Cartoons as a form of humour and entertainment are a social product which are revealing of
different social and political practices that prevail in a society humourised and satirised by
the cartoonist. This book advances research on cartoons and humour in the Saudi context. It
contributes to the growing multimodal research on non-interactional humour in the media that
benefits from traditional theories of verbal humour. The study analyses the interaction between
visual and verbal modes highlighting the multimodal manifestations of the rhetorical devices
frequently employed to create humour in English-language cartoons collected from the Saudi
media. The multimodal analysis shows that the frequent rhetorical devices such as allusions
parody metaphor metonymy juxtaposition and exaggeration take a form which is woven between
the visual and verbal modes and which makes the production of humorous and satirical effect
more unique and interesting. The analysis of the cartoons across various thematic categories
further offers a window into contemporary Saudi society.
