To commemorate Charles Darwin’s bicentenary, cartoons for the sixth Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival are on a science and nature theme.

Over the next few days, Bloghorn will be publishing a selection of cartoons submitted for this year’s Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival, which starts on Thursday. This year’s festival is the sixth and celebrates the bicentenary of Charles Darwin.

Cartoon © Tony Husband

The BBC Magazine website has an interview with cartoonist Tony Husband, in which he talks about his drawings celebrating the humble village hall. The cartoons are the fruit of his ongoing tour with performance poet Ian McMillan, which we covered here on Bloghorn last September.

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

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.

Prospect magazine has launched a new Cartoonist of the Month feature, as part of its First Drafts blog. And PCOer Clive Goddard is the first to offer an insight into the world of cartooning.

An exhibition of political and satirical cartoons goes on display at Bath Central Library from this Wednesday (April 1).

Many of the 50 or so cartoons are rare and will not have been seen before. They include caricatures of Bath during its Georgian heyday by Thomas Rowlandson (creator of Bath Races, above, from 1810) images from Christopher Anstey’s 1766 New Bath Guide and modern cartoons which satirise some of the city’s current woes.

The show, which runs until April 12, has been organised in partnership with the organisation Bath in Time and the Bath Comedy Festival.

It takes place at Bath Library, The Podium, Northgate Street, Bath BA1 5AN. Opening times are: Monday 9.30am – 6pm; Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 9.30am – 7pm; Friday and Saturday 9.30am – 5pm; Sunday 1 – 4pm. (Closed Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday.)

Prints will be available to buy from the library. Many images are from the Bath In Time archive which can be viewed at www.bathintime.co.uk

More exhibition news:

An exhibition of Posy Simmonds’ original artwork from the 1970s to the 1990s will be held at the new offices of Guardian News & Media, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London. It will run from this Friday (April 3) until June 4. The gallery is open daily from 10am – 6 pm and admission is free.

And…in later news despatches…

Cartoonists Kate Charlesworth & David Shenton exhibit ‘Drawn Out & Painted Pink’ at the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art (GoMA) from April 9th – June 7th 2009 Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow 0141 229 1996. Opening Times: Please check Gallery of Modern Art, current at time of posting: Mon – Sat 10am – 5pm; Sun 11am – 5pm