Photo by Sarah McIntyre

Unofficially a replacement for the UK Web and Mini Comix Thing , the organisers picked an impressive venue to debut the Expo, in a bright, spacious hall big enough to accommodate all 91 sold-out tables and a vast throng of eager punters.

The variety of work on show was excellent, and visitors could spend several hours going from table to table and still not see everything.

Talks also ran throughout the day, ranging from “The History of Comics on Film and TV” to a discussion of the term “small press” and what it means for creators. Unfortunately attendance for the Expo was low and it wasn’t until late afternoon that things picked up, by which time we had to pack up! It’s a new event though, so I’m sure there will be bigger and better plans for getting visitors next year.

Some excellent suggestions have already been made to this end, and hopefully the organisers will work with exhibitors to improve an event that already has good potential.

Personally, I enjoyed my first time as an exhibitor at one of these events. I debuted some new books, made pretty good sales and got to meet a lot of friendly comic creators and readers. Can’t ask for much more than that really, so I’m already looking forward to future conventions.

Spring has nearly sprung and so has the latest issue of Foghorn, the cartoon magazine of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation. In keeping with this issue’s musical theme, the magazine features an operatic cover by PCO’s Chichi Parish and is available to subscribers for the very merry annual price of £20 for six full colour issues.

What’s inside?

Noel Ford reminisces about his time as a guitarist in the Stormbreakers
Fellow guitarist Roger Penwill tells of  his love for the instrument
Tim Harries has a less than relaxing spa break
John Jensen gives us his musical memories
And you’ll find a full page of cartoons by the Surreal McCoy!

Plus…

…all the regular features - Buildings in the Fog, The Critic, The Foghorn Guide to…, The Potting Shed, Andy Davey‘s ‘Foggy’ strip and many more random acts of humour crammed in wherever we could find room.

You can read older issues of Foghorn online here, right up to our most recent issue.

In July we told you about the Superdragons and the involvement of PCO cartoonists Tim Harries and Gerard Whyman.

Tim created a dragon called “Scrum”, covered in rugby players, above left, and Ger painted “Shipley”, based on the city’s maritime history, and “Rodney”, above right, which was sponsored by Newport Gwent Dragons rugby team.

Tim works on Scrum, as Ger paints Shipley

Ger told the Bloghorn that all the dragons sold, raising a healthy £92,250: “My rugby one went for £1,900 and the ship design went for £1,300. Tim’s Scrum sold for £1,500.”

The biggest sellers were the Wooden Dragon, which went for £8,000, and Flagon Dragon, a Ryder Cup-themed one with Colin Montgomerie’s signature, which raised £6,100.

Sixty SuperDragons, as they are known, will make their debut in the South Wales city on Sunday (July 18). Cartoonists Tim Harries, above left, and Gerard Whyman, right, have spent much of the past two months putting colourful designs on a canvas that is somewhat different to a piece of A4 paper: a 5ft by 6ft fibreglass dragon.

Tim created a dragon called “Scrum”, covered in cartoon rugby players, and Ger created not one but two works: “Shipley”, based on the city’s maritime history (with famous Newportians past and present gazing from portholes) and “Rodney”, which was sponsored by Newport Gwent Dragons rugby team, and named after their Rodney Parade ground.

Detail from Shipley by Gerard Whyman

Ger told the Bloghorn that when work began at the end of April, he’d already had a useful experience: “The painting of a Big Board at the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival proved a useful dry run, as many artists were working in a communal space in a disused shop – renamed the Dragons’ Den for the duration – which was open to the public. So, as well as painting, I was fielding questions from interested visitors.

“I knew I was taking on a lot of work in painting two dragons and it felt a daunting prospect. The little A4 pencil sketches had to be transferred to a 5ft structure that had curves, contours and odd crevices – no mean feat! The satisfaction of completing them was immense. Now that the project is complete I feel slightly at a loss. It’s nice to have my freedom back but I miss the camaraderie of the fellow artists in the Dragons’ Den.”

Rodney by Gerard Whyman

Tim said: “I put a design together loosely based on the idea of Where’s Wally? I covered the dragon statue with cartoon rugby players and only one rugby ball, which the public would be encouraged to search for. It was much more time-consuming than I’d envisioned and occasionally frustrating (where’s the “undo” button? Aaagh!) It was a strain on the knees and I had a slight addiction to Sharpie pens due to overuse.

Detail from Scrum by Tim Harries

“The good points were working alongside lots of great local artists and illustrators, having a lot of fun actually painting and designing the dragon and seeing it finished, and getting a really good reaction from the public. Would I paint another one? Ask me again in six months when my knees have mended.”

The Launch of the SuperDragons Trail takes place at Newport’s Tredegar House on Sunday.

Left: Yorkshire Gothic by Michael Salter of Aardman Animation.

Spotted by Tim Harries.

The competition is similar to the readers’ caption competitions that were once so popular in Punch magazine, but with one major difference: instead of competitors being provided with a cartoon to which they have to think of a caption, it’s the caption that is provided and they must draw a cartoon to suit.

Noel’s entry from week three of the competition – “Honestly, I can’t take you anywhere” – was voted the winner

How did it start?
It was the brainchild of part-time cartoonist Chris Cooper (CLIB) and PCO member Ian Ellery. Chris originally wondered, in July this year, how different cartoonists would interpret a single cartoon scenario, and Ian suggested that, rather than a scenario, we should give the same caption to a group of cartoonists and see what they came up with. The idea was quickly taken up and what was at first intended as a one-off experiment, quickly became the popular competition that it now is.

Who can take part?
Anyone registered on the forum can have a go: full time pros, part-timers and people who aren’t cartoonists at all. We have had cartoons from people whose entry was the first cartoon they had ever drawn. The winners, so far, have come from a wide spectrum of full-time and part-time cartoonists. Apart from the fame and the kudos, the winner has to provide the caption for the next competition.


Tim Harries’ take on “Honestly, I can’t take you anywhere”

When does it take place?
Entries are posted on the forum between 12 noon on Saturday and 12 noon on Sunday. Voting takes place, using a points system, between 1pm Sunday and 6pm Monday. All entrants can vote and non-entrants can vote, too, subject to certain conditions.

How did you end up managing it?
Cynics might say it was the only way I can guarantee winning (twice!), but the truth is that, as a moderator on the forum, it was a natural progression. And, I’m also a control freak – so my wife tells me!

Why do you think it started?
Cartoonists are natural show-offs. We love drawing cartoons but we crave an audience. For the the new kids on the block it provides an opportunity to have their work viewed by a niche audience and to elicit comments from the more experienced contributors. For all of us it is an opportunity to draw whatever we like without editorial considerations. And, it’s great fun!

Tim Harries, Bloghorn’s Artist of the Month Tim Harries reveals the names of other artists who have inspired him:

I think my favourite form of cartooning is the newspaper comic strip and there are plenty of cartoonists in this field I admire. The worlds they created and the quality work they produced over decades is something I certainly envied and wanted to emulate. Charles Schulz’s ‘Peanuts’ and Reg Smythe’s Andy Capp were early favourites, and later on Bill Watterson’s ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ and Jim Meddick’s ‘Robotman’ became my comic strip obsessions.

Currently I enjoy Stephan Pastis’ ‘Pearls before Swine’ and Darby Conley’s ‘Get Fuzzy’. Outside of newspaper comic strips, I admire Peter Bagge, Jeff Smith, Kazu Kibuishi, Jamie Hewlett. Oh and Pete Dredge. And Roger Kettle. Really like Pete’s artwork and Roger’s writing. There’s loads more but it would get tedious…

And what does Tim think is the future of cartooning in the digital age?

I’ve certainly embraced digital cartooning. It allows me to work for clients all over the world. The other side of the digital age is of course the decline of print media, but with the advent of iPhones, Kindles, Sony Readers, the fabled Apple Tablet and all manner of future gizmos I think there’s a definite market for cartoons and comics in the digital age. It’s just a different way of delivering our content.

The tricky part is no doubt working out how we can get paid for our skills in an online world that expects everything for free. “Interesting times ahead”, as someone much cleverer than me once said…

Bloghorn thanks Tim for being our Artist of the Month for November.

Bloghorn’s Artist of the Month, cartoonist Tim Harries, gives his tips for would-be cartoonists:

• Keep practicing. Nothing wrong with copying other people’s work for practice if you want to learn, as long as you don’t try to pass it off as your own. You’ll find your own style as you progress.
  
• If you’re aiming to become a professional cartoonist, you’ll need to get yourself a web site and get yourself advertised. If you want to be taken seriously put your best stuff on there, not some sketches you did for Auntie Flo when you were 10. You can save that stuff for your inevitable blog
  
• Nearly all work is done via the internet these days – receiving and answering enquiries, sending roughs and final art, invoicing are all expected to be done online, so be prepared for this.
  
• Don’t miss deadlines. Clients don’t like it and probably won’t use you again. Simple!
  
• Develop a thick skin. If you’re sending cartoons anywhere speculatively, be prepared for rejection somewhere along the line.
  
• Also be prepared to diversify – there is work out there, but if you’ve got your heart set on just working in one field of cartooning “Right I’m only going to draw gag cartoons… about Aardvarks!” it may be a struggle, so the skills you learn producing gag cartoons, comic strips and humorous illustrations can be used in all manner of work – greetings cards, calendars, advertising, comic books, trade mags. Some may not be the glamorous ‘high profile’ gigs you’d like but they pay the bills.

Bloghorn will have one more week of thoughts from Tim next Friday, in the meantime,you can enjoy our Bloghorn Artist of the Month archives whenever you want.

Bloghorn’s Artist of the Month is freelance cartoonist Tim Harries. We asked Tim how he produced his cartoons.

Nearly all my work is done digitally these days. I say nearly, since I still produce my daily strip using traditional methods (in my case – pencils, Staedtler Pigment Liners, Pitt brush pens and a nice bit of paper!). The strip is something I could do digitally, but I quite like ‘keeping my hand in’ with actual pen and paper. It’s a good backup if the computer ever dies on me!

All my other work is done (technophobes look away now!) on Photoshop with my PC and Wacom Cintiq, which I upgraded to recently from the Intuos tablet. The Cintiq is a great piece of kit, well worth the cost if you’re serious about digital cartooning. After all these years of PC use, I’ve finally bought my first Mac, the 13in Macbook Pro, so will be eager to see how it performs.

There will be more from Tim here at the Bloghorn next week. Remember, you can enjoy our Bloghorn Artist of the Month archives at any time.

Our team came joint first with Private Eye in the Big Draw event in which four teams completed a large banner on the theme of “Now We Are Ten”, celebrating a decade of The Campaign for Drawing. They faced stiff competition from teams from The Sun and The Independent.

A banner year: The Bloghorn team was made up of, left to right, Andy Bunday, Clive Goddard, captain Pete Dredge, holding the cup, who oversaw proceedings, and Nathan Ariss

Work in progress: Clive and Pete get drawing. Click here, to see the full, completed banner

In a post-match interview, Pete told the Bloghorn: “Justice and victory at last for the PCO’s Battle of the Cartoonists’ team, albeit jointly with the Eye (Shurely shome mistake – Ed). What seemed like a clear-cut decision was mysteriously drawn out into a “cheer-off” head-to-head. And even then our clearly louder decibel reading was insufficient for us to be declared outright winners. A big draw indeed!”

Joint winners: The Private Eye team, left to right, Simon Pearsall, Richard Jolley and Ken Pyne, also a PCO member, with MC Andrew Marr, who is a patron of the PCO

But the event is not just about the glory of winning. PCO members Tim Harries, and Cathy Simpson were on hand to run drawing workshops for children and adults at the event, which took place at the Idea Generation gallery in Shoreditch, London.

Drawn to it: Cathy Simpson hosted a workshop for children

The workshoppers were ably assisted by The Surreal McCoy. All photographs here are by Gerard Whyman, who was on hand as the official PCO photographer.