This paper is interested in bringing together two bourgeoning literatures of IR. First, it focuses on postcolonial approaches in IR, particularly those that have been highlighting the necessity to examine Global South actors’ ideas and experiences to understand the main subject of the discipline, namely “the international.” Second, it focuses on the research agenda of popular culture and world politics (PCWP). Taking its cue from the argument that the engagement of PCWP literature with the Global South remains limited and building on the postcolonial insights for overcoming such limitation, this paper examines the political cartoons produced in the French mandate of Syria during the intricate years between the two world wars. Drawing on Stuart Hall (1998: 447), who offered that culture is a “constant battlefield” where “the complex lines of resistance and acceptance, refusal and capitulation” are drawn and redrawn, the paper analyzes the political cartoons to see how colonial hierarchies are made sense of by the colonized actors. The argument of the paper proceeds in three steps. First, it draws attention to the necessity of a dialogue between the PCWP and postcolonial approaches in IR and points to the intersection between the two literatures. Second, it provides the historical background of the analysis, particularly with reference to the mandate period in Syria. Thirdly, it examines a prominent, yet understudied, political cartoon magazine, namely Hacıvat-Karagöz, between 1933 and 1934, to see how the colonial hierarchies emerged during the mandate period were negotiated by the colonized actors. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of its findings for the broader IR literature.