Leslie Sheridan of the IRD, Don Freeman, an artist who lived in East Grinstead who provided the ‘roughs’ of the drawings, and the cartoonist Norman Pett who lived in Crawley (who produced the final versions of the cartoons). One of our files 4 contains some very interesting correspondence which is illuminating about the production process for the strip cartoon. Thus, if the feature were run by a daily paper, it would take about 13 weeks to tell the whole story’ 3. The plan was to tell the story ‘in approximately 78 cartoons, each cartoon containing three or four panels. The IRD contacted the international network of Information Officers to encourage them to secure publication of the cartoon strip in a newspaper in their territory. The IRD clearly recognised the value of Orwell’s story: from their perspective, it was a powerful instrument in the Cold War: ‘this work has been translated into many languages, and has proved to be not only a best seller, but also a most effective propaganda weapon, because of its skilful combination of simplicity, subtlety and humour’ 2. The IRD bought the strip cartoon rights in late 1950 1.
‘A most effective propaganda weapon’īut did you know that, before the film materialised, a cartoon strip version had been created? This was at the instigation of the Information Research Department (IRD), a department of the Foreign Office set up to counter Soviet propaganda. The story of ‘Animal Farm’ gained even wider currency through an animated film version in 1954 by Halas and Bachelor. As a satire on Soviet Communism, it is famous. The fable (or ‘fairy story’ as Orwell described it) of a gang of animals who take over their farm, overthrowing the cruel Farmer Jones, only to end up in an even more brutal state of slavery under the new regime, is a standard part of the school curriculum. George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, first published on this day 75 years ago in 1945, is a work familiar to many.
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