EARTH DAY WEEK! The idea that concern about the destructive effects of humanity’s interaction with the environment is a relatively recent one is, of course, entirely fallacious in its supposition. While the comics we have been looking at this week as part of our Earth Day event have been relatively recent, cartoonist Norman Thelwell was making incisive social commentary on these issues over half a century ago with his 1971 book The Effluent Society. With the ‘Norman Thelwell Saves the Planet’ exhibition opening at London’s Cartoon Museum at the end of this month it’s a timely moment to take a look at the recent re-issue of The Effluent Society.
Thelwell is probably best known for his quarter-century as an illustrator for the satirical British magazine Punch and his humorous pony-based cartoons. In the pages of The Effluent Society his biting commentary on our contempt for the world around us is all the more affecting for its reminder that so little has changed in the 52 years since the book’s original publication. At a point in time, for example, when the Conservative government in the UK voted to allow the pumping of raw sewage into our rivers and coastlines, Thelwell’s cartoon of a local man on a beach explaining to a tourist that they’re protected from a recent oil spill because a line of raw sewage will act as a barrier to it seems particularly pertinent.
The Effluent Society is split into 11 themed sections with titles like ‘A Breath of Fresh Air’, ‘Down in the Dumps’, and ‘Let’s Protest’. Thelwell’s use of ironic humour is often exquisite in its delivery. Workmen despoiling the countryside with the blight of telegraph poles remarking how lucky they are to work in such beautiful surroundings. Or schoolkid bird spotters marking off avian sightings from their list by counting roadkill. It’s a perfect example of how comedy can sometimes drive a point home far more effectively than the blunt weapon of brutal invective.
Pollution, intensive farming, climate change, conservation, sustainability, the protest movement and technological advances all feature in these pages, with Thelwell bringing his acutely focussed observational eye to the proceedings in each case. Caricatured main players sit on realistic backgrounds ensuring that comedy and reality walk hand-in-hand in these pages, and Thelwell’s impressive compositional approach and use of light and shade allow him to seed entire narratives in single images.
Not simply a historical artefact The Effluent Society is also a damning reminder that where the environment is concerned humanity continues to repeat the same old mistakes over and over again…
Norman Thelwell (W/A) • Quiller, £15.99
Review by Andy Oliver
