Posts from — February 2009

Bloghorn’s Artist of the Month for February is Neil Dishington – he signs his work as Dish.

Dish has been widely published in Private Eye, The Spectator, Punch, The Daily Express, The Guardian, The Oldie and in many trade and professional publications including Financial Advisor, Medican Publishing, Save and Prosper and Scottish Banker. He specialises in one-line jokes and in “interpreting” written articles.

Bloghorn asked him how he started out as a cartoonist:

Well, I was always one of those children who drew “cartoons” on the back of my maths book rather than listening to the teacher explaining the Pythagoras Theorem, so I guess that was the start.

After five years at Art College painting pictures that were going to change the world, I took up teaching in order to pay the rent. I met a certain David McKee, he of Mr.Benn and Elmer the Elephant fame. We shared a flat and I discovered he had started cartooning. He was a big influence on me. Then I got married and within months my wife was expecting, so in order to boost funds I sent some cartoons to The Daily Mirror and sold one for £5 … never looked back after that!

Bloghorn’s interview with Dish will be running here for the next four Fridays – or you can check out our previous featured cartoonists in the links on the right hand side of this page.

Chichi Parish finds out what happens when burlesque meets art school at Dr Sketchy’s.
Chris Madden gets scientific for Valentine’s with “Love is a drug.’’
Clive Collins goes a bit historical with “Don’t mention the War.”
Do you know how to spot a “David Low’’ forgery? If not, subscribe to this magazine.
Pete Dredge takes on TV cookery shows in “The Critic”
Roger Penwill turns his gaze to windows in “Buildings in the Fog’’
Plus the usual features, and an extra large helping of jokes.

Cartoon by Mel Calman

Crisis? What Crisis?, an exhibition of original cartoon artwork relating to various financial and political crises over the past 100 years, is part of the Watercolours and Drawings Fair at London’s Covent Garden.

The fair runs from today (February 4) until February 8 and is held at the Flower Cellars, 4-6 Russell Street, Covent Garden.

Exhibitor Jonathan Pugh of The Times offered this thought:

It’s the only place in the whole of London you’re likely to hear any laughter.

The cartoon show includes works by dozens of cartoonists, past and present, including, Giles, Gerald Scarfe, John Jensen, Heath Robinson, Ken Pyne, Mac, Martin Rowson, Matt, Mike Williams, Peter Brookes, Steve Bell and Tony Husband.

For more information, visit the Watercolours and Drawings Fair website

Following on from Bloghorn’s earlier post that mentioned Scott McCloud‘s concept of the Infinite Canvas, it has transpired that Microsoft has released a working demo of a piece of software called (imaginatively enough) Infinite Canvas that allows the cartoonist to tell a story in a way that is unencumbered by the traditional boundaries of the printed page.

In a nutshell, this means that the comic can proceed continuously left to right. Or up and down. Or indeed, diagonally across the screen, forking off at random points, reconnecting with other points in the story or even just crossing it. The comic can be advanced by clicking a frame at a time, or by moving the mouse around, or by zooming out to see the whole strip. Or many, many other possible transitions. The possibilities are, well, infinite…

At the moment, details are sketchy. You’ll need JavaScript turned on in your browser, but you probably have that already. There are a number of sample strips up on the demonstration site, including The Day the Saucers Came by Neil Gaiman (of Sandman and Stardust fame) and Brad’s Somber Mood by Scott McCloud. You can even create your own – I’ve had a quick play myself: The Five Stages of a Blogger’s Life (via the Online Journalism Blog). The tools are a little crude at the moment, but this is a work in progress, and could hold great potential for the future.

(via D’log)

The reader’s editor at The Guardian news organisation writes in response to critical correspondence about some of cartoonist Steve Bell’s editorial cartoons.

A team from the Professional Cartoonists Organisation, which runs The Bloghorn, is to appear on the daily BBC Two quiz show Eggheads.

The team, called simply The Cartoonists, will challenge the Eggheads team, who are all winners from other quiz and game shows.

Pictured (seated, left to right) are PCOers Chris Burke, Alex Hughes, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson.

Stood behind them are the host Jeremy Vine (second left) with the Eggheads team – CJ de Mooi, Barry Simmons, Daphne Fowler, Chris Hughes, Kevin Ashman and Judith Keppel.

As soon as we know the transmission date of the programme we’ll let you know, via The Bloghorn.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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