Cartoon and satire as source: Jack Nicolle, physical culture, and cartoons in 1920s Britain

On 8 April 1920, the first sports editorial cartoon by teenager Jack Nicolle appeared in Health & Strength magazine. The series of illustrations in the world’s oldest physical culture periodical captured the absurdity of ‘circus lifts’ performed at a recent W.A. Pullum lifting exhibition. The piece ignited a torrid eleven-month run of insightful, humorous, and bitingly satirical commentary often directed towards leaders of the British strength community.