First person testimony on how it feels to try and make something this big in less than ten hours comes from PCOer Pete Dredge.

’For the majority of our working year we toil away in solitary isolation, hidden away, apparently unloved and unsure of our worth. Two days in Shrewsbury’s town square working on a big board in front of an appreciative audience and we leave with enough ego to see us through the next twelve months. Thank you people of Shrewsbury.”

Click the picture to enlarge it.
It’s British cartoon talent

PCOer Pete Dredge writes about making a Big Board for the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival:

I’ve been in training for weeks now, aiming to be at peak fitness for the Big Board Challenge at Shrewsbury this month. Yes, the “knee-bending, back-stretching, squat-thrusting and magnum marker pen-clutching” exercise DVD has been dusted off once again in preparation for this most unnatural of acts for the normally indoor, horizontal A4 practitioner of the cartoon art. Rather like a finely tuned Test cricketer being asked to adjust to the Twenty20 version of the game, the entire spectacle is rather more entertaining for the uninitiated than for the true connoisseur of the art!

British cartoon talent

Kipper Williams of The Guardian is one of this year’s PCO Big Boarders at the festival. Above is one of Kipper’s submissions to the “But is it Art?” exhibition, which is already open in the town.

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

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

Is there a cartoonist in the house?
Well, very often, yes, there is. Last week, PCOers Pete Dredge and Mike Turner added themselves to the throng of medical types, trustees and the odd HRH(apologies to the Duke of Kent) at the plush, modern atrium of The Royal Society of Medicine for a charity cartoon auction. It was in aid of RESTORE Burn and Wound Research. Knowledgeable and charismatic auctioneer, Nick Bonham fired up the well-heeled audience. His instruction that it was the done thing on these occasions to double the catalogue estimate price of the cartoons was readily taken up by the eager bidders and the 50 cartoon lots were soon dispatched to new, loving owners with the charity £10,000 to the good. The cartoon above is one of Ken Pyne’s, taken from the auction catalogue. Thanks to Pete and Mike for the report – a blogging first for both Mr Dredge and Mr Turner.
British cartoon talent

Nottingham‘s finest, Pete Dredge, has been the PCO’s Artist of the Month for September 2007. Bloghorn says click D for Dredge

Check out Pete’s work by clicking D for Dredge here…

Pete Dredge is the PCO’s Artist of the Month for September. Bloghorn says click D for Dredge for more

Pete sold his first cartoon to Punch in 1976 and has been going strong ever since. He has been a regular contributor of gag cartoons and cartoon strips to Private Eye for many years – as well as working for many other publications and businesses.

In between all the work, Pete also managed to set up and run a highly successful cartoon festival in his hometown of Nottingham. Sadly, this eventually became a victim of its own success and got too big for Pete and his volunteer team to maintain without the help a funded, full or part-time, organiser. At this point, the Arts Council failed its audition for the role of hero.

There’s an interview with the enterprising Mr Dredge, courtesy of BBC Nottingham, here.

Bloghorn says click D for Dredge