The best editorial cartoons of the year: The European Cartoon Award announces its 2023 Shortlist

The European Press Prize and Studio Europa Maastricht, founders of the European Cartoon Award, proudly announce the 16 Nominees of the 2023 edition of the contest. This year’s Shortlist includes cartoons selected among over 400 entries from more than 25 countries.

Sixteen nominated cartoons

The works of the 16 finalists were selected from over 400  coming from more than 25 countries, European and beyond, by a Jury composed of award-winning cartoonists, journalists, and experts.

Niels Bo Bojesen, Danish cartoonist and Chair of the Panel of Judges: “During the lengthy process of selection, it has been rewarding to witness the variety and mastery of the many submissions, ranging from sheer poetry to stark and striking statements – and anything in between. As always it is difficult – and sometimes painful – to have to choose from an even field, but recognising the shared capacity of the members of the Jury, I am confident we have been able to help shine a light on the high level of current European editorial cartooning.”

Here is the list of the 16 Nominees the finalist cartoons belong to:

Angel Boligán (Mexico), António Antunes (Portugal), Ben Jennings (United Kingdom), Cláudio Antônio Gomes (Brazil), Cristina Sampaio (Portugal), Emad Hajjaj (Jordan), Harry Burton (Ireland), Marco De Angelis (Italy), Marilena Nardi (Italy), Mihai Gabriel Boboc (Romania), Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Plop & KanKr (France), Raimundo Rucke Souza (Brazil), Sinisa Pismestrovic (Austria), Tjeerd Royaards (The Netherlands), Víctor Solís (Mexico).

Emanuele Del Rosso, Deputy Director of the ECA: “The 16 finalists, and in general the entire Longlist, show us so clearly that editorial cartoons are like an antibody that helps us keep our society healthy. Cartoonists point to all the problems, the pathogen agents, that attack our democracies. They point them out to us and, hopefully, help us deal with such issues. I am very proud of being part of the ECA, because we help cartoonists doing their precious job.”

The 2023 Panel of judges

The jury for the 2023 edition consists of: the winner of the European Cartoon Award 2022 Carlos Fuentes, from Cuba, Danish cartoonist Niels Bo Bojesen (Chair), Dutch cartoonist Jip van den Toorn, French journalist Catherine André, and French cartoonist and President of Cartooning for Peace Patrick Lamassoure.

Before narrowing down to the 16 Nominees, the ECA 2023 jury selected a Longlist of 40 cartoons, listed below. 

The Award Ceremony in The Hague

The Winners of the ECA 2023 will be announced on September 14, at the Beeld & Geluid museum in The Hague. The Ceremony will be part of the first edition of the ECA ‘Cartoons Day’, a one-day event entirely dedicated to editorial cartoons. 

From the early afternoon until the late evening, experts, activists, artists and cartoonists will sit together in the rooms of the Beeld & Geluid Museum of The Hague for workshops and panels, book presentations and talks. They will connect with their audience, draw their cartoons, and teach the subtle art of editorial cartoons.

After 18.30, when all the afternoon activities will finish, the Award Ceremony will begin, and this year’s Judges will present the Winner, Runners-up and Honourable Mentions on stage.

After the Award Ceremony, an exhibition showcasing the 40 longlisted works of the ECA 2023 will be inaugurated in the main hall and entrance of the museum. The exhibition can be seen until 3 December 2023.

Registrations for the event are open, at this link: https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/eca-cartoons-day-2023-award-ceremony-exhibition-opening-tickets-630038300517

THE ECA 2023 SHORTLIST AND LONGLIST

ECA 2023 Shortlist

Angel Boligán (Mexico), António Antunes (Portugal), Ben Jennings (United Kingdom), Cláudio Antônio Gomes (Brazil), Cristina Sampaio (Portugal), Emad Hajjaj (Jordan), Harry Burton (Ireland), Marco De Angelis (Italy), Marilena Nardi (Italy), Mihai Gabriel Boboc (Romania), Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Plop & KanKr (France), Raimundo Rucke Souza (Brazil), Sinisa Pismestrovic (Austria), Tjeerd Royaards (The Netherlands), Víctor Solís (Mexico).

ECA 2023 Longlist

Apart from the shortlisted cartoonists above, the Longlist includes:

Ahmad Rahma (Turkey), Darko Drljevic (Montenegro), Gabriele Corvi (Italy), Gatis Šļūka (Latvia), Hajo De Reijger (The Netherlands), Khalid Cherradi (Morocco), Luc Vernimmen (Belgium), Maarten Wolterink (The Netherlands), Max Murashko (Ukraine), Michael Kountouris (Greece), Muzaffar Yulchiboev (Uzbekistan), Nahid Maghsoudi (Iran), Oleksiy Kustovsky (Ukraine), Osama Hajjaj (Jordan), Paolo Lombardi (Italy), Pawel Kuczynski (Poland), Petar Pismestrovic (Austria), Philippe Baumann (Switzerland), Sanaz Bagheri (The Netherlands), Silvan Wegmann (Switzerland), Silvano Mello (Brazil), Stellina Chen (Taiwan), Thiago Lucas (Brazil), Vladimir Kazanevsky (Ukraine).

Magical formulas: The International Journalism Forum

On September 29, we will host our Community Event at our member iMEdD’s International Journalism Forum, in Athens.

The word forum is a magical word.

It is, because it conjures images of vast crowds, active communication, energy and change. It brings us to a place. “Providing a forum:” for debate, for questions to be answered, for critiques to be raised, for words to be heard.

Of course, many words have this power. But the word forum is a magical word also because it reached intact our New Millennium. It wasn’t transformed by the various languages that ruled our cultural worlds. A great deal of different languages use the word forum as it is, not producing a so-called calque (for example, the French word déjeuner became breakfast, in English).

The word forum came to us untouched from the Latin and originates from another Latin word, fores, “(outside) door.” A forum is nothing more than “the place that is outside of doors,” in public, for the people to inhabit. Moving even more back in time, we trace it back to the Proto-Indo-European term *dʰworom, “enclosure, courtyard, i.e. something enclosed by the door.”

In this sense, many spaces are outside of closed doors, but over its evolution, this word has come to be used to indicate a space where people meet to talk about something, to share opinions, to trade goods, to make important decisions. Politics, economy, democracy, all took place in the forum.

A magical place.

A winning match: the forum for journalists

Conversely, the word journalism is a very recent one. It originates from the French term journal, a “daily publication,” which did not always have the meaning we nowadays attribute to journalism. It is only in the early 19th Century that we started to use the word journalism to indicate the profession of recording daily facts for the public to read. 

And yet, these two terms fit so perfectly together.

A forum is a place where things happen, where choices are presented, where opinions fly fast and the future is shaped. In our Millennium, the size of such a forum is huge, immense, and it only takes an Internet connection to join in and grab the information we need, and leave our opinion.

Journalism needs a forum. It is a profession made of individuals and groups that seek important stories, with the only goal of putting such stories right into the space where public opinion is formed. The place where all their audiences are.

iMEdD International Journalism Forum

So we are granted two powerful words: forum and journalism. One ancient as ancient are the roots of our civilization, the other as new as the Enlightenment movement of the early 19th Century.

One has to try and use them in the same sentence! And that is what iMEdD is doing, in September in Athens, bringing together journalists and media professionals from all over the world in a forum for journalism and journalists. Some intense days of conversations, panels, presentations, exhibitions in a crowded space with no doors, entirely jotting on the outside via the Internet. “Journalism Forum!” we might utter while waving a wand.

We are, as European Press Prize, delighted to have a space in this forum, and we will bring to it our community of hundreds of passionate professionals, to give our contribution to this conversation on freedom and knowledge, which ultimately is for the people.

Because do you know which other word is powerful and magical? Democracy.

Read more about the International Journalism Forum >> 

If you are a Laureate and would like to join us in Athens, please send an email to [email protected] with “Community Event participation” as subject.