The PCO at the Big Draw: update

The PCO is running workshops for all ages at the Big Draw event at St Pancras International Station in London on Saturday (October 18). If you’re interested in cartooning and fancy having a go, come along and get involved.

PCO cartoon workshops at the 2007 Big Draw

The workshop timetable is as follows: Paul Hardman – Who Do You Think You Are? 10am-11.25am; Chichi Parish – Time Travel, 11.30am-12.55pm; Robert Duncan – Drawing Near the Station, 1pm-1.55pm; Tim Harries – Creating First Class Comic Strips, 2pm-3.25pm; Terry Christien – On Track for Drawing Cartoon Characters, 3.30pm-5pm.

The PCO is strongly represented in the Battle of the Cartoonists (3-5pm) where four teams slug it out to produce the best cartoon banner, because not only does it have its own team but there are PCO members on each of the other three teams.

They are: Martin Rowson and Andy Davey (Guardian team), Ken Pyne (Private Eye) and Matt Buck (the Independent).

The Big Draw: Get involved

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent

Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival - But is it Art?

A contribution for the "But is it Art?" show from PCOer Ken Pyne. The show is currently being exhibited in Shrewsbury until the end of April. Click to enlarge the picture.

British cartoon talent

PCO Procartoonists - on cartoon art auctions

Is there a cartoonist in the house?
Well, very often, yes, there is. Last week, PCOers Pete Dredge and Mike Turner added themselves to the throng of medical types, trustees and the odd HRH(apologies to the Duke of Kent) at the plush, modern atrium of The Royal Society of Medicine for a charity cartoon auction. It was in aid of RESTORE Burn and Wound Research. Knowledgeable and charismatic auctioneer, Nick Bonham fired up the well-heeled audience. His instruction that it was the done thing on these occasions to double the catalogue estimate price of the cartoons was readily taken up by the eager bidders and the 50 cartoon lots were soon dispatched to new, loving owners with the charity £10,000 to the good. The cartoon above is one of Ken Pyne's, taken from the auction catalogue. Thanks to Pete and Mike for the report - a blogging first for both Mr Dredge and Mr Turner.
British cartoon talent

PCO Procartoonists - October 2007

October was a mixed month for the PCO, we received an official vote of thanks for our work at The Big Draw which we attended during October - and also some anonymous comment. The official feedback ran something like this;

"We’ve received nothing but praise from our partners, sponsors and the public. Our hosts reported that this was by far and away their best event of the year." And as the hosts were the management company who run Covent Garden in central London, we were quite pleased about it. Bloghorn is still digesting the anonymous comment but promises to post something about it soon.

Much less happily, we also had to hear about the death and burial of Alan Coren, one of our founding patrons and a man who had always enjoyed and promoted the art of visual joke-making.


Caricature by John Roberts.

You can listen to a News Quiz tribute to Alan here and PCOer Ken Pyne is also quoted in the local Cricklewood news coverage of Coren's passing - alongside an obituary cartoon.

British cartoon talent

PCO Procartoonists - The art business by Ken Pyne

PCO member Ken Pyne writes:

I went to a recent exhibition and overheard a cartoonist humbly thanking one of the organisers for lowering themselves to include cartoonists with 'proper' artists.



It is this Uriah Heep attitude I have heard over the years from cartoonists that keeps us down, and while it exists among us, we cannot easily complain about how badly we are treated as a profession, if we are going to do this sort of thing ourselves.

For God's sake we need to show some bloody self worth now and again instead of just whingeing in pub corners!

Bloghorn says click P for Pyne and a fine selection of to-the-point cartoons.