The Henley Royal Regatta is an essential event in the British social calendar and this year it also includes a quality cartoon show.

© Bill Stott cartoon at thebloghorn.org

Pictures of genteel landscapes and nature studies jostle for position with slightly more than an eights worth of Regatta themed cartoons. Visitors will find a large boatload of terrific jokes punted into position in the hallowed Member’s Enclosure and all providing an irreverent take on a great British institution.

The exhibition, organised by the PCO, will run throughout the week of the Regatta from June 29th. If you are in the area, you may enjoy the work of Ken Pyne, Bill Stott, Clive Goddard, The Surreal McCoy, Royston Robertson, Noel Ford, Pete Dredge, Nathan Ariss, Rosie Brooks, John Roberts and William Rudling.

You can read our full list of membership portfolios here and if you are the organiser of an event seeking something special to add to your big day do get in touch with us here.

Golf’s man of the moment Rory McIlroy added a unique cartoon memory to his recent US Open victory. You can find the classic handover of artwork photograph in this story from The Sun.

© Andy Davey cartoon for The Sun

Bloghorn hat tips PCO cartoonist Andy Davey.

Master Cartoonist John Jensen wrote to Bloghorn about the stories of criticism for the one year postgraduate study into Comics and Visual Communication recently launched by the University of Dundee. We publish his letter below.

Tom Harris is an MP whose hobbies include astronomy, science, fiction, cinema, karaoke and tennis. He was a journalist before he became a politician. His activities, particularly his wide range of hobbies (how does he find the time?) suggests a broad interest in the world around him.

Fiction or, if you want to be up-market, literature deals in words, whilst the cinema deals in pictures and they both, at their best, deal in ideas. So do comics, which deal in all these things.

The history of comics is itself a wonderful journey through time and many talents (admittedly some of them terrible!) but modern comics and graphic novels are revelatory. Countries such as the UK, France, Germany, Belgium and Italy publish works showing the wide differences, and occasional resemblances, between each other. The United States and Japan share the comic experience but manga and its storylines is different from the storylines and violence found in Marvel Comics or in DC publications.

Many studies, either useful or just plain interesting, are to be found in those little story-telling boxes. The University of Dundee is offering a one-year Masters degree in comic studies: one year, not three. Probably too many students will try to enter what they see as an easy option, but someone perceptive and genuinely interested in the juxtaposition of words, pictures and ideas will not be wasting their time or ours – except, of course that of Tom Harris MP. After a hard nights karaoke, taking in a serious study of  ‘the relationship between international comics cultures’ would be just too tiring!

Bloghorn thanks  PCOer John Jensen for his thoughts and invites you to share yours in the comments below. If you are interested in the local reaction to the comments of Tom Harris and the issue you can read them at the Dundee Courier.

If you have been following this story you will be unsurprised that Bloghorn thinks comics, and cartooning in all its forms, are all too readily undervalued in the UK.

It is more acceptable in the cultures of Japan, the US and across Europe to consider the narrative techniques and visual artistry employed by commercial artists as a powerful form for  business and personal communication as well as entertainment and teaching.

The best single piece of evidence we offer is the attitude of the UK arts funding body – The Arts Council –  towards the national Cartoon Museum* which despite its popularity, and the long history of the form in the UK , receives no central funding. We wrote about this here.

Of course, there are some exceptions in this country – political cartooning, for example, tends to receive grudging respect for its obviously satirical and “real-world” relevance. But all too often, the “cartoon” and “comic” are used here as catch-all terms for anything that is unsophisticated, childish or tacky.

Dundee University is launching a degree in comic books. That'll show those who say degrees are being dumbed down!

6th June 2011 10:32 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@TomHarrisMP

Tom Harris

Another political figure, the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, did exactly that last week. Criticising the Daily Mail, he described the paper as a “sexist, racist, bigoted comic cartoon strip”(Bloghorn is only interested in the second half of that assertion, which we feel is a little unfair).

Academic appreciation of cartooning is, in fact, not new: since 1973, the University of Kent has hosted the British Cartoon Archive, a collection of more than 150,000 pieces intended to encourage the study and appreciation of cartoon art, including comic strips. The Cartoon Archive is freely open to those wishing to carry out research, and is actively involved in promoting the art form – often in collaboration with the national Cartoon Museum, the PCO and its fellow cartoonists organisations, the BCA and the CCGB.

Bloghorn is made by Matthew Buck, Royston Robertson, Alex Hughes and Rob Murray on behalf of the UK Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation

* We say please consider becoming a member to help fund them

Rob Murray writes:

US cartoonist Ted Rall, who put himself up for sale on eBay earlier this month, has written about  how his left-wing views have seen him dropped by even left-leaning publications. In an opinion piece titled Rise of the Obamabots, he recounts some of the rejections he’s received from left-of-centre magazines and argues that the US press is so enamoured with Barack Obama that “there’s less room for a leftie during the Age of Obama than there was under Bush”.

Bloghorn also spotted an opportunity for cartoon fans to become part of Scott Adams’ Dilbert strip. Readers can upload photos of themselves and personalise one of 25 strips online, replacing one of the regular characters and becoming part of the action.

Closer to home, a selection of work by the profilic cartoonist and illustrator Ern Shaw (1891-1986) will be auctioned off next month. Hull-born Shaw had a career spanning more than 60 years, in which he is thought to have had around 25,000 cartoons published in newspapers and magazines, as well as illustrating children’s books and card games. More information on the sale can be found at the website of the auctioneers Dee Atkinson & Harrison.

Bloghorn says, if there is anything big we have missed please do tell us in the comments below

Rob Murray writes:

Cartoonists have a habit of predicting the future, but Cam Cardow, cartoonist for the Ottawa Citizen, is more prescient than most. He was the first to satirise the news that Arnold Schwarzenegger had fathered a child outside of his marriage – eight years before the story became known. The Washington Post has the full story and cartoon from 2003 here.

Meanwhile, the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon series The Flintstones is due for a modern makeover – courtesy of  Seth MacFarlane, one of animation’s most controversial  success stories. Whether the remake will be closer to the original Flintstones series or to Family Guy remains to be seen, but you can read more courtesy of BBC News.

Cult 2004 film comedy Napoleon Dynamite has also been reinterpreted in cartoon format, debuting in the US this summer and featuring the cast of the original film.

Bloghorn also spotted an impressive piece of pavement art over at the Forbidden Planet – a truly vertigo-inducing optical illusion featuring Batman and Robin.

Two prominent political cartoonists have exhibitions opening in London in the next couple of weeks. On Wednesday 25 May, Bell Époque, featuring the cartoons of Steve Bell opens at the Cartoon Museum. The exhibition, which celebrates 30 years of Guardian cartoonist Steve’s work runs until 24 July.

Not to be outdone, on Monday 30 May Rogues’ Gallery, opens at Westminster Reference Library. Featuring the classical art parodies of the Independent‘s Dave Brown the exhibition runs until 18 June. Dave will also be giving an illustrated talk, titled ‘Mimicking the Masters’ on Tuesday 7 June, 7pm. To book a free place, email rblack1@westminster.gov.uk or phone 020 7641 5250.

Bell Époque, Cartoon Gallery, 35 Little Russell Street, London WC1A 2HH, 25 May to 24 July. For opening times and admission prices, go to cartoonmuseum.org.

Rogues Gallery, Westminster Reference Library, 35 St Martin’s Street, London WC2H 7HP, 30 May to 18 June.  Free entry. Opening hours: Monday – Friday 10am to 8pm, Saturday 10am to 5pm.

US cartoonist Ted Rall has put himself up for sale on Ebay which is an admirably direct way of demonstrating the service a cartoonist provides.

I'll draw a political cartoon to order http://tinyurl.com/3bdrxqa Bidding is only $51!

5th May 2011 8:23 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@TedRall

Ted Rall

Bloghorn sees it’s a low bid at present but last week’s debut auction did this.

Good luck Ted.

While parts of the country are reeling under the weight of Royal Wedding merchandise (see here) the UK is also having its traditional May elections.

Cartoonist and new Bloghorn contributor Rob Murray, writes:

Candidate Dafydd Trystan Davies is campaigning with something a bit different from the traditional manifesto, instead commissioning a cartoon strip that outlines his ambitions for the constituency he hopes to represent.

Image © Dai Owen

The strip, by artist Dai Owen, shows Davies travelling through Cynon Valley in South Wales and touches on his goals for public transport, employment, housing and the local health service.

Image © Dai Owen

Davies, the Plaid Cymru candidate for the seat, told the Western Mail that the cartoon has already gone down well with the public. “They’ve laughed and they’ve read it – two important things,” he said, adding: “It’s a fun way to get a message across to people who are by and large disengaged with politics.”

Bloghorn would like to see more cartoons being used in publicity campaigns, be they political, commercial or charitable.