Hello, we moved at the start of the month and now live here. This means we won't be regularly updating here anymore but you can subscribe to our email updates by using this form below. The Bloghorn is run by the UKs Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation.
From the 12th January, the Bloghorn will be updating its news from the UK's professional cartoonists at a new home. This will mean we shan't be updating here anymore, and if you bookmark, or, subscribe to any of our services in the right hand column you will need to adjust your preferences from the new site.
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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Nathan Ariss is our featured artist for January 2009.
Well, thank you for asking me to be your Artist of the Month dear Bloggy. As your January 2009 pin-up, it falls to me to inject a tone of – dare I say it? – optimism into the current credit-crunchy world of the freelance cartoonist. Yes, traditional markets may be shrinking, commissions and spirits appear to be down, and doom and gloom seem to scour this land, but perhaps the New Year is exactly the right time to look to the best that the future has to offer and positively set about embracing it. With that in mind may I wish us all a very happy, joyous and prosperous New Year!Nathan works as a cartoonist and illustrator, has been published in Private Eye, The Spectator, Slightly Foxed and Business Executive (BEX). Other work includes book and album illustrations and covers, school text books, advertising campaigns and greeting cards, as well as numerous private commissions.
Bloghorn is preparing to move home.
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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It's the start of the first working week of the New Year, so here's something very silly, and great fun, to cheer you up: Lego cartoons. That's not cartoons about Lego, you understand, but cartoons made of Lego.
US magazine cartoonist Mark Anderson re-created one of his own gag cartoons in Lego form, purely for fun last year. And he's just added another to his plastic-brick portfolio.
Whatever next? Steve Bell re-creating his entire oeuvre in Stickle Bricks?
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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The Bloghorn will be moving home next week.
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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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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Tayo Fatunla for the BBC World Service (Also, including Zapiro from South Africa).
Kipper Williams at the Guardian. The paper also offers a wide selection of art for the new year including Martin Rowson and Steve Bell.
Political cartoonist of the Year Morten Morland at the Times.
Pat Blower draws for The Daily Telegraph.
Matt Buck Hack cartoons for Channel 4.
And, Christian Adams of the Telegraph revisits the classic old and new year image.
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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PCOer Alex Noel-Watson reports on last year's version of one of the drawing things we have to look forward to in 2009:
Deep in the heart of the French countryside of the Limousin, in the department of Haute Vienne where characteristic tan-coloured cattle roam the lush meadows, nestles the village of Saint-Just-Le-Martel, near Limoges.
Saint-Just-Le-Martel could be described as the unofficial world capital of cartoons, thanks to the vision and energy of its mayor, Gérard Vandenbroucke, who 26 years ago started the annual Salon International de la Caricature, du Dessin de Presse et d'Humour.
The Salon runs for ten days at the end of September and beginning of October, and approximately 200 cartoonists converge upon the village from all over the world, 100 for the first weekend and the remainder for the second. A small number of cartoonists stays for the whole ten days. All the cartoonists who attend the Salon are happily billeted with local families.
The Salon is the biggest exhibition of cartoons in Europe, probably the world. The vast main exhibition, displaying cartoons from every imaginable country, is supplemented throughout the Salon site and beyond (in Limoges) by numerous others.
This year these included the historic works of Daumier, a presentation revealing the astonishing versatility of the veteran French cartoonist, Roger Mofrey, exhibitions by Brito, Avoine, Tignons, Kerleroux, Cambon, Puig-Rosado and others; caricatures by Nalair, a large display of caricatures by Sterpone, Moine and others in the main area; the Cartooning for Peace exhibition, conceived by Plantu and already shown at the United Nations in New York and around the world, most recently in Jerusalem, Hollon, Bethlehem and Ramallah; cartoons from Québec, Cuba, Turkey, Portugal and Germany.
Saint-Just, however, is not resting on its laurels. For a long time Gérard Vandenbroucke has nursed the ambition to build a permanent world centre of cartoons. This dream is nearing fruition. Two years ago, the first symbolic bricks were laid, and Gérard told me that construction will begin at the end of this year.
"There will be 18 months of building works and the centre will be officially opened in 2010," he said.
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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Reflecting on the future of cartooning in the digital age in our last entry for 2008, PCO Artist of the Month, Denis Dowland, writes:
Technological advances give with one hand and take with the other just like chancellors. I certainly do not miss the good old days of dragging heavy portfolios round studios, at or soon after lunch-time, to baffle brain-addled, red-braced juvenile yuppie editors, I'd better stop now, it's all coming back to me. I simply couldn't wait for the internet.
Now that video has virtually taken over the medium, however, the internet is swamped by infantile trash, taking us back to square one, if not further. This only requires an upgrading of our working methods, like the telephone once did. The threat I see as more insidious is the unstoppable drive toward the cretinisation of society as perhaps its only means of holding together, its naturally enthusiastic adoption by the mediocre and its resigned and guilty acceptance by those who do know better. Grumpy old git, moi? I love it.
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PCOer Clive Collins writes:
Some years ago I received a letter from the USA, from a lad of 14, who loved cartoons. He said he admired my cartoons (sic) and that he would dearly love to be a cartoonist, but that seemed an impossible dream, so might I oblige him with a small drawing, or signature, so he could compile a book of his heroes. I duly obliged and despatched a small signed self-caricature.
A couple of years later, and another letter arrived, from this same boy – who had remained miraculously 14 - with the same request. I ignored this one, and thought no more about it until, a while later, a package arrived containing 100 sheets of C5 blank paper, and a note stating that as I was obviously too busy, could I please pass round the sheets among my fellow cartoonists for them to do a drawing and/or signature for the book of cartoon heroes.
At this point I contacted cartoonist Mell Lazarus in the USA and asked him if he had ever heard of this boy. I could almost hear the acid laughter floating upon the water between us, when he replied that the ‘boy’ was well-known to American cartoonists, and in fact was a middle-aged lawyer who made quite a living, buying and selling original sketches and signatures at specialist auctions held all over the States. The Americans had given this guy the bum’s rush, and he guessed that now it was our turn. There was a son but he had grown up.
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PCOer Chris Madden writes:
The exact origins of Father Christmas (as opposed to Santa Claus) are lost in time: he was probably a pagan personification of midwinter, who put in an appearance around the solstice on December 21st. Indeed, he may well have been one and the same person as the old bearded man with the scythe and hour-glass, Father Time, who turns up at New Year, a week or so after Christmas is over (and once he’s slept off the sherry and mince pies). Father Christmas was a central character in Britain’s seasonal festivities long before Santa Claus joined in the celebrations. Santa didn’t really participate in the fun until the nineteenth century. However, once Santa put in an appearance he soon pushed the original Father Christmas into the background. Why? Because Santa was an American. Or, to be more precise, an American descendant of Turkish ancestry.
The original Santa Claus was Nicholas, a 4th century bishop of Myra in Turkey, who reputedly handed out gifts to children. (Very suspicious, if he were around nowadays there’d be a heavy police file and, possibly, an electronic tag around his ankle.) The bishop remained relatively obscure for fifteen hundred years or more until his star suddenly rose in the nineteenth century.
St Nicholas entered popular culture in the United States when, in 1809, the novelist Washington Irving (who wrote Rip Van Winkle) penned a satire on the Dutch culture of New York (a city that had a strong Dutch element in its history – so much so that it was originally called New Amsterdam). In his satire he referred to Saint Nicholas by his Dutch name of Santa Claus and portrayed him somewhat like an elfin Dutch burgher with a clay pipe.
A few years later, 1822, Dr. Clement Clarke Moore, a professor at a theology college in New York and the son of the Bishop of New York and his heiress wife (the family were so rich that the college at which Moore taught was built on their own estate), read Irving’s book and published a poem based on the Santa Claus character: “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” The poem became a great hit: you may be familiar with it yourself (or at least with its opening lines). It was in this poem that Santa first acquired his reindeer. Before this he had to make do, somewhat bizarrely, with an eight-legged flying horse.
At this point the Santa industry went stratospheric. With the poem as inspiration, the cartoonist Thomas Nast started to draw the first of what would eventually be more than two thousand illustrations for Harper’s Weekly magazine depicting Santa. Nast's early depictions of Santa showed a rotund gent of quite serious demeanor, becoming more jovial over the passing years. This Santa was closer to Washington Irving’s version than the usual stern bishop of previous tradition. Nast also gave Santa his headquarters at the North Pole and his army of toiling elves.
Here's Nast's first depiction of Santa, from Harper's Weekly of 3rd January 1863 (which also included another, much smaller illustration of Santa by Nast).
Judging by this illustration you may think that Santa's wearing a rather festive outfit, festooned with Christmas stars - however, if you look at the original drawing you'll see that he's sitting beneath a Union flag. The suit - with its starry jacket and striped trousers - represents this flag. If the illustration had been in colour the jacket would have been blue (I bet you assumed that it was red), reflecting the colour of the ground behind the stars on the flag, while the trousers would be red and white stripes. Nast was essentially a political cartoonist - and in political cartoons wrapping a character in a flag to signify their allegiance is quite common.
At the time that Nast created the illustration the American civil war was in progress. Nast was on the Unionist side. The puppet in Santa's hand bears an uncanny resemblance to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate states of America whom the Unionists, or Federal states, were fighting.
It was essentially Nast’s imagination that gave us the Santa that we know today – except, that is, for his red coat with white trim. Santa reputedly wears a red and white outfit because they are the corporate colours of the Coca Cola Corporation, who enlisted Santa to promote their fizzy drink in the 1930s. The Coke ads were created by an American commercial artist of Swedish ancestry, Haddon Sundblom, who modelled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice, chosen for his cheerfully rotund features.
So it is that Santa Claus doesn’t actually come from the North Pole but from New York city, and he doesn’t date from the birth of Christianity two thousand years ago but from the early days of capitalism in the mid-nineteenth century.
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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The festive season is upon us, so this week Bloghorn has a bulging sack full of Christmas themed cartoons...
One: Simon Bond in Private Eye: 'City Christmas Tree 2008'
Two: From Tony Holland in the Spectator, the credit crunch hits the Twelve Days of Christmas
Three: Christmas tree dressing at Number 10 for Peter Brookes in the Times
Four: Martin Rowson in Tribune shows the Three Wise Men investing poorly
Five: The Guardian asked artists, singers and comedians to "reinvent" Santa Claus, including Gerald Scarfe
Six: Royston Robertson in Reader's Digest on good health at Christmas
Seven: Patrick Blower has a Livedraw animation on media-savvy shepherds
Eight: Will "Wilbur" Dawbarn in Reader's Digest on the season of goodwill in a bad neighbourhood
Nine: Matt "Hack" Buck in Tribune on the non-jingling tills
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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PCO Artist of the Month Denis Dowland, tells Bloghorn about some of his cartoon influences: "A good gag's a good gag so I am not so particular about graphic styles. I think the great majority of cartoonists, and I don't even mind being counted as one of them, come up with at most a handful of works that will stand the test of (short to medium) time.
"Bill Tidy, McLachlan and lots of people whose names I cannot even recall have done stuff I wished I had done, never mind Cruikshank. Larson, ubiquitous as he is, comes up with real beauties in my view, and I'm slowly working my way around claiming authorship of one or two of that chap Stott's scribbles as well. I have just seen Scarfe's exhibition and some of his caricature is jaw-dropping. Caricature is a discipline I have never attempted, I couldn't tell you why."
His top tip for aspiring cartoonists is: "Get a job. I am not a good role model for any aspiring artiste (sic). Some young people want to become cartoonists for the same reasons they'd want to be pop stars. It's a pose one can strike without bothering to learn a craft. This is of course a reflection of my own middle-age views and experience. I would try to inspire young people to embrace neurology, astrophysics or history or any scholarly pursuit instead. Boring old prat, I know. I love it."
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Back in November we blogged about the PCO's team for Transports of Delight – a cartoon banner competition held at St Pancras rail station in London as part of the The Big Draw.
Well, now you can own a piece of cartooning history as the four banners in the competition (from The Guardian, The Independent, Private Eye and the PCO) are being auctioned off on eBay, with all proceeds going to the Campaign for Drawing, a charity whose purpose is to promote drawing as a tool to support learning, and cultural and social engagement for all ages and abilities.
Hurry though, if you do want to make a bid, as the auctions end on the evening of Monday 22nd December!
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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Spotted by PCOer Morten Morland and with a handy translation.
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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Following on from his look at the weird and wonderful work of Fletcher Hanks, PCOer John Jensen takes another trip back to the comic books of the 1930s and 1940s with the focus on his native Australia
"The Case of the Haunted Piecrust", "Wocko the Beaut", "Supa-Dupa Man", "Speed Umplestoop" and "Tripalong Hoppity" – all of these and many more funnies fell out of the wonderfully zany mind of cartoonist Emile Mercier.
A panel from "Wocko the Beaut", courtesy of Lambiek.net
Mercier was born in New Caledonia in 1901. Twenty years later, in Australia, he began his career as a freelance cartoonist. During the Second World War, the bulk of his work, the comics, appeared in an array of Frank Johnson Publications. Johnson encouraged Australian talents and his publications developed a character and liveliness which set them apart – sometimes for the better, sometimes not – from the many US imports which which were dumped in Australia, usually as ships' ballast, during the war.
Due to wartime paper restrictions, Johnson was forced to reduce the size of some offerings: Star Pocket Comics ran for at least 14 issues, successful in spite of some issues being printed on brown wrapping paper. The same paper shortage brought forth a decree that there would be no new regular runs of comic books.
Johnson resorted to cunning to deal with the situation. His regular characters continued to appear each month but each issue bore a new title: King Comics, Amazing Comics, Gem Comics, Slick Comics, Bonzer Comics, Flash Comics and more. When imagination failed, the word "new" was tacked to an old title and the process began over again. Mercier's work appeared in most of these issues.
Mercier was a people watcher but the people he watched, ordinary everyday Australians, were transformed into creatures of his eccentric universe. Occasionally in the background of a cartoon someone would be walking around with springs on his or her feet, or on stilts or jumping around on pogo sticks. His characters' feet quite often sagged at a ninety-degree angle half way along the sole of the foot. Dogs, cats and boozy types abounded. Mercier's cast list was very Australian.
I met Mercier just after the war, and I asked him for his definition of a good cartoon. "A good cartoon, sonny, is one that is accepted, published and paid for," he said. You might argue with this definition but for me it was heart-lightening.
A few months after our meeting I took my first comic strip, "Mary Mixup, Female Spy Terrific" (by Jon J) to Frank Johnson Publications where, to my amazement it was accepted and published. My mother, who hated comics, wouldn't have them in the house. When I took home my copy of Gem Comics No.27 with "Mary Mixup" within, Mum took it, tore it and threw it away.
John Jensen's "Chester Nutte" was published in Gem Comics, circa 1947
In spite of this, other titles followed, such as "Chester Nutte", a time traveller, above, and "Snooper McDroople, Ace Newspaper Reporter". Mercier's drawing never influenced me but a little of his humour rubbed off. The strips improved a bit over the twelve months I worked on them and there were strips for other comics publishers too, but "Mary Mixup" was an abomination.
Frank Johnson wanted to withhold payment because the drawings were so bad. I remembered what Mercier had told me, and squeaked: "If the drawings are good enough to publish, they are good enough to be paid for." A voice from a neighbouring office said, "Y'can't argue with that, Frank."
Johnson paid up – eventually. I think he was so traumatised by my demand that he continued to use my work, and pay for it ... eventually.
Bloghorn says click J for Jensen.
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