Guide
The İzmir Cartoon Museum, opened by Konak Municipality in 2011 under the name İzmir Neşe ve Karikatür Müzesi, brings together the visual humour heritage of İzmir and of Türkiye. Cartoon museums in the country go back to 1975, when the Cartoon and Humour Museum was founded at Tepebaşı in İstanbul; the Atila Özer Cartoon House opened in 2004 and the Educational Cartoons Museum was set up under Anadolu University, and this museum followed them.
Its collection holds cartoons by figures including Güngör Kabakçıoğlu, Eflatun Nuri Erkoç and Niyazi Yoltaş, along with magazines and books on the subject. Alongside the permanent collection the museum runs national and international exhibitions of work by cartoonists from around the world on a regular basis, which is what the municipality means when it calls this a living museum rather than a fixed display.
Through the year the museum holds themed film screenings and cartoon workshops, and its lifelong-learning programmes are planned for every age group and scheduled monthly as workshops, talks and visual presentations. It also runs its own competitions, among them a humorous object competition and an international award aimed at making İzmir better known.
