John Bull John Bull John Bull is a national personification of the United Kingdom in general and England in particular, especially in political cartoons and similar graphic works. He is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged, country dwelling, jolly, matter-of-fact man. John Bull originated as a satirical character created by Dr John Arbuthnot, a friend of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. Bull first appeared in 1712 in Arbuthnot's pamphlet "Law is a Bottomless Pit". The same year Arbuthnot published a four-part political narrative "The History of John Bull". In this satirical treatment of the War of the Spanish Succession John Bull brings
Gag cartoon fiction. Captions are usually concise, to fit on a single line. Gag cartoons of the 1930s and earlier occasionally had lengthy captions, sometimes featuring dialogue between two characters depicted in the drawing; over time, cartoon captions became shorter. A well-known 1928 cartoon in "The New Yorker", drawn by Carl Rose and captioned by E. B. White, shows a mother trying to convince her young daughter to finish her meal. "It's broccoli, dear." "I say it's spinach and I say the hell with it", which have created an idiom in English language. In the mid-1950s, gag cartoonists found a new market