    David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....

    , depicted with a condom on his head, and referred to as 'Rubberman'

Leaders of the opposition

  • Neil Kinnock
    Neil Kinnock
    Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock is a Welsh politician belonging to the Labour Party. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995 and as Labour Leader and Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition from 1983 until 1992 - his leadership of the party during nearly nine years making him...

    , portrayed as a bald man in a suit spouting an endless stream of incoherent waffle.
  • William Hague
    William Hague
    William Jefferson Hague is the British Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State. He served as Leader of the Conservative Party from June 1997 to September 2001...

    , portrayed as a squat figure (sometimes a schoolboy) with a very bulbous head like a light bulb or the Mekon
    The Mekon
    The Mekon is the arch-enemy of the British comic book hero Dan Dare, first appearing in 1950 in the Eagle comic strip Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future and created by Frank Hampson. Apart from Dan Dare himself, he is the only character to appear in every one of the numerous versions of the comic strip...

    .
  • Iain Duncan Smith
    Iain Duncan Smith
    George Iain Duncan Smith is a British Conservative politician. He is currently the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and was previously leader of the Conservative Party from September 2001 to October 2003...

    , portrayed as a blank faced zombie
    Zombie
    Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...

  • Michael Howard
    Michael Howard
    Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne, CH, QC, PC is a British politician, who served as the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005...

    , portrayed as a vampire
    Vampire
    Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...

     owing to comments about his apparent sinister personality by Tory
    Tory
    Toryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...

     MP
    Member of Parliament
    A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

     Ann Widdecombe
    Ann Widdecombe
    Ann Noreen Widdecombe is a former British Conservative Party politician and has been a novelist since 2000. She is a Privy Councillor and was the Member of Parliament for Maidstone from 1987 to 1997 and for Maidstone and The Weald from 1997 to 2010. She was a social conservative and a member of...

     and his ancestors being from Romania
    Romania
    Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

    .
  • David Cameron
    David Cameron
    David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....

    , portrayed as a jellyfish wearing a cycling helmet. A recent strip saw him rebranded as "mild green" in the style of the Fairy (brand) old logo of a baby and a play on the "mild green fairy liquid" jingle.

Other political figures

  • Ronald Reagan
    Ronald Reagan
    Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

    , whose persona mutated from a bumbling, heavily stage-managed actor
    Actor
    An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

     into a senile yet dangerous robot
    Robot
    A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...

     with a missile like pointed head, including being deployed in space as a component of the Strategic Defense Initiative
    Strategic Defense Initiative
    The Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...

    .
  • George W. Bush
    George W. Bush
    George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

     as a chimpanzee
    Chimpanzee
    Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...

    , ignorant of events around him. Inspired by the film Bedtime for Bonzo
    Bedtime for Bonzo
    Bedtime for Bonzo is a 1951 comedy film directed by Fred de Cordova, starring future U.S. President Ronald Reagan. It revolves around the attempts of the central character, Professor Peter Boyd , to teach human morals to a chimpanzee, hoping to solve the "nature versus nurture" question...

    , in which Ronald Reagan
    Ronald Reagan
    Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

     appeared with a chimp, Bell greeted Bush's election with a cartoon entitled "Bigtime for Bonzo", depicting Bush as Reagan's chimp. In war themed cartoons, the Bush-chimp sometimes appears dressed as Darth Vader
    Darth Vader
    Darth Vader is a central character in the Star Wars saga, appearing as one of the main antagonists in the original trilogy and as the main protagonist in the prequel trilogy....

    , complete with banana-shaped lightsabre. After the 2006 mid-term election he has been occasionally depicted as a duck with a broken leg and a crutch - a reference to him being a 'lame duck president'.
  • Michael Heseltine
    Michael Heseltine
    Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC is a British businessman, Conservative politician and patron of the Tory Reform Group. He was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001 and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major...

     as Tarzan
    Tarzan
    Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...

     with a loincloth on, sometimes over his suit.
  • John Prescott
    John Prescott
    John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott is a British politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Born in Prestatyn, Wales, he represented Hull East as the Labour Member of Parliament from 1970 to 2010...

    , as a dog called Market who Blair has had neutered, a reference to Blair's control over the left of the Labour Party.
  • More recently, George Osbourne, as a pig with a 'cute, curly tail' which voters seemingly like.

Recurring characters

There are also numerous characters whose frequency waxes and wanes over time. These characters often have an exaggerated nonsensicality, fitting Bell's style - most obviously their politics, which are sometimes portrayed as hopelessly idealist
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...

. They include:
  • Reginald Kipling, an everyman
    Everyman
    In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...

     figure who served in the Falklands War
    Falklands War
    The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...

    . Kipling left the Navy
    Navy
    A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions...

     on his return to Britain after the war, and spends much of the strip destitute or on the short end of some satirical device, such as being trained to be a High Court
    High Court of Justice
    The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...

     judge
    Judge
    A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...

     under a Government unemployment scheme. Reg is a committed socialist, and during the late 1980s, having finally having had his fill of Thatcher's Britain he defected to the Soviet Bloc. Bell made the point of depicting Reg as being much happier there, including starting a family, despite the lower standard of living and human rights.
  • The Penguin, who stowed away with Reg's return to the UK from the Falklands. At first, The Penguin mostly served as a vehicle to comment upon the absurdity of human affairs (e.g. "All I care about is fish, matey") and as a sounding board for Reg, but became increasingly politicised. Bell often uses the metaphor of obesity
    Obesity
    Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...

     for wealth, and frequently The Penguin becomes overweight and highly materialistic; for example, becoming a stockbroker, running privatised prison
    Prison
    A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

    s, or running a populist tabloid newspaper
    Newspaper
    A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

     similar to Rupert Murdoch
    Rupert Murdoch
    Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....

    's The Sun
    The Sun (newspaper)
    The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...

    . The Penguin is also embarrassed by his heritage, coming from a very reactionary family of penguins who live on the Falklands (his actual name is Prince Philip of Greece Penguin) and who are highly bigoted against albatross
    Albatross
    Albatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds allied to the procellariids, storm-petrels and diving-petrels in the order Procellariiformes . They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific...

    es.

Bell seems to prefer The Penguin character the most, and has fun with showing him becoming more reactionary as he ages.
Over the course of the strip he has brought in his partner Gloria and fathered several children and grandchildren, including Prudence who, in a reference to mixed race children, had a lovechild with a rat
Rat
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...

. (The Penguin disapproved but later flippantly revealed he was himself half-albatross when drunk on rum). Occasionally the penguins live on the island of Rockall
Rockall
Rockall is an extremely small, uninhabited, remote rocky islet in the North Atlantic Ocean. It gives its name to one of the sea areas named in the shipping forecast provided by the British Meteorological Office....

, where they occasionally set up a socialist commune
Commune (intentional community)
A commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...

.
  • Chief Constable Gerald "Badger" Courage, a policeman of variable (but normally senior) rank and invariable corruption, and a face that looks like a bottom seen sideways.
  • Harry Hardnose, a permanently drunk right wing journalist.
  • John The Monkey, a cockney
    Cockney
    The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...

     monkey who is highly street-smart and sharp-witted. John usually resides with the Penguins but is more of a free agent, tending to appear in roles The Penguin is unsuitable for (e.g. a benefit fraud
    Benefit fraud
    Benefit fraud is a form of welfare fraud as found within the system of government benefits paid to individuals by the UK welfare state.- What is benefit fraud? :...

     investigator or tabloid plant amongst the Royal Family)
  • Monsieur l'Artiste, a French
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

     artist who is apparently a caricature
    Caricature
    A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...

     of Bell himself. He speaks with a strong French
    French language
    French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

     accent, which Bell has used to introduce various spoof French
    French language
    French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

     words, including "ouanquère" meaning "wanker
    Wanker
    Wanker is a pejorative term of English origin, common in Commonwealth and ex-Commonwealth countries, including Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It initially referred to an onanist but has since become a general insult. It is synonymous with tosser.-Meaning:The term wanker...

    ".
  • Numerous other animals including panda
    Panda
    Panda or Panda bear most often refers to:*Giant panda, an animal in the Bear familyPanda may also refer to:*Red panda, the only living member in the Ailuridae family-In biology:* Species related to the Giant panda...

    s, camel
    Camel
    A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...

    s, rat
    Rat
    Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...

    s, mole
    Mole (animal)
    Moles are small cylindrical mammals adapted to a subterranean lifestyle. They have velvety fur; tiny or invisible ears and eyes; and short, powerful limbs with large paws oriented for digging. The term is especially and most properly used for the true moles, those of the Talpidae family in the...

    s, sheep and cat
    Cat
    The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...

    s, depending upon the strip's plot requirements. The camels are used for strips based in the Middle East
    Middle East
    The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

    , the (radioactive) moles and two headed sheep for strips outside Sellafield
    Sellafield
    Sellafield is a nuclear reprocessing site, close to the village of Seascale on the coast of the Irish Sea in Cumbria, England. The site is served by Sellafield railway station. Sellafield is an off-shoot from the original nuclear reactor site at Windscale which is currently undergoing...

    , the pandas as misunderstood immigrants
    Immigration
    Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...

    , and so on. The cats began with a long plot thread starring Bill Clinton
    Bill Clinton
    William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

    's cat Socks
    Socks (cat)
    Socks was the pet cat of U.S. President Bill Clinton's family during his presidency. An adopted stray cat, he was the only pet of the Clintons during the early years of the administration, and his likeness hosted the children's version of the White House website...

     and occasionally return as 'fat cat' businessmen. In strips depicting Islamic terrorists and fundamentalists, they are often represented as goats.

External links

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