Given the claim that metaphors are conceptual in nature, in this article we examine a set of visual metaphors in political cartoons. Based on a sample of 25 metaphors from 30 of these cartoons about the 2008 world financial crisis, we found that some metaphorical vehicles recur systematically in our sample. This shows that visual metaphors are also the results of underlying cognitive patterns that find expression in different modalities. As well as that, we discuss the challenges in identifying and analyzing metaphors in multimodal discourse.