Cartoonist Stephan Pastis has used his newspaper comic strip Pearls Before Swine to take a very funny swipe at cartoonists who peddle what he sees as hackneyed and dated gags about subjects such as golf, henpecked husbands and "hot secretaries". Bloghorn says, feel free to voice your objections to either side of the argument in comments, below.
You can see the strip here. Thanks to Mike Lynch.
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
Strip by comedian and wannabe cartoonist Phill Jupitus
PCOer Neil Dishington reviews Comic Love, Phill Jupitus’s BBC Radio Four show in praise of newspaper comic strips
Apparently Phill Jupitus is a thwarted cartoonist.
Aren’t we all?
I should admit that he is not my favourite comedian, and I am not a particular fan of comic strips, as opposed to stand-alone cartoon jokes.
Much of what Jupitus had to say in his Radio 4 show seemed like a repeat of what most cartoonists talk about when they get together: lack of markets and indifferent editors.
The interviewees in the show were able to speak from strength – Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury), Steve Bell (If), Peattie and Taylor (Alex). But I always think that artists like this have become part of the establishment they lampoon. Is it just as easy to get stuck into royalty, celebs and the City of London when you are selling strips in umpteen countries around the world and your stuff is syndicated all over the place?
I do think Steve Bell has kept his integrity, but I wonder how much attention people pay to "cartoonists with attitude"? We, as a nation, do seem happy to accept bland publishable stuff as the norm.
I did like some of the comments by the cartoonists interviewed by Jupitus, such as Steve Bell’s call for a "missionary zeal" in making cartoons which have something to say. In contrast, I was not so keen to hear that the future of cartoons will be online.
Overall, I found the programme bland, smug and much of it decidedly familiar. A real time-filler. It was lazy broadcasting and lazy journalism.
And lo and behold, in the Guardian newspaper of July 22, an article by Jupitus retelling the same stuff as the programme, accompanied by a cartoon strip drawn by ... celebrity cartoonist Phill Jupitus.
Thanks for the review Neil. Bloghorn says click D for Dishington.
The BBCs Listen again facility is here - and the program will be online until Saturday 26th July.
Full-time British cartoon talent
As cartoonist-turned-comedian Phill Jupitus prepares to talk of his love of cartoons on the radio, PCOer Royston Robertson looks at some other celebrities who once wielded drawing pens
MEL CALMAN called his autobiography What Else Do You Do?, after the question that is so often put to cartoonists. In fact, there appear to be many cartoonists who not only did something else, but found that that occupation eventually made their name, to the point where the career in cartooning became a largely forgotten footnote.
It was only after the death of the comedian Bob Monkhouse that I heard that he had once been a cartoonist. And quite an accomplished one. He had worked for Beano publisher DC Thomson. 
A cartoon by Bob Monkhouse of PCOer Noel Ford, along with a photo of Bob working on that very drawing. Noel, who once worked with Bob at the BBC, assures us that he really did look like that weird in the 1970s
At about the same time, I read an article about the novelist John Updike and how he had been obsessed with cartoons as a child. Updike also tried his hand at being a cartoonist before coming to his senses and deciding that writing was the better path to take. It was certainly the more lucrative.
Another writer who has dabbled with cartooning is Will Self. Some of his work can be seen in a compilation of his newspaper and magazine articles called Junk Mail. The drawing is crude but some of the gags are pretty good.
BBC 6Music presenter Marc Riley, formerly “Lard” of Mark and Lard fame on Radio One, and an ex-bass player with The Fall, is another ex-cartoonist whose drawing was somewhat on the crude side. You may remember his Harry the Head from Oink! Comic. He also appeared in photo strips in Oink! He was the guy with the big nose.
Another former cartoonist is broadcaster Andrew Collins, also an ex-New Musical Express journalist, EastEnders scriptwriter, Radio Times film writer and general overachiever. He chronicled his love of cartoons and half-hearted attempts to make a living drawing owls and wizards for puzzle magazines in Where Did it All Go Right and Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, his bestselling memoirs of growing up in the 1970s and 1980s.
Talking of the NME, anyone who used to read the music paper in the early 1990s may remember a cartoon drawn in the style of Gillray called Dr Crawshaft’s World of Pop. But did you know that it was drawn by Arthur Mathews who went on to co-script the sitcom Father Ted?
So I suppose there’s hope for us all if we get disillusioned with the world of cartooning. Right, it's time to get back to the drawing board/typewriter/record decks …
Comic Love is on BBC Radio Four at 10.30am on Saturday 19 July.
The PCO British cartoon talent
Excerpt from a comic strip by comedian Phill Jupitus
Comedian Phill Jupitus hosts a programme called Comic Love on BBC Radio Four this week, in which he talks about his love of comics and newspaper strips.
An occasional cartoonist himself, he has produced a strip to go with an article promoting the radio show in the BBC's online Magazine. You can see it here: Seeing the world in four panels. A different strip and article can also be seen in the July 19 edition of Radio Times.
Comic Love is on BBC Radio Four at 10.30am on Saturday 19 July.
The PCO: British cartoon talent
An unlikely new trend appears to be emerging in the world of film: animated movies for grown-ups. Hot on the heels of the likes of A Scanner Darkly and Persepolis, comes Waltz with Bashir, which was in competition at the recent Cannes Film Festival. See the trailer above.
It's billed as an "animated documentary", as the Writer and director Ari Folman uses animation to depict his haunting but vague recollections of the 1982 Israeli Army invasion of Beirut which he took part in, incorporating also the memories of an old friend.
As film writers would no doubt say: Ratatouille, it ain't! But it's fascinating to see this medium used in this way.
It's British cartoon talent
If you perused the Sunday Times this week, you may have come across a couple of sentences that neatly sum up all that is wrong about the British attitude towards drawings that accompany words.
Cosmo Landesman opens his review of the film Persepolis, which is based on the graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi, with this paragraph:
"I must confess that I have always thought graphic novels were just comic books with literary pretensions. I casually dismissed them as a symptom of our culture’s increasing infantilisation; adults read books, children stories with pictures. Well, having seen Persepolis I’m happy to admit I was wrong."
Perhaps we can take heart from the last sentence – Cosmo has seen the error of his ways! – but it's a little depressing to think that anyone could have got that far in life with the attitude that words=good, pictures=bad.
Clearly the PCO has a mountain to climb. But, hey, we're wearing sturdy boots. Thanks to Rod McKie for drawing the article to our attention.
Let these people put pictures alongside your words ...
PCOer Adrian Teal (click to enlarge his Daniel Craig drawing, above) discusses the neglected art of the caricaturist:
If press cartoonists are feeling neglected, press caricaturists are feeling doubly so. The PCO is pursuing an admirable policy of singing the praises of the cartoon to anyone who’ll listen. The highly specialized trade of caricature is even more threatened, however, and I humbly submit that this noble profession should be given equal standing in the campaign.
Perhaps it’s the caricaturists’ fault. The standard (and standing) of British caricature has been in steep decline since the press lost interest in it after Spitting Image’s demise, and really good caricature is hard to find these days. Unless we can show the world how potent the art form can be, we will perish, and deservedly so.
When faced with something humorous and visceral, people often overlook the care and thought which has gone into a drawing. To a large extent – and I know I’m treading on a few corns here – cartoons are the fast-food of journalism; enjoyed briefly, and then discarded. But good caricatures have a staying power, which is lacking in pocket cartoons. They usually do not have the luxury of a caption to help them along. And the sheer amount of work which goes into them can be out of all proportion to the attention (and fees) they are given.
It is this kind of attention to detail, and plain hard slog, which marks the caricaturist out as the sturdy, muscular workhorse of cartooning, and I urge the PCO to help the journalistic world recognize his worth.
Thanks to Adrian Teal. Bloghorn says: Click T for Teal
UPDATED 28th April 2008: Some responses to Adrian’s opinion can be found in the comments section immediately under this edit
More British cartoon talent
Tim Harries running a cartoon workshop Click image to enlarge
Cartoon workshops are a key part of the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival, and PCO members Tim Harries and Andy Gilbert will be running two of them.
Tim will host a workshop called Create a Comic Strip on Saturday (April 19) at Shropshire Wildlife Trust, 2pm–4pm. This is aimed at children aged 8 to 12 and families.
Andy’s workshop is called Animal Antics and is aimed at younger children, ages 6 to 11. It’s designed to help them to draw cartoon animals. This workshop is also on Saturday, from 10.30am - 12.30pm, and is held at Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery.
Both are drop-in workshops and are free, with no need to book. Children must be accompanied.
There are other workshops at the festival plus a Cartoon Clinic, where budding cartoonists of all ages are invited to bring their work for a critique and some tips from the professionals. See the events section of the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival website for more details.
British cartoon talent
Cartoon by Punch cartoonist Pont. (Click to enlarge)
An exhibition entitled Pont: Observing the British at Home and Abroad runs at the Cartoon Museum in London from April 23 until July 27.
It features more than 90 classic cartoons about the quirks of the British by Graham Laidler, better known as the Punch cartoonist Pont.
The Cartoon Museum is at 35 Little Russell Street, London. It is open Tue-Sat, 10.30am-5.30pm; Sun 12pm-5.30pm. Admission: £4, £3, free to students and under-18s. Visit the Cartoon Museum website.
British cartoon talent
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