George Cruikshank, 'Sikes Attempting to Destroy His Dog'

A wood engraving after George Cruikshank shows Bill Sikes — top-hatted, gaunt, gesturing with one outstretched hand — trying to drive away his bull terrier Bullseye on an open heath. The dog cringes but will not leave, a moment from Dickens's Oliver Twist in which the guilt-maddened murderer cannot rid himself of the animal witness to his crime. Cruikshank's cross-hatched line work, hard silhouettes, and expressive physiognomy place him squarely in the Rowlandson–Gillray tradition of British graphic satire, where caricatured bodies carried moral weight. That tradition — sequential images, exaggerated character types, printed for mass audiences — fed directly into the newspaper comic strip and, eventually, the comic book. Cruikshank's working-class figures carry the class condescension typical of the period, roughness coded visually through ragged clothing and sharp, angular features.