What the exam asks
In Paper 1, you may be given a single-panel editorial cartoon, a multi-panel comic strip or web comic, or a reproduction of a work of art (such as street art or a satirical poster). It will come with a guiding question focused on a technical or formal aspect—for instance, “How does the interplay between image and text convey the creator’s critique?” or “In what ways does the artist use visual contrast to challenge the viewer?”
To reach the top band (level 5) in Criterion A (Understanding and interpretation) and Criterion B (Analysis and evaluation), you must:
- Identify the exact target of the critique or the social commentary being made (assessment objective 1, AO1: know, understand and interpret).
- Explain how specific visual and verbal choices create that meaning, and judge how effectively they position the viewer (AO2: analyse and evaluate).
If you use a cartoonist or visual artist as your non-literary body of work in the individual oral (or the HL essay), you must also show how recurring visual motifs, stylistic signatures, and ironies build a sustained stance across several of their texts.
Core ideas
1. Political and editorial cartoons
Editorial cartoons respond to a specific news event or ongoing social issue. Because they usually have only one panel, every detail carries argumentative weight.
| Feature | How it works | What to ask for evaluation (Criterion B) |
|---|---|---|
| Caricature | Exaggerating physical traits, clothing, or posture of a public figure or social type. | Does the exaggeration make the subject look foolish, predatory, out of touch, or powerless? |
| Visual metaphor & symbol | Representing an abstract concept (e.g., inflation, censorship) as a concrete object (e.g., a sinking ship, a pair of scissors). | How clearly does the metaphor simplify a complex political issue into a moral judgment? |
| Labels & captions | Words written directly on objects or placed below the frame to anchor the meaning. | How does the text restrict or twist the meaning of the image? |
| Irony (verbal & situational) | A sharp gap between what a character says (caption/speech) and what the visual scene reveals to be true. | How does the incongruity expose hypocrisy without the artist needing to state it directly? |
2. Comic strips and web comics
Unlike single-panel cartoons, comics use sequence and time to build a joke or an argument.
- Panels and composition: The size, shape, and border of each frame. A sudden borderless panel, a bleed (an image that runs off the edge of the page) or an enlarged panel slows the reader down and adds emotional weight.
- Gutters and closure: The blank space between panels is the gutter. The reader’s mind must bridge the gap between two panels—a process called closure. Much of a comic’s irony happens invisibly in the gutter.
- Speech balloons, thought clouds, and emanata: The shape of a balloon and its lettering (jagged for shouting, tiny letters for a timid voice) and emanata (sweat drops, or short lines drawn around a head to show shock) convey tone of voice and internal states.
- Drawing style: A minimalist stick-figure or sketchy style can make a bleak philosophical or political point feel relatable and disarming, whereas heavy cross-hatching creates a grim, oppressive mood.
- The final panel (the turn): The last panel usually delivers the punchline or the thematic pivot, forcing the reader to re-evaluate the panels that came before it.