Blair cartoon from The Times by PCOer Morten Morland

The advent of statistics recording visits to web sites has allowed web publishers to see exactly which pages readers head for. Unsurprisingly, many have embraced this technology to show you – the reader – which pages are most popular.

So, I ask you to go to The Times website. Scroll down. No, you don’t have to get past the Great Pay Wall of Murdoch to do this – no small denomination payments are required. Look at the “Most Read” list of sections which are – as you might guess – the paper’s most popular click-through reads.

Of course, I don’t know when you’re reading this but I bet you that coming in the top three with a bullet will be “Cartoons”. I have checked assiduously for the past several weeks. “Cartoons” has been at or near the top spot for almost all of my visits (many times at Number One).

As I write, I am not chastened by the fact that nestling at number 2 is “Top Ten Chinos”.Well, a chap’s got to look the part while perusing the best of cartoon art online. Standards, you know. (Of course, if you want to actually look at the cartoons, you WILL have to pay at this point).

It’s a subject close to the hearts of us cartoonists. The popularity of The Times’ cartoons is, of course, not unrelated to the fact that they boast two fine cartoonists in Peter Brookes and Morten Morland, together with legend-inna-lifetime Gerald Scarfe at the Sunday title.

But it’s not just that. Readers love cartoons. We know that. It’s such a pity that this simple fact doesn’t prevent culls of cartoonists to cut costs at newspapers facing hard times. It seems counter-intuitive to us. For example the loss of almost all cartoon content from The Observer recently was mourned widely. So Bloghorn says hats off to the wildly good taste of Times readers.

Peter Brookes, political cartoonist for The Times, makes the art of political cartooning look easy. Watch a master at work in this short film. Absorb and weep, dear reader.

Bloghorn notes: As The Times have recently started charging to view its website, to view the above link you will have to register – prices are £2 for a weekly subscription or £1 for a day’s access. However, they are offering a free preview for a limited time – you can sign up here.

Alex Hughes reports.

You may have not noticed, but there’s been a general election in Britian recently. And a general election means it’s open season for the political cartoonists, so here Bloghorn presents a brief summary of the events of the last month or so in cartoon form, starting at the beginning of the election with Dave Brown of the Independent on the runners and riders and the Guardian’s Martin Rowson on the approaching media obsession.
During the campaign The Guardian’s Steve Bell talks about drawing at the manifesto launches, the Sky debate, and drawing Nick Clegg, Peter Mandelson and David Cameron (and the cartoon that came from this).

The TV debates may have changed the direction of the election, but they were seen differently by Tim Sanders in the Independent, Dave Brown, Peter Brookes of the Times, Steve Bell and Paul Thomas of the Daily Expesss,whilst Morten Morland of the Times produced a series of short animated responses to each of the debates (ITV, Sky, BBC).

The debates lead to widespread Cleggmania as seen by Stephen Collins in Prospect, Matt in the Daily Telegraph, Martin Rowson and Paul Thomas, and the inevitable media backlash as satirised by Peter Brookes and Dave Brown.

Gordon Brown made what was probably the biggest political gaffe of the campaign by calling a member of the public a “bigoted woman”; Peter Brookes, and Dave Brown, Mac of the Daily Mail, Paul Thomas provided their own takes on Bigotgate.

The election night itself inspired Tim Sanders and Matt, but as we now know it resulted in a hung parliament, as shown variously the Sun’s Andy Davey, Dave Brown, Matt, Peter Brookes, Paul Thomas and Mac (and even a hung parliament themed game), Gordon Brown’s departure as seen by Nick Garland and eventually the Con-Lib coalition Christian Adams, Tim Sanders, Morten Morland and Martin Rowson.

Looking forward to the challenges for the new Government were Harry Venning’s Clare in the Community and Kal in the Economist, and looking back, Bloghorn’s very own Matt Buck produced a series of  weekly despatches for the Guardian from the 1710 campaign as seen by Tobias Grubbe (2, 3, 4, 5).  The Times produced a 9 page comic summary of the election campaign available for download here (PDF, 7Mb).

(“Keep Calm and Cameron” cartoon by Nathan Ariss).

The Editor adds: We are bound to have missed many other great examples of cartooning so please do feel free to add things you have seen in the comments. Thanks.

The Beauty of Maps: Cartoon Maps – Politics and Satire is part of a season of map-themed documentaries currently running on BBC4, and features Frederick Rose’s famous octopus map of Europe and an interview with Times cartoonist Peter Brookes. Hurry though, the programme is only available on the BBC iPlayer until tomorrow…

News reaches Bloghorn of a couple of British cartoonists revealing the tricks of the trade. Firstly there’s The Times‘ Peter Brookes explaining how he’ll be caricaturing the party leaders in the upcoming General Election. On drawing the current Prime Minister:

With Gordon Brown I’ll start with the hair, increasingly grey and much more coiffured these days. Then come the heavy, angry eyebrows above creased eyes, one unsighted because that is the unfortunate reality. The nose is short and stubby, with a flat base. The fleshy-lipped mouth is open in that odd gurning movement he makes with his jaw as he speaks. The ears are large, round and red. There are deep marks on the cheekbones that, with the bags under his eyes, give him that knackered, saturnine look, particularly when I add a blue-grey wash for five o’clock shadow. Sometimes I think I’ve just drawn Nixon.

Secondly, from the other end of the British cartooning spectrum we have Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons demonstrating, with video, how he goes about drawing a character digitally using a Wacom Cintiq tablet and Manga Studio software.

Of course, if you would like to see cartoonists demonstrating their skills in the flesh, we would heartily recommend you head to this years Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival, 22nd to 24th April 2010. But, if you can’t make it in person, we’ll be providing full coverage here on Bloghorn.

Peter Brookes has won Cartoonist of the Year at the British Press Awards. Brookes, who draws the daily comment cartoon for the Times newspaper as well as the Nature Notes feature for the Saturday edition, was presented the award by John Humphries at the Grosvenor House Hotel ceremony yesterday.

Thanks to the Press Gazette for the image above from their slideshow of the event.

Bloghorn notices that when political cartoonists pick the same targets, they often pick the same jokes, or at least variations on a similar theme.

This can be seen in the national press today as three heavyweight cartoonists give their take on Lord Goldsmith appearing before the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war.

One: Peter Brookes in The Times suggests he was leant on

Two: Steve Bell in The Guardian thinks pressure was applied

Three: Dave Brown in The Independent on suggests arm-twisting

Of course, all these cartoonists are working at the same time, operating under the same time pressures – there’s no suggestion of copying! – which makes it all the more a fascinating insight into the way cartoonists’ minds work. Thanks to Andy Davey for drawing it to our attention.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
Subscribe to The Foghorn – our print cartoon magazine

Jonathan Pugh, self-portrait above, who has been pocket cartoonist at The Times for 15 years, is moving to the Daily Mail.

A member of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation, which runs the Bloghorn, Jonathan takes over from Ken Mahood who is retiring. The Mail has a profile of Jonathan, in which he outlines his working process:

“My cartoons have always been about everyday life, so they’re gentle and not nasty. I like to address the things that affect the quality of readers’ lives. The simplest jokes are always the best.”

Read more here

The Daily Mail has announced that pocket cartoonist Ken Mahood is retiring. Mahood, who next year will celebrate his 80th birthday, has drawn news and sports cartoons for the Mail since 1982. His first cartoon was published in Punch in 1948, a magazine for whom he was later Assistant Art Editor, and in 1966 became the first political cartoonist on The Times.

As we reported yesterday evening, Peter Brookes of The Times won the Political Cartoonist of the Year Awards for 2009. His colleague Morten Morland completed an excellent evening for the News International print title by winning best single image for a drawing of Gordon Brown and President of the US, Barack Obama.

The Times has coverage and Morland writes here too.

This post was corrected for a glaring misidentification of the US president at 12.26pm 11th December.