About Us

WittyWorld International Features is a global art service supplying images by world renowned cartoonists and illustrators to newspapers, magazines, book publishers, and many other organizations needing specific artwork on a short deadline. We offer a large database of images covering a wide variety of style and subject matter exceptional in its high quslity, comprehensiveness, and wealth of ideas. The works in this database were created by some of the world's finest artists and cartoonists.

Antecedence

A fascinating look at WittyWorld's initial years

A story based on John A. Lent's research and article commemorating WittyWorld's 10th anniversary

The story began in the mid 80s when the former Hungarian newspaper editor, cartoonist, and political refugee Joseph George Szabo decided that if he could not find a suitable fulltime job in his adopted homeland, he would hire himself. He went about doing just that by conceptualizing an international cartoon magazine which he named WittyWorld. Throughout 1986, Szabo solicited international help in the designing of the logo, created a prototype issue, and built the core of what became a staff of correspondents in 54 countries.

But other essentials were still missing: an individual to supervise the editorial side, an advertising base, and composing, production, marketing, and distribution capabilities. On the occasion of Szabo's interest in one of my books, he and I met for the first time at a fast food restaurant in North Philadelphia, where he excitedly told me his plans to start WittyWorld. He invited me to join the venture, thus I became managing editor.

Over the next three months or so, Szabo stayed in perpetual motion, imploring advertisers to take a chance with the new magazine and seeking individuals to share various staff responsibilities. He and I met regularly to decide on regular features, give them standing titles, to write and edit copy, and to iron out other editorial wrinkles. There was no separate office, virtually no equipment, and certainly no capital. We worked in a tiny corner of the bedroom Szabo, and his wife, Flora, shared, using the bed to display cartoons and spread out finished pages and cranking out copy on a (640 K!) Tandy computer with rather limited functions. Sometimes, we met at my house. Eventually, WittyWorld did move into a new three-room office and the equipment was considerably updated.

Seeing that inaugural issue in print was an exhilarating experience, a high of sorts, but even more uplifting were the readers' reactions. They liked what they saw and read; they were intrigued by the idea of dual covers for the maiden issue-one left blank to be used by cartoonists as their canvas; the other a cartoon by comic book artist, Stan Sakai. On the first page, Szabo greeted the readers in 34 languages. In the opening editorial, he said the quarterly was designed for both the creators and users of cartoon art.

That Summer 1987 edition set the standard for WittyWorld, with interviews, articles, and profiles on all genres of comic art and representing nine countries; interesting news-bits in a "Witty Wire" section; columns on syndication and law; reviews of animation, cartoon books, comics, and journals; a cartoon laboratory; a pioneering calendar of international competitions and exhibitions, and a two-page centerfold designed for display. Another characteristic of WittyWorld can be traced to the first issue, the striving for an international audience which soon was spread over more than 100 countries.

Before that happened however, the magazine was threatened with closure immediately after the first issue left the presses. The printing company miscalculated the cost, the real price being more than four times the original estimate. But as on many other occasions in subsequent crises; Szabo proved that he was a true survivor. Having had no money to cover the expenses, he worked 18-hour days, relentlessly searched for new opportunities, made deals, and in the end, with his unshakable determination, managed not only to keep the magazine alive, but to build it into the premier international bridge of the cartooning industry.

In the initial years, in spite of the difficulties, the magazine maintained a steadfast schedule, coming out in a 48-page plus cover format every three months. With No. 6/7 in 1989, a joint venture with Cartoon Aid of England resulted in an issue that was double in size and full of color. It was the first of three issues printed in London; however, the cooperative effort with Cartoon Aid president Graham Cooke deteriorated by 1991. There were huge lapses in the production, communications broke down, and losses amounted to tens of thousands of dollars. In the end, only the hiring of a law firm with Philadelphia and London based offices could get the magazine back on American soil. Soon after, Hong Kong became printing and distribution center.

At the advent of the 1990s, WittyWorld explored other avenues sponsoring a very successful conference and exhibition in Budapest, holding meetings of editors in various parts of the world, and publishing a line of cartoon books .

The Budapest International Cartoon Festival was held from August 20-24, 1990, featuring an exhibition that attracted more than 3,000 artworks from 72 countries, a conference of individual and panel presentations on varied topics and a full schedule of social events. Prominent cartoonists from every continent attended, and the festival added to the attention and praise WittyWorld had been receiving from mass media such as Time magazine, The New York Newsday, Washington Post, and broadcasting stations in Australia, Canada, U.S., and various pasts of Europe.

The first of a series of WittyWorld editorial conferences was held in Budapest, Hungary, attended by 32 editors from a couple of dozen countries. Eight more conferences followed in Macedonia, France, Japan, Australia, Slovakia, Turkey, Cuba, and the United States.

In the early to mid 90s, the magazine and United Feature Syndicate joined efforts to launch a new international single panel cartoon series titled "Carrousel." (A decade later, the feature took on a new life on the Internet.) Later another partnership involved Pen Tip International Features for the production, sales, and distribution of international images that eventually became the base for what WittyWorld International Features is today.

Book publishing started with Was It Worth It?, a gallery of cartoons worldwide on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Columbus's landing in America. Others, all compiled by Szabo, were three volumes of typically-relevant and segmented political cartoons, The Finest International Political Cartoons of Our Times (1992, 1993, 1994); WittyWorld's Illustrated Directory of International Cartoon Festivals; Competitions, and Awards, the first such international listing anywhere; and Just Kicking (and Kidding), cartoons about soccer. Cartoonometer, Taking the Pulse of the World's Cartoonists, by Szabo and Lent, also was groundbreaking, pulling together data on hundreds of cartoonists from around the world. These books were displayed at various festivals and fares (including the Frankfurt International Book Fare), reviewed in many periodicals, and most of them translated into other languages such as German, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. WittyWorld has gathered much data about the cartoon world in addition to that in Cartoonometer and it has built an unparalleled database on about 6,500 cartoonists worldwide.

It has also been a leader in displaying examples of plagiaristic activity; an effort that vastly helped in reducing the theft of intellectual property in the field of cartoon art wordwide. At the same time, Szabo has kept abreast of, and reported upon, governmental and religious censorship and persecution of artists and cartoonists around the world. WittyWorld's findings were widely discussed and reprinted, among them in the New York Times.

Cartoonists interviewed by WittyWorld staffers read like a who's who - David Levine, Friz Freleng, Mort Drucker, Charles Schulz, and Pat Oliphant (United States), Chari Rachawat (Tailand), Larry Alcala (Philippines), Oleg Dergatchov (Ukraine), Jock Leyden (South Africa), Lat (Malaysia), Carlos Gimenez (Spain), Miroslav Bartak (Czech Republic), Ares (Cuba), Roland Fiddy (England), Roland Topor (France), Liao Bingxiong (China), and Tati (Argentina), among many others. During the years, WittyWorld has published cartoons and/or reported from 110 countries and territories.

In the mid-90s two other advances were made. In 1994,WittyWorld was one of the leaders, if not the first, to build a major cartoon site on the World Wide Web of the Internet--it's still a puzzle why it was destroyed by a hacker a few years later.

In 1999, after a twelve-year run, due to personal reasons, Szabo suspended all of WittyWorld's activities until the end of 2001, when the organization re-emerged with a completely rebuilt and redesigned web site.

WittyWorld's contributions to the advancement of the field of cartooning were due to a versatile and conscientious editorial staff, made up of individuals accomplished and famous in their own right; a former deputy minister of culture, professors, a museum curator, an editor of cartoon and comics encyclopedias, founders and directors of five international cartoon festivals, heads of cartoonists organizations, the executive director of International Animated Film Association (ASIFA), editors of six cartoon and comics perdiodicals and an online magazine, one of the fathers of the anime movement in the U.S., and many famous cartoonists whose works are seen everywhere. One former editor moved on to become an ambassador of his country.