Superhero contra butcher: Zelensky and Putin in political cartoons on Russian aggression

Abstract

This article integrates national and international levels of political humorous discourse and proposes a multimodal analysis of the discursive dimension of the Russian–Ukrainian war and its implementation in political humour. The author analyses the distribution of supportive/subversive humour in world, Ukrainian and Russian political cartoons targeting Ukrainian President Zelensky and Russian President Putin and representing the conflict parties, with special attention to the presentation/setting. The distribution of supportive vs subversive political humour is based on an analysis of the target, focus and setting of political cartoons depicting Putin and Zelensky, and on the interaction of verbal and nonverbal elements in the cartoons. Political cartoons can be defined by their goals, frames of reference and means. These corresponding parameters (goal–target, frame of reference–focus, means-setting) as well as the correlation between self-image/external image and supportive/subversive political humour provide the analytical framework for the article.