Cartoonists Matt Pritchett and Nicholas Garland of The Telegraph are having a short exhibition in central London at the start of next month. It is being organised by art dealer John Rae-Smith.

Nathan Ariss is our featured artist for January 2009.

Well, thank you for asking me to be your Artist of the Month dear Bloggy. As your January 2009 pin-up, it falls to me to inject a tone of – dare I say it? – optimism into the current credit-crunchy world of the freelance cartoonist. Yes, traditional markets may be shrinking, commissions and spirits appear to be down, and doom and gloom seem to scour this land, but perhaps the New Year is exactly the right time to look to the best that the future has to offer and positively set about embracing it. With that in mind may I wish us all a very happy, joyous and prosperous New Year!

Nathan works as a cartoonist and illustrator, has been published in Private Eye, The Spectator, Slightly Foxed and Business Executive (BEX). Other work includes book and album illustrations and covers, school text books, advertising campaigns and greeting cards, as well as numerous private commissions.

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

In a bid to kick start the UK housing market, the Bloghorn has moved to these new premises. Please enjoy poking around, our apologies if you find anything is working in other than tip-top fashion, but you know how it is with moving.

The chairleg for the Bloghorn’s eminence grise, The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation, said:

Finding Bloghorn a new home is an essential step on our path to world domi … sorry, I mean the new Bloghorn platform will allow us more flexibility in doing what we want to do; making sure that a little more of the world is aware of our popular art form by presenting the work of very best of UK cartoonists, together with news items and cartoon-related features, all amazingly with only minimal recourse to tits, bums and Celebrity-Boffing-on-Ice.

Bloghorn spotted this great work this week…

One: Stephen Hutchinson (aka Bernie) in Private Eye on child protection officers

Two: Gerald Scarfe in the Sunday Times on India

Three: A spot of blowing our own Foghorn … Noel Ford on the cover of the new Christmas issue of the PCO’s cartoon magazine. (Below – click image to enlarge). Subscribe to The Foghorn here

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent

You can subscribe to our six-editions a year organ by clicking the big blue button to your right hand side.
14th October 2008
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent

Evidence for the existence of a predecessor publication to our own Foghorn cartoon magazine has been revealed on a national media outlet. You may listen again to the wireless segment here.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent

A new Foghorn cartoon magazine from the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation is out now. If you would like to subscribe to the six issues a year please click the big blue button to your right, now.
Click to enlarge the picture
Showcasing British cartoon talent

The new issue of the super soaraway Foghorn cartoon magazine, written by and about Britain’s professional cartoonists and joke makers, will soon be available. If you commission artwork in your working life you can get a free copy by clicking the button to your right.

British cartoon talent

Martin Honeysett spent two years in Japan teaching cartoon drawing at a university. He talks about his experiences here.

Note: PCO members can read more in The Foghorn, the PCO magazine. If you are an editor or art buyer and would like a PDF copy of the magazine, click the Foghorn panel on the right.

One of PCO member Martin Honeysett’s cartoons from his time in Japan

How do you teach cartooning? All the cartoonists I know are self taught, although some may have done an arts course at some time. I can see how you can teach the elements of drawing but is it possible to teach the elements of satire and humour, the creation of ideas?

These were some of the many thoughts that buzzed round my head prior to and during the long flight to Kyoto, Japan, in late March 2005. I was due to become the first visiting professor at the Kyoto Seika University Cartoon Faculty. I was excited and somewhat nervous, not really knowing what to expect or what was expected of me.

I first visited Japan 20 years ago as one of a group of English and French cartoonists. A sort of cultural exchange organised by James Taylor, a publisher and cartoon enthusiast who’d managed to squeeze some funding from the Japan Foundation. The English element apart from James Taylor, consisted of Bill Tidy, Clive Collins, Roy Raymonde, Michael Ffolkes and myself.

The French contingent included Avoine, Bridenne, Nicoulard and Mose, the patriach of French cartooning, It was a great trip, two weeks of non-stop meetings, sightseeing and entertainment supplemented with warm and generous Japanese hospitality. Most of the time was spent in Tokyo but we also spent a few days in historic Kyoto, once the Capital. Professor Yasuo Yoshitomo who inaugurated and runs the cartoon department at Seika had invited us there.

The English contingent at least, was somewhat sceptical about the idea of a university teaching how to draw cartoons. I remember Bill Tidy, forthright as ever, standing up during a question and answer session holding a sheet of paper. “What you should do,” he said, “Is write down all the theories and teaching about cartooning and then …” He crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it to the floor. Fortunately perhaps, the Japanese staff and students, looking on in bafflement, had no idea what he was on about.

I always hoped that I might return at some stage but thought less and less about it as the time passed. I heard later that Mose and Roy Raymond were regularly invited out for the bi-annual exhibition and I kept in contact by entering works for it and winning the occasional award.

One of PCO member Martin Honeysett’s drawings from his time in Japan

Then in 2002, out of the blue, I received an invitation to visit Kyoto for the exhibition. Not for the first time I was stepping into dead man’s shoes, for sadly, Mose had died.

I flew out with Roy and we joined another two cartoonists. Ponnappa from India and Pere from Spain. It was during this trip that I was asked if I would be interested in the idea of being a visiting professor. I said I was very interested but was cautioned that this was a tentative enquiry and in that Japan these things take some time to be decided.

So I returned home trying not to be too excited, looking forward to some sort of confirmation to arrive. It never did, so after a while I thought they’d given up on the idea . Then, two years later, I was again invited out for the exhibition and again asked if I’d be interested. I replied in the affirmative and this time it was confirmed.

For more, see issue 31 of The Foghorn.

British cartoon talent

Foghorn, the full colour magazine of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation is in production right now and is due to land on the desks of some lucky art buyers soon. This all new exciting flood-proof issue will include articles from PCOers Martin Honeysett, Martin Rowson, Roger Penwill and Pete Dredge alongside the usual top jokes and regular features. This edition’s cover cartoon is by Mr Ross Thomson – click T for Thomson.
21st January 2008
British cartoon talent