The Only Joking! exhibition, a collection of gag cartoons old and new, opened at the Cartoon Museum in London today (Jan 27).

The show is designed to raise spirits in the deep winter with a few much-needed hearty chuckles, though when PCOer Martin Honeysett attended the private view yesterday he found that many people were clearly at home nursing winter colds (like this Bloghorn writer!)

Martin said: “I suppose the sparcity of cartoonists in the pub beforehand should have indicated the smallness of the throng attending. Never mind, all the better to get a good view of the fine work on display, extolling the virtues of this form of comic art and the lack of current appreciation.

“It’s a nice mix of old and new and an opportunity to see some gems from the museum collection. Well worth a visit.”

So, sup up your Lemsip (other cold remedies are available) and get down to the Cartoon Museum in Little Russell Street before the exhibition ends on March 1. For more details visit the website.

It comes as no surprise to read that the Japanese Prime minister keeps manga comics in his official limo. Manga is huge in Japan. Not just the comics but the whole pop culture that feeds off it.

That 90% of it is, in my opinion complete pap, seems to encourage rather than hinder its popularity.

Originally the word manga encompassed all cartoon drawing including political, strip and single panel cartoons. These are now overshadowed and squeezed out by the popular comic genre.

So while the idea that a Prime Minister keeping comics in his car might seem appealing, remember that our politicians already keep them in their toilets. Sharp, satirical, funny, well drawn cartoons and caricatures.

Not that we can ignore manga and the power or popular culture. It’s interesting to note that even in Japan the volume of printed manga is decreasing while online and e-manga is rapidly increasing. Way to go?

One: Mac in the Daily Mail: “Yes, I’ve resigned. But how the hell did you know?”

Two: Paul Noth in The New Yorker with an Easter cartoon.

Three: Martin Honeysett in the PCO magazine The Foghorn on animal testing. For more on the current issue of Foghorn, click here.

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The PCO: Great British cartoon talent

I was a Punch man. I started in the 1970s when Bill Davis was editor and continued until its final demise. It took a year of weekly submissions before I got accepted and once that happened I felt I’d arrived. For a freelance gag cartoonist Punch was the business, and a great shop window for our craft. Its closure marked the beginning of a decline for this particular avenue of cartooning.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent

The full list of cartoonist Big Boarders drawing at this year’s festival, over the weekend of Friday 18th and Saturday 19th April, is:

Steve Bright, Clive Collins, Bill Stott, Ross Thomson, Martin Honeysett, Alex Hughes, Pete Dredge, John Roberts, Matt Buck (Hack), Royston Robertson, Mike Turner, Noel Ford, Steve Best (Bestie), Dave Brown, Ian Baker, Chris Burke, Andy Davey, Neil Dishington, Paul Hardman, and Andy McKay (NAF).

PCOer Pete Dredge will be blogging tomorrow about how it feels to do a big board at Shrewsbury.

British cartoon talent

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

It’s the last week to enjoy Martin Honeysett’s work as the first PCO artist of the month.

The PCO says click H for Honeysett