Toilet papers, the millions of Donald Trump and Blocher: the cartoon of the year Corona – Switzerland

Drawn by Corona – This is how you could describe the state of the world in 2020. Cartoonists take it literally. “We had a lot to do this year,” said Silvan Wegmann, the in-house cartoonist for CH Media newspapers. “Corona has confirmed the old rule: times of crisis are good for our union.”

However, this only applies from an artistic point of view, not from an economic point of view. “This year, the cartoons aroused enormous interest from the public, they spread like never before on social media,” says Marco Ratschiller, editor-in-chief of “Nebelspalters,” who also draws for CH Media. “But there is nothing to be gained from that.”

Free culture on the Internet makes cartoonists believe. There are newspapers that have saved on cartoons or have even renounced their creators. And now, of all time, when cartoons are in demand as “fun,” as Ratschiller calls it.

While the CH Media newspapers continue to rely on cartoons and, in addition to Wegmann and Ratschiller, they also have Tom Werner from “St. Galler Tagblatt ”in its ranks, elsewhere it looks bleak.

To ensure that the artists’ creativity still finds an audience, Wegmann and Ratschiller set up an Instagram account during the lockdown, where the drawings can be activated (“drawn.ch”).

Around 450 cartoons can now be seen there. But only: getting attention and being able to make a living drawing are two different things.

But the Internet is not the only distribution channel. Wegmann and Ratschiller have published a book together with Tom Künzli. The illustrated book “Geanned” with 120 cartoons by 52 newspaper illustrators on the crown pandemic is even recommended by Federal Councilor Alain Berset, who wrote a foreword.

It is available for 39 francs. The three cartoonists are also behind the cartoon exhibition at the Museum of Communication in Bern, which runs until February 7, 2021 and can currently only be visited with a virtual tour through the museum’s website. The initiators hope that the museums will reopen before the exhibition ends.

In general, however, the cartoonist’s craft was less affected by Corona than other professional groups. “Working from home has been normal for us for years, very few cartoonists work on the newspaper’s editorial team, but they deliver cartoons from home,” says Silvan Wegmann, who will celebrate our newspaper’s 25th anniversary in January.

Unlike theater satirists, who have had a de facto work ban since March, cartoonists have been able to practice their profession continuously.

Minus Donald Trump, almost no weather at all

As much as they flourished when it comes to Corona, the artists lament that “all other tracks were pretty much wiped out by the virus,” as Wegmann notes. Only Donald Trump was able to assert himself to some extent alongside the pandemic, and he did his best for it.

But her hairstyle, a dream subject for every cartoonist, was much less visible in 2020 than in previous years. The second main theme of 2019, climate change, has almost completely disappeared.

As our selection shows, CVP at least provided some variety in terms of national politics with its name change to “Die Mitte”, Viola Amherds Fighter Jet Zitterpartie, and last but not least Christoph Blocher.