Tony Husband’s tortoise take on England and the World Cup

Many gag cartoonists have had their fruitful areas of interest over the decades. The very wonderful Larry (Terry Parkes) spent productive years milking the world of art, and the great, and recently late, Ray Lowry would have been bereft without rock ‘n’ roll or Nazis.

PCOer Tony Husband’s simple style of drawing – like Larry’s – belies an understanding of the joke-telling format not given to many. He has made a career as one of cartooning’s generalists, able to make a gag about anything. That was until recently, when something strange happened to the Husband oeuvre. It began to become invaded by testudines.

Gags appearing in his normal haunts like Private Eye and The Oldie began to feature tortoises with curious regularity. The Bloghorn was keen to investigate and approached Mr Husband with a demand to come clean about the tortoise invasion. Was it a failed book project – “101 Uses For A Tortoise” – or a batch of rejects from “Tortoises and Tortoisemen (incorporating Tortoise Monthly)”? We needed to be told.

Husband finally revealed all: “The Lord of all Tortoise summoned me to his palace in the deserts of Org. He gave me a mission, to bring the tortoise to the forefront of popular culture. It’s as simple as that.”

Yes, that’s what we suspected.

“What the hell are you wrecking your room for? We own the hotel chain”

Royston Robertson reviews the exhibition Ray Lowry – London Calling which is at the Idea Generation Gallery in East London until July 4.

This show is being promoted largely with artworks created by well-known names as a tribute to the Clash’s London Calling sleeve – a masterful piece of graphic design by Ray Lowry who was the “official war artist” for the band at the time – but it is the work of Lowry himself that is the real heart of the show.

That work can be divided into several sections: his most familiar drawings – cartoons from Punch, Private Eye, NME and the like – often on music and pop culture; a collection of lesser-known artworks, including some abstracts, sketchbook drawings, and even some photography; and reportage drawings of The Clash on tour.

The cartoons are, of course, hilarious. They still work because the absurdities of the rock and roll lifestyle which Lowry pinpoints are still with us today (as indeed are the many of the rockers, though sadly Lowry himself is not). From a cartoonist’s point of view it’s amazing how small so many of them are. With those detailed, inky drawings, I assumed Ray was one of the big canvas guys.

But the standout of the show, for me, were the drawings of the Clash live. They are so coourful, spontaneous and vibrant that you can feel the excitement of the moment in them. They are full of movement, the rapidly moving sticks of drummer Topper Headon, in particular, are brilliantly rendered.

Some of the London Calling tributes are worth a look: there’s a great collage portrait of Lowry by the artist Ian Wright, and there’s a collage by Paul Simonon of The Clash which features a piece of the bass guitar which is smashed in the Pennie Smith photo on that iconic cover. The others are a mixed bag, some not so successful.

In this show Lowry is really a tribute to himself: the rock and roll cartoonist. Go and see this encore.

A football song created by the cartoonist Mike Barfield has been used as the soundtrack to a World Cup animation by another cartoonist, Patrick Blower.

As everyone seems to be releasing Eng-er-land football songs these days, it’s probably no surprise that there’s one by a cartoonist. But while most are all about flag-waving optimism, the song by Mike Barfield, who draws the strip Apparently in Private Eye, is a little more down to earth.

Called Don’t Set Your Sights Too High, Mike’s ukulele ditty, recorded on a home computer, made it into the final of a World Cup song contest on Radio 5 Live last week. Mike described the song as “an antidote to all the bombastic, triumphalistic swagger of pretty much every World Cup England song you’ve ever heard”.

Mike insists the song is realistic, rather than pessimistic – and bearing in mind the England team’s performance on Saturday, he may have a point – but in the end blind faith won and the song came second to one called, ahem, We Are The Rulers.

Now Mike’s song has been set to animation by Patrick Blower, a member of the PCO which runs the Bloghorn, and creator of the new Private Eye strip iBores. That’s a screen shot above, and you can see the full animation – and hear the song – here.

It’s part of Patrick’s Livedraw series which is featured on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website. The video seems to have attracted quite a few vitriolic comments (is there any other type on the internet?) though in fairness to the cartoonists concerned, that’s more to do with the Guardian’s decision to use the headline “Celebrating the British way”, rather than English. Still, it’s one way to get a debate going.

Private Eye cartoonist Andrew Birch, who recently joined the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation which runs the Bloghorn, neatly sums up the age-old “Cartoons vs. Art” debate in his new Young British Artists strip. It’s a pitilessly satirical view of the Art Establishment … and Bloghorn could not agree more.

See the strip at the Private Eye site

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Clive Goddard, Andy Bunday and Nathan Ariss will be representing the PCO in the form of Team Bloghorn at this year’s Big Draw Battle of the Cartoonists challenge on Saturday 12th September, 2-5pm at the Idea Generation Gallery, 11 Chance Street, London E2 7JB (map).

Team Bloghorn is understood to be up against Dave Brown’s Independent and Andy Davey’s The Sun teams with, possibly, Private Eye too.

The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation previously competed in the Battle of the Cartoonists in 2008 and 2007

Barry Fantoni with his Portrait of the Duke of Edinburgh, at the Woodstock Gallery, 1963

The exhibition Barry Fantoni: Public Eye, Private Eye is at the Thomas Williams Fine Art Gallery, in Old Bond Street, London, from April 22 until May 22.

Barry Fantoni has had a long association with Private Eye magazine since 1963, and remains a member of the editorial staff, currently drawing the regular “Scenes You Seldom See” cartoon. He also writes the magazine’s comic obituary poems as “E. J. Thribb, 17” and is the man behind the stories by “Sylvie Krin”.

But his private life as a painter, creating landscapes, interiors and images of friends and lovers since the 1960s, will be revealed for the first time in this new exhibition, alongside his cartoons. The paintings show Fantoni to be part of the influential London School, whose most famous exponents are David Hockney, Lucien Freud and R.B. Kitaj.

Barry Fantoni, Lorna, c.1975, 101.5 x 76 cm, oil on canvas

Fantoni was the front-page cartoonist for The Times from 1983-1990, a regular illustrator for Radio Times and The Listener, art critic for The Times and a music reviewer for Punch. He was presenter on the BBC’s 1960s music and fashion programme “A Whole Scene Going On” and cartoonist for the satirical show “That Was The Week That Was”.

Barry Fantoni, Cheer up, March 1990

A catalogue for the exhibition, with an introduction by former Private Eye editor Richard Ingrams, is published by Thomas Williams to accompany the exhibition.

The Thomas Williams Fine Art Gallery is open 10am – 6pm, Monday to Friday. For more call 020-7491 1485 or visit the website.

There’s more on Barry Fantoni in The Independent this week.

Bloghorn spotted this great work during this week ending the 20th February 2009.

One: Fran Orford in Private Eye on paying top whack

Two: Paul Thomas in the Express on job security

Three: and Steve Bell in the Guardian on that underwater bonk.

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The festive season is upon us, so this week Bloghorn has a bulging sack full of Christmas themed cartoons…

One: Simon Bond in Private Eye: ‘City Christmas Tree 2008′

Two: From Tony Holland in the Spectator, the credit crunch hits the Twelve Days of Christmas

Three: Christmas tree dressing at Number 10 for Peter Brookes in the Times

Four: Martin Rowson in Tribune shows the Three Wise Men investing poorly

Five: The Guardian asked artists, singers and comedians to “reinvent” Santa Claus, including Gerald Scarfe

Six: Royston Robertson in Reader’s Digest on good health at Christmas

Seven: Patrick Blower has a Livedraw animation on media-savvy shepherds

Eight: Will “Wilbur” Dawbarn in Reader’s Digest on the season of goodwill in a bad neighbourhood

Nine: Matt “Hack” Buck in Tribune on the non-jingling tills

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Back in November we blogged about the PCO’s team for Transports of Delight – a cartoon banner competition held at St Pancras rail station in London as part of the The Big Draw.

Well, now you can own a piece of cartooning history as the four banners in the competition (from The Guardian, The Independent, Private Eye and the PCO) are being auctioned off on eBay, with all proceeds going to the Campaign for Drawing, a charity whose purpose is to promote drawing as a tool to support learning, and cultural and social engagement for all ages and abilities.

The winning banner from The Independent (Dave Brown, Tim Sanders, Chris Burke and Bloghorn Editor Matt Buck)

The Guardian (Steve Bell, Martin Rowson, Tim Pond and PCO Chair leg Andy Davey)

Private Eye (Andrew Birch, Richard Jolley, Simon Pearsall and Ken Pyne)

and last but not least the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation (Pete Dredge, Robert Duncan, Kipper Williams and Bloghorn writer Royston Robertson)

Hurry though, if you do want to make a bid, as the auctions end on the evening of Monday 22nd December!

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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