More than 40 of the UK’s top cartoonists will be drawing for and entertaining the public at the UK’s only cartoon festival next month. There will be many workshops, clinics, talks and much drawing of cartoons and caricatures over the weekend of April 22-25.

On the Friday and Saturday in the town square, the cartoonists challenge themselves against the clock, with huge blank canvases placed in front of them, to complete the Big Boards. You can see one of the finished boards from last year here.

The confirmed cartoonist attendees this year are:

Andy Davey, The Surreal McCoy , Dave Brown, Martin Honeysett , John Landers, Clive Goddard, Will Dawbarn, Gerard Whyman, Rupert Besley, Steve Bright , Bill Stott, John Roberts, Angela Martin, Steve Way, Helen Martin, Jed Pascoe, Simon Cassini, Sheba Cassini, Tim Leatherbarrow, Chris Ryder, Chichi Parish, Cathy Simpson, Andy Gilbert, Tim Harries and  Martin Rowson.

The festival will also be welcoming three Australian Cartoonists: Steve Panozzo, Jason Chatfield and Dean Alston, and a large contingent from Greece.

Alex Hughes, Royston Robertson and Matt Buck will be there for reporting for Bloghorn and we think that there will be a large “fringe event” going on too. So, if you are planning a trip to the festival as a cartoonist or as a fan of the fun, please tell us in the comments below.

We’ll be talking more about the exhibitions which run across the town on the Bloghorn next Friday.

Libby Purves, patron of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation, which runs the Bloghorn, writes in the Times today about how cartoons help us confront the dark side of human nature:

Cartoon grotesques let us face the real horrors

Above: Libby chats to the Guardian’s Steve Bell, creator of more than his fair share of cartoon grotesques, at last year’s Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival. Photograph © Gerard Whyman

Photograph © Gerard Whyman

The UK’s big cartooning event of the year, the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival is coming to Bloghorn.

This year the weekend is April 22-25 and the theme is Magic, Myth and Mystery. It is the 7th year of the festival, making it the UK’s longest running event of its type. There will be a large range of events catering for joke and cartoon enthusiasts of all ages and Bloghorn will be featuring news about all of these every Friday leading up to the event. If you are curious about what goes on at a cartoon festival take a look back at our coverage of Shrewsburys past…

Bloghorn’s Artist of the Month for July is John Roberts. John specialises in caricature, gag cartoons, humorous illustration and has been a highly successful on-the-spot caricaturist for the last ten years.

He is also one of the founders and organisers of the annual Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival.We asked John how he had become a cartoonist.

Believe it or not I wanted to save my sanity. In a previous life (good salary, company car, expenses etc etc) I found that if I didn’t change tack then I’d lose my marbles and so I had to have a major re-think.

I knew that I could make a living out of drawing so I decided to try to make it as a cartoonist. In the very early days I sent some caricatures to the Guardian and believe it or not they wrote back saying they’d like to use me and to ‘stand by’ for the phone call. At that time I was working flat out (24/7 as the dudes say these days) so I wrote back saying that that would be difficult in my present situation and so I turned them down! Probably the biggest mistake I have ever made in my life……

I eventually put a decent portfolio together and remember showing it to the late John Witt (cartoonist extraordinaire who used to have a cartoon studio in Chester) who took one look and said “Ever thought of doing ‘live’ caricaturing?”. Over the years I’ve often thought about John and what he had said and wondered if he suggested live caricaturing just to hack off his studio colleague and old friend Tim Leatherbarrow (caricaturist extraordinaire, of no fixed abode) but alas, caricaturing has been the mainstay of my work.

There will be another chat with John about his work next Friday.

Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell answers the question ‘What do cartoons mean to you?’ at the recent Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival. He and former Conservative Education Secretary Kenneth Baker have co-curated the Thatcher retrospective exhibition Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! which opens to the public at the Cartoon Museum today.

The UK’s National Cartoon Museum is at 35 Little Russell Street, London WC1A 2HH.

SHREWSBURY UPDATE: Alex Lester, night-time DJ on BBC Radio 2, visited the cartoon festival this year, at the invitation of PCOer Clive Goddard. Here is Alex’s personal account.

For the week ending 1st May 2009, we have a Shrewsbury Big Boards Special, a selection of some of the giant cartoons seen at this year’s festival.

One: Steve “Bestie” Best on CO2 emissions

Two: Jacky Fleming’s Mrs Darwin

Three: Kipper Williams looks at a mayfly’s day

Four: Clive Goddard on human resources

Five: Dave Brown’s Frankengordon

Six: Denis Dowland’s not so busy bee

Normal service will be resumed next week.

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The PCO: Great British cartoon talent

Cartoonist Tim Harries demonstrates how to draw a Big Board cartoon from start to finish, at this year’s Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival

Here’s Hunt Emerson, underground comics star turned Beano artist, demonstrating comic poses during a workshop held at the appropriately named Infinity and Beyond comic shop in Shrewsbury.

Remember, although the festival is over you can still see the exhibitions, as they run for several weeks. Check the website for details.