If you don’t already know by now (what rock, or rather mountain, have you been living under?!) Ctrl.Alt.Shift launched Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption as part of the annual COMICA Festival with an exhibition of political comic work and the release of our new comic book anthology, which is made up of a selection of the world’s most compelling graphic novelists and comic artists, to create a limited edition comic book Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption.

On Sunday, 8 November 2009, Ctrl.Alt.Shift hosted a panel discussion at the ICA about using comics and cartoons as a vehicle for political debate or criticism. The panel was made up of PolyP (political cartoonist since 1980, recent work: SPEECHLESS), Kate Evans (who wrote her first political cartoon in the ‘90s and has never stopped), Pat Mills (‘the god father of British comics who played a major role in developing Judge Dredd), Benjamin Dickson (contributor to Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption and founding member of human right’s group Espacio Bristol Colombia), Elettra Stamboulis (founding member of Reality Comics (Italy), she describes herself as a visual militant), and lead by Fredrik Strömberg (journalist, author of Comic Art Propaganda, and chairman of Swedish Comics Association).

As we all know, panel discussions aren’t something structured and concrete, they’re like finding a profound article on the Internet, reading it, moving on, and then letting it sink into your sub-conscious. So, I’ll cut the blah and skip to  the points that made the audience all go ‘aaah’ in chorus, well not really, but they might as well have.

Thought points:

• Humorous political cartooning is like putting up a mirror to political leaders, they don’t always likewhat they see, so it’s very tricky ground.
•  Humorous political cartoons are extremely powerful, because if you can make someone laugh you have that gap to get in there and open their minds to something new or different to what they would usually think.
• Comics are a perfect way to express political debates because they get to the essence things; you’re forced to get to the actual point because of the words and space you have.
• Comics also speak to human emotion, it’s a direct personal medium, there’s no producer, no agent, no casting director, it’s just you and the cartoonist. So when you use comics as a vehicle for political commentary we allow people to relate to these issues on a more human level.
• Comics and cartoons have that extra level of freedom of speech to explore global  issues or personal stories that won’t make the headlines, like Benjamin Dickson’s comic ‘Not One Minute’ in the comic book Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption

My conclusion? Comics are more powerful than many people think. I never thought about it before, but because comics and cartoons are seen by most people as something fun and light-hearted, you can quite easily slip something in – a subtle or direct message. And if you’re honest with yourself, we all skim the headlines but we’ll always read the cartoons.

Words: Yumna Martin. Yumna is the staff writer  at Ctrl.Alt.Shift HQ, who’s just come back from an inspiring two weeks in Kenya.
Photographs: Mann-ray Powell. Mann-ray is a star photographer for Ctrl.Alt.Shift and Live magazine, always on the move and up for a job.