• Musical comedian and sometime Oink! cartoonist Frank Sidebottom’s creator Chris Sievey has died.
• New museum for cartoon illustrator Heath Robinson has opened in Pinner, North London.
• The US comic strip Little Orphan Annie (probably better known over here for the musical version, Annie) has finally come to the end of it’s 86 year print run.
• Cartoonist Rolf Harris opened the Glastonbury Festival whilst cartoon band Gorillaz headlined over the weekend.

With Gordon Brown I’ll start with the hair, increasingly grey and much more coiffured these days. Then come the heavy, angry eyebrows above creased eyes, one unsighted because that is the unfortunate reality. The nose is short and stubby, with a flat base. The fleshy-lipped mouth is open in that odd gurning movement he makes with his jaw as he speaks. The ears are large, round and red. There are deep marks on the cheekbones that, with the bags under his eyes, give him that knackered, saturnine look, particularly when I add a blue-grey wash for five o’clock shadow. Sometimes I think I’ve just drawn Nixon.

Secondly, from the other end of the British cartooning spectrum we have Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons demonstrating, with video, how he goes about drawing a character digitally using a Wacom Cintiq tablet and Manga Studio software.

Of course, if you would like to see cartoonists demonstrating their skills in the flesh, we would heartily recommend you head to this years Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival, 22nd to 24th April 2010. But, if you can’t make it in person, we’ll be providing full coverage here on Bloghorn.

Also released this year is a series of stamps featuring characters from US comic strips, including Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield and Beetle Bailey. The set, titled Sunday Funnies is due to go on sale in July.

Bloghorn asks: What cartoonists or comic characters would you like to see on British postage stamps?

Comic artist David Lloyd (of V for Vendetta fame), cartoon historian Paul Gravett and teacher Steve Marchant (author of The Cartoonists’ Workshop) have created cartoonclassroom.co.uk. They plan to to centralize all information relating to the study of cartoon and comic strip creation in the UK.

The website launches officially in early October and the trio are currently looking for cartoonists who teach or who would be interested in sharing their skills to register interest at www.cartoonclassroom.co.uk. Alternatively, you can contact them direct here.

Steve Marchant

Cartoonist Tim Harries demonstrates how to draw a Big Board cartoon from start to finish, at this year’s Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival

The presenter described such images as ‘cartoons’. Perhaps he meant drawings or simple visual communication, or even art, but to be honest, the feature was so badly constructed it was difficult to know exactly what was meant.

However, the casual use of the term cartoon felt like the denigration of a trade; cartoon equals grubby, worthless, evil.

Clip available – 2hrs 22 minutes into Radio5Live for Wednesday morning – 28th May 2008 available on the BBC’s IPlayer.

Basically decent British cartoon talent

As you might expect, each month a different cartoonist takes the reins and talks about cartooning, their influences, how they work, and so on – while providing lots of cartoons and sketches of course.

This month’s contributor is Barbara Smaller and if you click on the archive section you can see the first two, Mick Stevens and Michael Maslin.

British cartoon talent

The conductors of the country’s five main philharmonic orchestras
have issued a manifesto to the government, deploring levels of understanding and accessibility to classical music with regard to “the majority of young people” in the UK. One of many recommendations, amongst the usual cries for more and better teaching of music, is for orchestras to offer free admission for young people to certain concerts. A small group were interviewed on radio and individuals said that it had been a positive experience. AND that they’d go again.

I think that one of the reasons behind the shrinking cartoon market in magazines and newspapers is the relative youth of editors. If that’s a problem now, it will be a much bigger one in ten years time when some young high flyers will have been toddlers when Punch breathed its last, and in the interim, many more mags will have dropped cartoons. Even the long and honourable tradition of political cartooning isn’t immune to the insiduous creep of young people with Photoshop palsy.

So, if the musicians can get ‘em young, why can’t cartoonists?

Obviously, unlike the musicians we can’t have a group of kids peering over our shoulders while we work. Quite a few cartoonists work, with the approval of LEAs (Local Education Authorities), doing cartoon workshops in schools and colleges. But I suspect those workshops deal with the HOW of cartooning, and not the WHY. I don’t envisage a whizzbang powerpoint light show with FAQs. Work of different types available, yes, and a hardcopy handout, but mainly a Q&A session with sixth formers (or equivalent) – a discussion with a successful, freelance cartoonist (or two) who may well demonstrate their preferred techniques, but would NOT be running a how-to workshop. In my experience, schools are always on the lookout for able professionals from all sorts of jobs to come and talk about what they do. How does a joke happen? How do you say a hundred disparaging things about the American president in one picture?

Given the quality, experience, and communicative skills embodied in the PCO, the organisation might do well to take a leaf from the musicians’ book.

UPDATE:
It has been pointed out that the PCO and Foghorn the Bloghorn do have some history with music…

Cartoon strip, courtesy of the PCO’s Andy Davey.