An exhibition that is sure to bring some warmth and cheer to the winter opens at the Cartoon Museum in London on Wednesday 24 November.

Ink and the Bottle is billed as “a merry exhibition on the pleasures and perils of the ‘demon drink’ starting with a swig of gin from Hogarth and Cruikshank”. We move on to Gillray, Donald McGill, Heath Robinson and Giles before downing “a heady cocktail of contemporary cartoons”.

That includes a generous measure of PCO members, including Steve Bell, Andrew Birch, right, Clive Collins, Neil Dishington, Denis Dowland, Pete Dredge, Roger Penwill, Ken Pyne, Royston Robertson, Bill Stott and Mike Turner.

As if that’s not enough binge cartooning, there’s work by Sally Artz, Ian Baker, Hector Breeze, Dave Brown,
Chris Duggan, top, Grizelda, Andrzej Krauze, Matt, Tim Sanders, Ronald Searle, Gerald Scarfe, Silvey & Jex, Ralph Steadman, and Judy Walker.

If you fancy three more for the road, there are also contributions from the Viz cartoonists Graham Dury, Davey Jones and Simon Thorp, who are no strangers to creating characters that “like a tipple”.

Ink and the Bottle – Drunken Cartoonists and Drink in Cartoons runs until February 13. See the Cartoon Museum website for more details.

Cheersh!

Cartoon Classroom, the project set up by comics artist David Lloyd, cartoon historian Paul Gravett and teacher Steve Marchant to take cartooning into schools, has seen a rise in the number of teachers and schools registering to use its services, following a letter to The Teacher magazine.

However, they are always keen to take on more educational organisations and more cartoonists who are interested in sharing their skills. You can register your interest at www.cartoonclassroom.co.uk or you can contact them directly here.

On the subject, of taking cartoons from the page directly to audiences, Bloghorn’s own Royston Robertson has written a blog report on a cartooning talk which he presented at an arts festival in Ramsgate.

On Mondays you can rely upon Royston Robertson to be posting news of the UK’s cartoonists here at Bloghorn – but not this week.

After a long struggle, Bloghorn convinced Royston he should allow himself the week off because the Kent-based cartoonist will be giving an illustrated talk about his work at A Summer Squall in Ramsgate on Saturday 28th August.

Royston told us:

The idea is that I’ll show a load of cartoons – mostly published but maybe a few rejected ones as well – read the captions and talk a little about themes covered, the background to the cartoons, the process of coming up with ideas and drawing the cartoons etc. Hopefully it’ll raise a few chuckles and there will be questions and input from the audience.

So, kindly add yourself to the great August bank holiday weekend getaway for a high-quality end to the silly season.

The talk takes place at 2pm at Ramsgate Library on Saturday 28 August. Admission is free but you need to book. Tickets are available at the Custom House, Harbour Parade, Ramsgate, or by calling 07544-971 685.

The Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival is now officially up and running. Your Bloghorn team will be out and about in the town today, Friday April 23, checking out the drawing, caricaturing, workshops and exhibitions. Watch this space, there’s plenty to come.

Bloghorn is pleased to see that Royston Robertson, one of our writers, is the new cartoonist of the month at Prospect magazine. You can read the interview with him here.  Fittingly it was published on April 1st. Along with many of his colleagues from the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation, Royston will be taking part in the upcoming Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival towards the end of April.

This features the genius of Bill Watterson’s much-loved Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. It also highlights the good and bad nature of digital distribution of imagery, because strictly, this is a copyright violation. What do you think about it? Please tell us in the comments below. Spotted by Royston Robertson.

The Eggheads (Chris Hughes, Daphne Fowler, CJ de Mooi, Barry Simmons, Judith Keppel and Kevin Ashman) by Cartoonists' team member Chris Burke

The Cartoonists, a team put together by the Professional Cartoonists Organisation, stormed to victory on the TV quiz show Eggheads last night, after winning each of their head-to-head rounds. Egghead Kevin Ashman described it as “the most comprehensive defeat we’ve ever had”. Here, team captain Alex Hughes explains how it all happened

A little over a year ago, I was approached by the makers of BBC quiz show Eggheads and asked if I’d like to put together a team of cartoonists for the upcoming series. I’ve done the odd pub quiz in the past, so accepted the offer and duly went about recruiting a team from the ranks of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation – a team comprising myself, Chris Burke, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell, Royston Robertson and Martin Rowson. We sailed through the December audition and subsequently were invited to record the show in January of this year.

For the uninitiated, Eggheads itself is a fairly straightforward quiz. Each day, a new team of challengers goes up against the Eggheads, a team comprising past winners of other TV and radio quizzes such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Mastermind, Fifteen to One, The Weakest Link and Brain of Britain – the cream of British quiz talent.

The Cartoonists (Alex Hughes, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson)

For our bout, the Eggheads team comprised Kevin Ashman, CJ de Mooi, Daphne Fowler, Chris Hughes and Barry Simmons. Judith Keppel was waiting in the wings and Chris Burke was the stand-in for the Cartoonists.

The first four rounds are a series of head-to-head questions from a given category, where we pick one of our team to go up against our pick from the Eggheads. The contestants then go into the “question room” (in reality, a bench behind the main set) and are given three multiple choice questions each. If there’s no outright winner, it goes to “sudden death”.

The winner of each round is “safe” and allowed to compete for their team in the final round, whilst the loser is not. The final round is a general knowledge team round with the surviving challengers competing directly against the surviving Eggheads for the prize money, which, if it’s not won is rolled-over to the next day.

The Cartoonists (Alex Hughes, Robert Duncan, Royston Robertson, Chris Burke, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson) outside BBC Television Centre

On the day of the filming we arrived bright and early on a crisp January morning with, as requested, a selection of light, brightly coloured non-patterned shirts at BBC Television Centre in White City, London. After resting in the former Top of the Pops Green Room we were ushered into the studio, which is when the nerves kicked in. Make-up was applied, microphones were attached and we met host Jeremy Vine.

There wasn’t much time for chit-chat though (up to five episodes are shot per day), so we went straight into the contest …

…and we won! We were only the sixth team out of the ten series to beat the Eggheads in each of the first four rounds. But to top that, we are the first team to have beaten the Eggheads outright, winning in every single round plus the final – we only got three questions wrong between us in the whole show.

And best of all, the last question, which surviving Egghead Kevin Ashman could not answer, was a cartoon question.

So, well done, team, we did brilliantly! Congratulations to Robert, Royston, Graham, Martin, and Chris in reserve. And our thanks to Al Capp‘s Shmoo…

The editor adds: The BBC iPlayer recording of the show should be available online until November 5th 2009.

A team representing the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation, the organisation behind the Bloghorn, is set to appear on the BBC quiz show Eggheads tonight (October 29) at 6pm on BBC Two.

The Cartoonists are, left-to right, Chris Burke, who was team stand-in, Alex Hughes, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson.

See the Bloghorn tomorrow for a full post-match report.

As mentioned previously in the year here on Bloghorn, a team representing the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation is set to appear on the BBC quiz show Eggheads. The team, comprising Chris Burke, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell, Martin Rowson and myself, Alex Hughes, will air on BBC2 at 6pm on Thursday 29th October. Obviously, we can’t let you know how we did, but you can expect full coverage here on Bloghorn the following day…

Bloghorn spotted this great work during this week ending the 2nd July 2009.

One: Jonathan Pugh in The Times on teacher re-training

Two: Peattie and Taylor from Alex in the Daily Telegraph on forward thinking

Three: …and Bloghorn‘s own Royston Robertson in the Readers Digest on student hijinks

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