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On Tattoofilter, “Cartoon” refers to any tattoo adapted from (or resembling the aesthetic of) digital or hand-drawn animation, comics or caricatures.

Static cartoons (including comic strips, graphic novels and manga) were first circulated for mass consumption in the mid-19th century. Improvements to the printing press gave illustrators, entertainers and satirists an opportunity to spread ideas visually on a global scale.

With the invention of film and television, animation became popular in the mid-20th century. Film requires 24-30 individual frames for every one second of air-time, so hand-drawn animation is a laborious process. Digital innovation led to more streamlined options for animators in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Cartoon tattoos are inherently fixed still frames, though they can arguably animate in real time as the body moves.

These tattoos have no single aesthetic, as they’re entirely dependent on the point of view and unique style of the illustrator(s). They may reference pre-existing comics, animations and their related memorabilia, or they may depict original ideas with similarly exaggerated features. There is sometimes overlap with the New School style, for this reason.