Posts from — January 2009

We spotted this great work this week …

One: Kal in The Economist on Obama’s hand of friendship to Iran

Two: Peter Schrank in The Independent on Supergordon and the IMF

Three: Martin Rowson in The Guardian on the BBC and the DEC

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
Subscribe to The Foghorn – our print cartoon magazine

Nathan Ariss tells Bloghorn what and who makes him laugh in the last of our posts about him and his work:

I admire any stand-up or sit-down comedian who can actually make me laugh as I’m quite a tough audience. I enjoy clever, quick-witted jokes, but I can also go for gentle, human, observational stuff and even the lightest of whimsy (so long as it’s delightful). I love the strength and simplicity of purely visual – “silent” – comedy and revel in surreal, lateral and blatantly absurd cartoons, because I think I must be really smart to “get” them.

A simple name-check of artists would have me list Quentin Blake, for sheer freedom of line and overall life-affirming execution; early Searle, (particularly Molesworth and St. Trinian’s), and Thelwell both for their superb techniques for what is, in essence, simply getting black on white. Hargreaves for required lessons in describing movement; David Low’s war cartoons; Posy Simmonds, Jean-Jacques Sempé, Charles Ardizzone, David Gentlemen and Chris Orr, variously, for illustration; Mort Drucker and David Stoten for characterisation; Liberatore’s RanXerox, Manfred Deix and Terry Gilliam for grotesques; Don Martin, Gary Larson, Gilbert Shelton, Robert Crumb, Hunt Emerson, Frank Cotham, “Bud” Handelsman and Holte, all for various style and cartoon services rendered; and finally, nearly everyone I can think of with that casual, “free-line” feel: Scarfe, Steadman, Larry, Tidy, Hoffnung, Bretecher, Husband, Lowry, Feiffer, Sorrel, and Myers, not to mention more than a few of the artists currently frequenting the membership pages of the PCO.

Not content with Nathan’s efforts to answer this question, Bloghorn ruthlessly asked him how he sees the future of cartooning in the digital age:

I tend to believe that the future is full of unexplored possibilities and is not one automatically to be feared. Yes, these are serious times for humourists, but I am determined to remain positive about the prospects for the arts in general, no matter how impoverished and altered the markets may become. Cartooning, it seems to me, is the last remaining art form which is not recognised as such, and I believe that the next decade will see a better appreciation and understanding develop for the craft in its own right. There are some exceptional talents currently working in this country, and who knows? We may just have entered a glorious new age of the modern cartoonist.

Bloghorn thanks Nathan for his thoughts over the past four weeks and promises a new artist of the month next Friday. Please come back to find out who it will be.

Look here and here (scroll down for the button) then read all about it here via Morten Morland of The Times.

Comic artist and author Scott McCloud (previously mentioned here on Bloghorn) has written widely about the theory and practice of comics and their creation his series of books Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and the more recent Making Comics. In this recent video post on Ted.com Scott talks about subjects covered in these books, including how computers can revitalise the world of comics and his concept of the “infinite canvas”.

(via Drawn.ca)

Dan Wasserman at the Boston Globe writes about the writer and long-time admirer of cartoon and comic art here.

As previously covered on the Bloghorn, Updike was one of many well-known public figures who dabbled in cartooning but found they lacked the full set of skills necessary to survive in its competitive world.

Christian Adams at the Telegraph writes on the challenges of drawing the prime minister and the newspaper’s leader column offers another thought in response. Other papers picked up Christian’s story with Dave Brown of The Independent chipping in here and Martin Rowson popping up on BBC Breakfast.

The Broons is copyright DC Thomson

You will no doubt have already seen Gordon Brown teamed with Scotland’s first family of comic strips, the Broons, in the Private Eye parody The Broon-ites.

But at the weekend (January 25) the Prime Minister appeared in the genuine article: an episode of The Broons in The Sunday Post.

He appeared alongside Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, in a special edition of the comic strip created to mark the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth. The two were seen visiting Number 10 – Glebe Street, that is, where the Broons reside – for a traditional Burns supper. Braw.

The BBC has more.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
Subscribe to The Foghorn – our print cartoon magazine

MAD magazine one of America’s oldest humor magazines is making staff redundancies and deep cutbacks in its print schedules. Story via.

This week’s edition of new children’s comic The DFC (issue 34, dated January 23) features the debut of a new strip by PCOer Will “Wilbur” Dawbarn.

Bodkin and the Bear is the story of a less-than-successful medieval minstrel called Bodkin who messes up every job he ever gets. But things may start to look up when he meets the mysterious Bear …

There’s more info at the DFC website where you can even read a small biography of Wilbur who reveals that he is the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of cartoons, as when he is not at the drawing board he enjoys nothing more than foraging for mushrooms.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
Subscribe to The Foghorn – our print cartoon magazine

We spotted this great work this week …

One: Mac in the Daily Mail uses a strip format for his Obama inauguration cartoon

Two: Kipper Williams in The Guardian on insurance firm AIG dropping its Man Utd sponsorship

Three: Matt in the Daily Telegraph on greedy bankers

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
Subscribe to The Foghorn – our print cartoon magazine