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.
PCOer Morten Morland writes for Bloghorn:
I was going to write a post on cartooning during what journalists call the silly season. It would have been about trying to perform when most meaningful politicians are on holiday and the papers are full of exclusives such as “Brendan from Bradford can blow bubbles with his bum”.
I intended to begin with the useful opening: “Spare a thought for...” – and follow up with desperate descriptions of life inside a non-airconditoned studio while the rest of the world enjoys barbecue and beer in the paddling pool across the road.
I would go on to curse the party leaders for taking holidays despite knowing full well that cartoonists can’t work with the obscure backbenchers they leave behind.
I would wail about editors who demand that cartoonists continue to produce biting political satire, whilst allowing other commentators to meditate repeatedly on swimming trunks in the post-Blair era.
I was going to write all of that and more, but I won’t, or, rather, I can't.
Because as if by magic a couple of weeks ago, Foreign Secretary David Miliband suddenly cried “LOOK AT ME!” in the Guardian newspaper. He held a grinning press conference and went on an autograph-signing walkabout with the press in tow. The blessed Prime Minister, who mercifully had chosen to take a good ol’ British seaside holiday, with all its rich, stereotypical visual language, was near-fatally wounded.
Then that pier burned down, giving us another day and a half of metaphorical meat. SATs results were published – incredibly badly. The credit crunch rolled on, house prices fell, the stock market slowed and Alistair Darling hinted haplessly at future bribes for voters.
Beijing is currently hosting the Olympics under the slogan, Faster Imprisonment, Stronger Punishment and Higher Pollution – giving us all weeks of material about human rights abuse, protests and smog. And to top it all, Russian Prime Minister Putin and his little president have just found an excuse to start a war in Georgia.
And through it all, it's raining. Cold rain.
Silly season? Absolutely. Brilliantly silly if you’re a cartoonist.
But spare a thought for everyone else ...
Ed: You can see some of Morten's silly season work for The Times newspaper here.
It's British cartoon talent
A new Foghorn cartoon magazine from the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation is out now. If you would like to subscribe to the six issues a year please click the big blue button to your right, now.
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Showcasing British cartoon talent
Click on the banner above for a look back at some of the PCO’s recent artists of the month.
It's British cartoon talent
This morning, a BBC Radio5Live feature ran a feature on child pornographers using drawings to avoid the law on the distribution and viewing of obscene photography.
The presenter described such images as 'cartoons'. Perhaps he meant drawings or simple visual communication, or even art, but to be honest, the feature was so badly constructed it was difficult to know exactly what was meant.
However, the casual use of the term cartoon felt like the denigration of a trade; cartoon equals grubby, worthless, evil.
Clip available - 2hrs 22 minutes into Radio5Live for Wednesday morning - 28th May 2008 available on the BBC’s IPlayer.
Basically decent British cartoon talent
Our second cartoon from the PCO Artist of the Month for May 2008, PCOer Arthur Reid.
It's British cartoon talent
PCOer Martin Rowson writes about his time as Cartoonist Laureate to the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and wonders whether he'll survive the regime change.
I suppose that Ken Livingstone's defeat by Boris Johnson means that I'm no longer the Official Cartoonist Laureate to the Mayor of London, although I'm not quite sure. Somewhere in the bowels of City Hall, the Great Glass Testicle by the Thames, there is a contract, drawn up between the Mayor's office and me.
It was, I now freely admit, a joke. It was also a joke to remind Ken of his promise every time we met, and it remained a joke, after he was elected mayor in 2000, to browbeat one of his policy wonks at a party about his boss's failure to keep his promises. However, jokes are dangerous things, and a few days after the encounter with the wonk I got a call from Ken himself, saying we were going ahead, and that I was duly appointed as the Cartoonist Laureate for London.
The terms of the contract were pretty straightforward. I would provide drawings of the Mayor or of events involving him, the GLA and the administration of London, in return for one pint of London Pride ale per year. This, I stipulated, had to be bought by the Mayor with his own money over the bar of a public house during licensing hours. And that was more or less it.
At the time of my appointment in 2001, I got a great deal of press attention, mostly because neither the mayor nor the GLA had actually got round to doing anything else by that stage. I got invited to attend the opening of the new City Hall by the Queen, and produced what I think was my finest cartoon in the job, of "Red, White and Blue Ken" rolling his tongue out as a red carpet for the Queen to process down, with the Duke of Edinburgh behind her.
But by 2007, payment was, strictly, five years in arrears.
This didn't actually stop me voting for him and I still churned out stuff for GLA's in-house newspaper - The Londoner – up until February 2008. One of Boris Johnson's few palpable election promises was to scrap the paper, but even that wouldn't make me vote for him.
I'll 'fess up and say that I admire Ken Livingstone probably more than any other politician I can think of. His bravery in thwarting New Labour was a beautiful and inspiring thing, and both the Congestion Charge and the pedestrianisation of the North of Trafalgar Square were enormously brave too, in the latter case because nobody had been able to make a decision to do this for sixty years. But I hope that that admiration didn't constrain me from taking the piss when so inclined, even if, as things turned out, the beer that might have provided the piss dried up rather sooner than I'd hoped.
And as every workman is worthy of his hire, if Boris comes up with the goods, I'm more than happy to drink his beer and piss on him too. I await the call.
Bloghorn says click R for Rowson.
It's British cartoon talent
Here is a link to a nice video report on part of the cartoon festival. This was produced by journalist Richard Tisdale who works at the Shropshire Star newspaper. Thanks Richard.
It's British cartoon talent
Cartoon events are all about spreading the news of great pictures.
The festival organisers would like to thank, via Bloghorn, the many writers, bloggers and journalists who have supported the promotion of the festival and the cartoonists who make it.
It's British cartoon talent
Bloghorn would like to offer some applause to the official organisers and sponsors of the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival, as the main event weekend has just passed by. More than 40 cartoonists attended and with a little light herding they provided the public with a large range of activities over three days and at numerous venues.
We shall be publishing some reports on those activities and celebrating some of the art and entertainment from the Shrewsbury festival here on Bloghorn.
British cartoon talent
PCOer Wilbur Dawbarn drew this cartoon of last year's event for The Oldie magazine. Bloghorn has now left the digital arena to go to this year's event.
British cartoon talent
"Cartoonists always go cheerfully and happily straight to the heart of the issue, or the trend, or the argument: they are wise, because they have seen the truth about life, which is that at the heart of everything there lies a joke."
Libby Purves, columnist, broadcaster and patron of the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival.
British cartoon talent
Caricature of Prime Minister Gordon Brown appearing in cartoonist Dave Brown's one-man show at this year's Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival. Cartoon courtesy of Dave Brown. Click to enlarge the image.
British cartoon talent
One of PCOer Mike Turner's contributions to the "But is it Art?" show running at the Shrewsbury Festival.
British cartoon talent
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
The curator of the UK's national Cartoon Museum Anita O'Brien has contributed an exhibition to the Shrewsbury festival this year. This cartoon from Steve (Bestie) Best is one of the many on show now. You can click the cartoon to see a larger version.
British cartoon talent
Bloghorn noticed yesterday that artist David Hockney has donated his largest ever painting to the Tate Britain museum in London. The enormous picture is called "Bigger Trees Near Warter" and he's made a pun in the title. It's a play on words with a small village in East Yorkshire. This art behaviour is bit like that made, day-to-day, by cartoonists.
Some of our own oversized art talents will be big boarding at the Shrewsbury cartoon festival in a couple of weeks time. The picture here should help explain exactly what they will be doing and Bloghorn will be publishing the full list of the participating PCO cartoonists soon.
Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival Big Boards
British cartoon talent
Six exhibitions of high-quality cartoon and comic art opened at the Shrewsbury festival yesterday evening. All free to enter and available to all, are the But is it Art? cartoon show and a one man show for Dave Brown of The Independent. The national UK Cartoon Museum has lent a collection for display and there is also a caricature show and contributions from cartoonists and artists from both Belgium and America.
British cartoon talent
Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival 18th-20th April 2008. The cartoon is courtesy of Dave Brown, who has a one-man show at the event. If you can't see anything very helpful immediately above this text - click here and download a free Flash player for your PC. If it's still not working for you, try using an internet browser that isn't Microsoft Explorer :) This link is handy for a different, and often better, choice
British cartoon talent
The new issue of the super soaraway Foghorn cartoon magazine, written by and about Britain's professional cartoonists and joke makers, will soon be available. If you commission artwork in your working life you can get a free copy by clicking the button to your right.
British cartoon talent
