PCOer John Jensen watches a conversation with Posy Simmonds and Steve Bell and finds them to be cartoon chalk and cheese

Posy Simmonds and Steve Bell, both satirists but so different from each other and both so good, were brought together at Kings Place, London; the Guardian’s new glass and glister home.

Posy Simmonds at work, with not a computer to be seen

On stage in front of a full house in a modern theatre there was some amiable bumbling about. Drawings were not easily found, one was left at home. Posy leaning down to scrape sketches and sketchbooks from the floor. It was all comfortingly, mythically English.

Informally chaired by the Guardian art critic William Feaver, the event brought forth snippets of interest: Steve, for example, claimed he can’t invent characters. He must caricature, and fortunately politicians just present themselves. How does he do it? He Googles a lot, takes photos at party conferences, and of anything of interest anywhere, and the whole lot is piped onto CDs: “I’ll show you my family snaps if you like.”

Posy does invent. Brilliantly, of course. No caricatures. She is meticulous and possesses the sharpest eye for detail and ear for dialogue of any living person. Posy is like one of the nurses she sometimes draws in her strips, smiling and saying, “This won’t hurt a bit”, as the needle slips in deep. Her patients awake stunned to find a whole landscape peopled with characters of the artist’s imagination but who remind us of everybody we have ever met and more than a few we would cross the road to avoid.

Excerpt from Tamara Drewe © Posy Simmonds

She uses no computer. Reference material is is stored in Posy’s retentive memory but, as back up, much is filed away. Posy treasures many clothing catalogues so that if shoes from, say, the 70s are wanted they can be found with a simple indoor search. (Just great if you have the space.)

A miniaturist in drawing production, Steve thrashes and whacks about in his same-size-as-printed space using a sharp pen as the bluntest of instruments. His strip “If …” is drawn in the morning and “the Big One”, his political cartoon, during the afternoon.

Guardian Comment cartoon © Steve Bell

He claimed that that day’s deadline [the event was last Monday, April 6] was 7.30pm and he started work on his big political only by 6.30pm. That was pushing it a bit and I suspect is not entirely typical. However, it may help explain the occasional uneven nature of his work. When inspiration flags (not often) it shows, but when (usually) he is on form you can hear the cries of pain all the way from Whitehall. Posy’s work is leisurely, lucky woman, and probably timeless.

Steve’s voice, unsurprisingly, is resonant – good timbre – particularly when giving a maniacal cackle at something which amuses him. Posy, is quiet even when speaking but is also crystal clear. She is slim, was dressed smartly in a black trouser suit, as cool as you please. Red shoes. I don’t remember the colour of Steve’s shoes but his belly is potting nicely,
thank you.

Two great talents together on top of their form on one fine evening. The Guardian’s Kings Place entrance currently sports an exhibition of Posy’s drawings and strips. Go!

Link: Posy Simmonds speaks about Tamara Drewe

Congratulations to Tom Young, our winner of a pair of tickets to see cartoonists Posy Simmonds and Steve Bell give a talk on Monday 6th April at Kings Place in London. Tom’s winning entry was;

Posy Simmonds excels at storytelling because…

…instead of choosing a tired dystopian theme for a graphic novel, she chose Thomas Hardy instead.

Simmonds’s last work was Tamara Drewe which is loosely based on Thomas Hardy’s novel Far From the Madding Crowd.

Bloghorn freebie: Spot on

Win a pair of tickets to an evening of cartoon, caricature and graphic satire with Posy Simmonds, Steve Bell and Bill Feaver at Kings Place in London.

All you have to do is impress Bloghorn by making the best addition to the following proposition in the comments underneath this post;

Posy Simmonds excels at storytelling because…

If you would rather not post publicly, you can email Bloghorn with your line – please put Posy Simmonds in the title line of your email.

Bloghorn will pick the lucky winner of the pair of tickets on Friday at noon.

Posy, Steve and Bill are talking on Monday 6th April, at 7pm at Hall One, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9AG. The nearest Tube station is Kings Cross and Kings Place is 5 minutes walk north on York Way close to Crinan Street.

Cut and paste the N1 9AG postcode into the search Google maps for the exact location.
Google Maps

Win or don’t quite win this time, tickets are also available online for £9.50 at Kings Place.

The nominations for the Press Gazette’s British Press Awards have been announced. The event takes place on Tuesday 31 March. There are seven people in the running for Cartoonist of the Year, and they are as follows:

Steve Bell, The Guardian
Dave Brown, The Independent
Michael Heath, The Mail on Sunday
Stan “Mac” McMurtry, Daily Mail
Matt Pritchett, Daily Telegraph
Chris Riddell, The Observer
Peter Schrank, The Independent on Sunday

The British Press Awards have been running for more than 30 years. This year’s ceremony is being held at the Grosvenor Hotel and will be hosted by Channel 4’s Jon Snow.

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.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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The reader’s editor at The Guardian news organisation writes in response to critical correspondence about some of cartoonist Steve Bell’s editorial cartoons.

Gordon Brown cartoon by Morten Morland

The Political Cartoon Gallery’s Tory Blues exhibition has now closed so, in the interests of balance, attention is turned to the Labour Party.
Browned Off! A cartoon exhibition on the first 18 months of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, opens at the gallery on Wednesday (January 21) and runs until March 14.

The show will feature Britain’s top political cartoonists, such as Peter Brookes, Steve Bell, Dave Brown, Nicholas Garland and Christian Adams, and include PCOers Martin Rowson, Morten Morland, Andy Davey and Matt Buck.

Gordon Brown cartoon by Andy Davey

The Political Cartoon Gallery, at 32 Store Street, London, is open Monday to Friday 9.30am – 5.30pm and on Saturdays between 11.30am – 5.30pm.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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Published here by The Guardian. Steve Bell will be appearing at the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival in April 2009.

Preparations for the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival 2009 are well under way.

This year’s festival theme is The Science of Nature to coincide with the town’s year-long celebration of Shropshire lad Charles Darwin’s birth. This year also coincides with the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book On the Origin of Species.

The Guardian’s Steve Bell will be exhibiting his unique take on “Anthropomorphism”; expect monkeys, Dubya, penguins, Blair, Brown and more.

There will be an exhibition of historical science cartoons from the nineteenth century that Darwin himself is likely to have have seen. These have been borrowed from collections at the University of Kent at Canterbury, the British Museum print room and the National Cartoon Museum. Curation is by Adrian Plant at the Shrewsbury Museum and is underway now.

And there will be a visiting exhibition from internationally regarded Czech cartoonist Miroslav Bartak who draws jokes from the miracles of modern science.

A spokescartoonist for the organising committee offered Bloghorn this quote:

“The funding is, as ever, as tight as grandma on the absinthe, but the all-hands-to-the-wheel attitude of the stout yeomanry on the ground will bring a fat ray of sunshine into next April’s showers. The festival weekend is the 24th-26th April 2009 although the exhibitions will run through April.”

Bloghorn would like to urge any commercial enterprise interested in associating their name with the potent mixture of large crowds, extreme levity and high seriousness to contact the organisers from here.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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Prince Charles is 60 years old today – Steve Bell, one of the cartoonists at The Guardian, offers a present.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent