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It’s British cartoon talent

PCOer Ian Ellery alerts us to the work of Chinese cartoonist Coco Wang who is reporting on the earthquake in her country. Comics historian and teacher, Paul Gravett is hosting some of her still, narrative reports here.
British cartoon talent

A retrospective exhibition of the cartoon art of Dave Follows is now on in his hometown of Stoke-on-Trent. There is a wealth of detail about Dave’s long career in drawing here and many examples of his best-known work – including The Creature Feature – a cartoon strip which ran in the Sunday Times newspaper (and many other papers) for more than a decade.
Click to enlarge the cartoon
Other British cartoon talent

Workshops and cartoon “clinics” were a major part of the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival as usual this year, and PCO members Andy Gilbert, Paul Hardman and Tim Harries were at the forefront, helping members of the public to develop their cartooning skills.

Here’s Tim Harries on how he ran his “Create a Comic Strip” workshop:

“I explained the mechanics of producing a three panel strip, from character design, story refinement to actual drawing techniques. This was all duly noted and I suspect roundly ignored by several of the more boisterous participants, judging by the finished strips. I’m not complaining mind you, invariably the strips produced that day were energetic, great fun and frankly bonkers.

“Children have a terrific ability to just get on with the business of drawing, unencumbered by any doubts regarding their artwork. The young chap finishing off his 12-panel creation Bob the Flying Pickle was in no doubt that Bob was indeed a pickle that flew. More critical eyes would have perhaps renamed him ‘Bob the wobbly squiggle’ but that’s missing the point. Fun was being had, ideas were being explored and pickles were indeed flying. And you can’t say fairer than that.”

Photos by Gerard Whyman.

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PCOer Martin Rowson writes about his time as Cartoonist Laureate to the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and wonders whether he’ll survive the regime change.

I suppose that Ken Livingstone’s defeat by Boris Johnson means that I’m no longer the Official Cartoonist Laureate to the Mayor of London, although I’m not quite sure. Somewhere in the bowels of City Hall, the Great Glass Testicle by the Thames, there is a contract, drawn up between the Mayor’s office and me.

It was, I now freely admit, a joke. It was also a joke to remind Ken of his promise every time we met, and it remained a joke, after he was elected mayor in 2000, to browbeat one of his policy wonks at a party about his boss’s failure to keep his promises. However, jokes are dangerous things, and a few days after the encounter with the wonk I got a call from Ken himself, saying we were going ahead, and that I was duly appointed as the Cartoonist Laureate for London.

The terms of the contract were pretty straightforward. I would provide drawings of the Mayor or of events involving him, the GLA and the administration of London, in return for one pint of London Pride ale per year. This, I stipulated, had to be bought by the Mayor with his own money over the bar of a public house during licensing hours. And that was more or less it.

At the time of my appointment in 2001, I got a great deal of press attention, mostly because neither the mayor nor the GLA had actually got round to doing anything else by that stage. I got invited to attend the opening of the new City Hall by the Queen, and produced what I think was my finest cartoon in the job, of “Red, White and Blue Ken” rolling his tongue out as a red carpet for the Queen to process down, with the Duke of Edinburgh behind her.

But by 2007, payment was, strictly, five years in arrears.

This didn’t actually stop me voting for him and I still churned out stuff for GLA’s in-house newspaper – The Londoner – up until February 2008. One of Boris Johnson’s few palpable election promises was to scrap the paper, but even that wouldn’t make me vote for him.

I’ll ‘fess up and say that I admire Ken Livingstone probably more than any other politician I can think of. His bravery in thwarting New Labour was a beautiful and inspiring thing, and both the Congestion Charge and the pedestrianisation of the North of Trafalgar Square were enormously brave too, in the latter case because nobody had been able to make a decision to do this for sixty years. But I hope that that admiration didn’t constrain me from taking the piss when so inclined, even if, as things turned out, the beer that might have provided the piss dried up rather sooner than I’d hoped.

And as every workman is worthy of his hire, if Boris comes up with the goods, I’m more than happy to drink his beer and piss on him too. I await the call.

Bloghorn says click R for Rowson.

It’s British cartoon talent

PCOer Arthur Reid has more than thirty years experience as a cartoonist. A graduate of Gray’s school of Art in Aberdeen, he has contributed cartoons to many magazines and newspapers including Punch, Private Eye and The Oldie. He is a winner of numerous awards for visual joke-making and has also served as a judge at several international festivals, including Knokke Heist in Belgium.
The best British cartoon talent

It does get about – British cartoon talent

PCOer Kipper Williams at work on a Big Board during the recent cartoon festival. Bloghorn will be publishing more reportage from the event shortly.

It’s British cartoon talent

Bloghorn has been taking a break from our regular cartoon Artist of the Month feature while busy talking about the goings on for Shrewsbury, but it will be back next Friday.
It’s British cartoon talent

Here is a link to a nice video report on part of the cartoon festival. This was produced by journalist Richard Tisdale who works at the Shropshire Star newspaper. Thanks Richard.
It’s British cartoon talent