In a year where the news often veered into the realm of the surreal, the tradition of political cartooning has faced both a wealth of material and unique challenges. The Guardian has compiled its list of the 12 most powerful editorial cartoons of 2025, offering a visual chronicle of a tumultuous twelve months.
A Surreal Landscape for Satire
The publication spoke to award-winning cartoonist Ben Jennings about the task of caricaturing a world that frequently bordered on the absurd. Jennings noted that while figures like Donald Trump returning to office provided endless fodder, their inherent farcical nature sometimes made satire a complex endeavour. He described Trump's presidency as feeling like "a satire of America and the turbulent times of late-stage capitalism" in itself.
Beyond the spectacle of Trump's comeback and his volatile bromance with Elon Musk, cartoonists grappled with weightier, ongoing crises. These included the entrenched violence in Gaza, the continuing war in Ukraine, the rising threat of AI to human creativity, and the resurgence of the far-right across Europe and the United States.
The Cartoons That Defined the Year
The selection blends seven personal favourites chosen by Ben Jennings with five additional picks from The Guardian's editorial team. Each image serves as a pointed snapshot of a defining moment or theme from the past year.
The list begins aptly with a January illustration by veteran cartoonist Martin Rowson. His work encapsulated a decade of pressures on free speech, linking the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack to the modern unease around tech mogul Jeff Bezos's ownership of The Washington Post.
Jennings's own contributions to the list highlight a range of issues. One cartoon tackled the phenomenon of Trump's ability to dominate headlines with a relentless cycle of scandal. Another, marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day, juxtaposed remembrance of past conflicts with contemporary escalating wars, questioning whether humanity ever learns from history.
Wealth, War, and Digital Overlords
The extreme concentration of wealth was a recurring target. Jennings's cartoon on Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's lavish Venice wedding, where the billionaire "rented Venice," touched on growing calls for more effective taxation of the ultra-rich.
Some of the hardest subjects to approach visually were the grim realities of conflict. Jennings admitted finding new ways to depict the "recurring horrors in Gaza" was particularly difficult, a challenge reflected in his stark July cartoon on starvation in the region.
The list also features work from other prominent illustrators. Ella Baron contributed powerful pieces on the Ukraine war and Zohran Mamdani's New York City mayoral victory. Madeline Horwath pondered life under "new AI overlords," while Pete Songi illustrated the UK's recognition of Palestine as an independent state.
Closer to home, Jennings captured Keir Starmer's anxieties over Nigel Farage and a national obsession with flags during Labour's rocky first year in government. The final cartoon of the twelve addressed Australia's social media ban for under-16s.
Looking Ahead
As the year closed, Ben Jennings revealed he is compiling a book of his cartoons from the past decade, a period spanning momentous events from the pandemic to Brexit. On what 2026 might bring to his drawing board, he remained characteristically open: "We'll have to see what happens!" This collection stands as a testament to the enduring power of editorial cartooning to distill, critique, and make sense of even the most bewildering news cycles.
