Guardian Cartoonist Wins Political Cartoon Of The Year For "This Is Fine" Meme

The Guardian's Rebecca Hendin has won the award for Political Cartoon Of The Year at Ellwood Atfield for an illustration of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying "This Is Fine" while watching television and drinking coffee in a room that's on fire. If you've been online at all in the past four years, the picture should look pretty familiar.

The image is a direct riff on This Is Fine, the iconic K.C. Green illustration that, while published in 2013, came to define 2016 and has remained a relevant meme through the remainder of the 2010s as the world grew increasingly chaotic. Hendin's comic was published in The Guardian in September of 2019 after Johnson skipped a press conference with Luxembourg prime minister Xavier Bettel.

Hendin did acknowledge that she was memeing in the piece, writing "Apologies to K.C. Green" in the corner of her work, but has not mentioned Green or the inspiration for her piece on her Twitter account. The Guardian sort of acknowledged the connection to Green's comic as well, writing that the comic was "riffing on a popular meme," though they did not mention Green specifically.

The news has not sat well with the public, who feel Green has been wronged by having someone else's take on his original work win the honor. Green himself tweeted "it would be cool to get an award for my comics someday."

Others have agreed and argued that the award should go to Green.

It's tough to say who is in the wrong here, whether it be Hendin, The Guardian, or the awards ceremony itself. It just sort of stinks, which Green also acknowledged. "Parody is fine and dandy," he wrote. "Nor do i want the award for making fun of galar-region trump. it's just a stupid set of circumstances i can't help but make the jim-face at the camera for."