Index on Censorship magazine is hosting an auction of Martin Rowson‘s Stripsearch cartoons tomorrow — Tuesday, November 8 — at 6.30pm at the Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London.

The auction will be hosted by the writer and broadcaster Laurie Taylor and admission is free. Contact jo@indexoncensorship.org if you wish to attend. An exhibition of the cartoons will run from tomorrow until December 2. The venue can be contacted on 020-7324 2570.

The Chris Beetles Gallery of St James’s, London, is taking its collection of cartoons up the A1 to Nunnington Hall, near York, for a selling exhibition entitled Three Centuries of Cartoon Art which opens tomorrow (April 12).

Cartoon art spanning the ages will be on view, starting with Thomas Rowlandson from the 18th century, through 19th century greats such as Tenniel and on to the 20th century, with such big names as Searle, Thelwell, above, and Larry.

Contemporary newspaper cartoonists will also feature, including Peter Brookes, Matt, Christian Adams, Martin Rowson and Mac.

Members of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation, which runs the Bloghorn, feature in the show, including Andy Davey, Martin Honeysett, Tony Husband, above, Ed McLachlan, Royston Robertson, Kipper Williams and Mike Williams.

Tony Husband will open the event, talking about his life in cartooning while illustrating this with spontaneous cartoons. For more details, and to see the full exhibition online, visit the Chris Beetles website

Photograph: Antje Bormann

PCO member Martin Rowson delivered a talk on Caricatures and Commentary to the Frontline Club in London this week.

In discussion with Radio 4’s Laurie Taylor Martin spoke about subjects ranging from his caricatures of patrons at the Gay Hussar restaurant to the abolition of the Licensing Act in 1695 and taking in influences from William Hogarth, James Gillray and David Low on the way.

This was followed by a lively question and answer session where he fielded enquiries about how he deals with new political figures and the Danish Muhammed cartoons.

The talk can be seen in full (all one and a half hours of it) at the Frontline Club’s website.

One of Bloghorn’s regular contributors, Royston Robertson has a cartoon in a rather unusual exhibition. The Great Wall of Ramsgate is a 1000ft-long temporary wall that’s been erected around the site of an old amusement park during redevelopment. In an effort to brighten it up a bit, local artists, photographers and cartoonists have been invited to add their own contribution, in the shape of a series of 4ft by 8ft boards.

Royston’s no stranger to working on such a large scale, having drawn for the Big Boards at Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival in 2007 and 2008, and was on the team representing Bloghorn at this year’s Battle of the Cartoonists. Keep your eye on Bloghorn for news on the cartoonists who’ll be Big Boarding at this year’s Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival in April.

Martin Rowson, who produced one of last years Big Boards at Shrewsbury, will be speaking at the Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London W2 1QJ next week on the subject of Caricatures and Commentary. Tickets are available for the event on Tuesday 1st February, 7-9pm, priced £12.50 (£10 for early birds, £8 for concessions) here.

While on the theme of awards, congratulations to PCO member Martin Rowson who won the annual Political Cartoon Society’s Cartoonist of the Year award on Monday. You can explore Martin’s work at The Guardian, Tribune and The Morning Star.

The economic recovery is here Jan 2010 © Martin Rowson Cartoon

Dave Brown of the Independent won the prize for the individual drawing of the year.

Here are a few interesting cartooning links to start your week. First, PCOer Martin Rowson, cartoon above, writes in today’s Guardian about the strange place that cartoonists occupy in the British media, and their love-hate relationship with editors: Cartoonists in the twilight zone

But it’s all love from one former editor, David Yelland of The Sun, who calls cartoonists “unsung heroes” in a discussion about the Ink and the Bottle exhibition on the Radio 4 Today programme, with James Naughtie and the cartoon collector Brian Sibley: Listen to it here

And finally, alongside its huge Illustrators 2010 show, the Chris Beetles Gallery in London has a new exhibition opening tomorrow (November 30) all about Dan Dare. It ties in with a new book which tells the story of how Frank Hampson created the strip: Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future

Updated by MB : 2pm 29th November. Cartoonist Colin Shelbourn sends Bloghorn this BBC podcast interview with Gary ‘Doonesbury’ Trudeau.

A quick follow-up of stories we’ve covered recently on Bloghorn.

• The Forbidden Planet blog reports on Steve Bell in conversation with Martin Rowson, Gary Trudeau and Alan Moore at Edinburgh International Book Festival (previously).
• New Yorker cartoon editor (and cartoonist himself) Robert Mankoff responds to the recent Kanye West cartoon re-captioning internet phenomenon.
• downthetubes.net has the first review of CLiNT magazine (previously), whilst also informing us that Jonathan Ross and Mark Millar will be signing copies on Thursday 2nd September at 4.30pm at WH Smiths in London’s Victoria station.
• Posy Simmonds is interviewed in the Guardian about the upcoming Stephen Frears’ film adaptation of her graphic novel, Tamara Drewe, which opens in UK cinemas on 10th September (previously).

“Double Dip and Toil and Trouble !!” by Nick Hayes,
from the Guardian’s summer cartoonists showcase.

As previously mentioned in Bloghorn, the Guardian is showcasing six up-and-coming cartoonists whilst regular incumbent Steve Bell is on his summer holidays.

Since the last week of July, the cartoons of Anna Trench, Lou McKeever (aka Bluelou), Ben Jennings, Tanya Tier, Bob Moran and Nick Hayes have been adding their own visual takes on the day’s news. Their contributions haven’t been without controversy, with many cartoons receiving over 100 comments each, including numerous pieces or rebuttal from fellow Guardian cartoonist, Martin Rowson. As Martin says in the comments:

The reason for giving these cartoonists an airing here – including, of course, the opportunity to fail – is that these days it’s almost impossible to undergo that kind of baptism of fire in a national newspaper , and thus hone your native skills.

and on the subject of the comments:

[...] these six debutants have overturned an original editorial decision not to have comments on their work when it appears on this site. I think that’s quite brave of them, so it might be worthwhile some of you repaying the compliment by being constructive in your criticism, rather than just trolling about as usual, beating up this particular bus shelter on the side of the information superhighway with the kind of reckless abandon that seems to come so easily to the heroically anonymous.

On a related note, Steve Bell and Martin Rowson will be in conversation at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this weekend, whilst Steve will also be chatting to American political cartoonist Garry Trudeau and comic book writer Alan Moore.

Cover for Martin Rowson's Tristram Shandy re-issue

Shy and retiring soul that he is, The Guardian’s own Martin Rowson would blanch at the thought that Bloghorn would puff his upcoming talk at the London Literature Festival on 3rd July, but we feel it’s our duty as he is a fellow PCO member.

The subject at hand is the reissue of his graphic-novelisation of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy – a monumental, rambling, discursive life of “gentleman” Shandy, first published in 1759 and often called the first “modern” novel. This promises to be fun, as Rowson himself was designed for the Rabelaisian environs of Georgian London in which the novel is set.

Martin is a veteran apologist for all things Georgian London, but primarily his heroes, Hogarth and Gillray. You can see the Hogarth advocate at work here in this short film. London is so ingrained in his DNA, that the Caligulan court of Red Ken bestowed the official title of London Cartoonist Laureate on him, before Boris installed some Victorian parsimony back into City Hall.

Rowson tells Bloghorn that the evening promises “an impossible talk about the impossibility of producing a graphic novelisation of a novel about the impossibility of writing a novel”. So there. His talks are always lively and interesting, although Bloghorn recommends not bringing one’s maiden aunt as the language can sometimes be somewhat, er, Georgian. Tickets can be purchased here.

You can watch BBC Four’s take on the theme of Rude Britannia, which ties in with the exhibition of the same name at Tate Britain, just click the picture.

The documentary is one hour long. Parts two and three can be seen tonight and tomorrow night on BBC Four or on the iPlayer.