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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The PCO will be working at the Big Draw event held in the Eurostar terminal of St Pancras Station in central London today - Saturday 18th October 2008.
The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
Following on from our post last friday, Bloghorn noticed Blue Peter, the Beeb's long running children's TV show, has launched something called Comic creator, which you can find here.
Handmade British cartoon talent
No, no, we are all Banksy!
The Mail on Sunday has outed the identity of the mysterious and elusive grafitti artist. He is, allegedly, called Robin and he went to to a nice school. It’s a shame the paper couldn’t bring itself to talk about what Robin of Banksy draws because the message is meant to be more important than the medium - or the artist.
We’d like to encourage everyone reading here to claim to be Banksy too and then, perhaps, we can confuse the Mail on Sunday and help the artist retain his desired wealthy anonymity.
Named British cartoon talent
Clive Goddard is the PCO Artist of the month for July 2008. Bloghorn says click G for Goddard.
British cartoon talent
Gerald Scarfe at work in his studio. Photograph by Linda Nylind
Cartoonist Gerald Scarfe is the subject of this week's Portrait of the Artist questionnaire in The Guardian.
The PCO: British cartoon talent
PCOer Martin Honeysett has won the Kyoto International Cartoon Competition for a piece of art on global warming. Fellow member Ross Thomson placed third. You can see a full report on ther work and the stiff competition they faced here. Bloghorn says Click H for Honeysett and T for Thomson.
It's British cartoon talent
The New York Times reports Google will back exclusive cartoon content for entirely digital distribution this autumn. The search company have a deal with Seth MacFarlane, creator of the American animated series, Family Guy, to produce fifty cartoon shorts. MacFarlane describes the work as "animated versions of the one-frame cartoons you might see in The New Yorker, only edgier."
The cartoonist will also create the built-in and drawn advertising in the products.
British cartoon talent
Clive Goddard is the PCO Artist of the Month for July 2008.
Clive's work regularly appears in Britain's satirical and current affairs magazines, Private Eye, The Spectator, Prospect and The Oldie. He has also drawn for The Times and the New Statesman.
He is, perhaps, best known for this work drawing and illustrating the Dead Famous series of books, for the children's publisher Scholastic.
Bloghorn says click G for Goddard.
The PCO: British cartoon talent
Cartoonist Rupert Besley is the PCO artist for June. Click the image to enlarge. You can see Rupert's other Artist of the Month images by clicking his name, under "Labels" below. And don't forget to click B for Besley.
The PCO: British cartoon talent
One of the problems in being able to express yourself through drawing is having your work "borrowed" or "passed off" as the product of someone else.
This is an occupational hazard if you draw to make your living, but it is irritating. Actually this is theft because traditionally, full-time, commercial artists and cartoonists sell the rights to publication of their work. This business model is destroyed by free and easy copying.
The Bloghorn is going to highlight particularly bad examples of this as and when they turn up. To illustrate this intent, here is a link to an example of image theft from early in 2007. It comes from the blog of Matt Buck and concerns the work of fellow member Andy Davey. There was some interesting follow-up to the actual theft of Andy's images and fellow PCOer Morten Morland blogged about that.
The PCO: Full-time, professional British cartoon talent
Cartoonist Rupert Besley, the PCO artist for June has a history of producing large colourful cartoons on travel and tourism. Bloghorn says click B for Besley. Click to enlarge the image.
Get away and find British cartoon talent
The BBC has embraced the talent of Aardman animation, makers of Wallace and Gromit among many others, to make the titles for their coverage of the European football championships, which are starting this weeeknd. If you watch the video from the Beeb here, you'll see what a key role traditional drawing and cartoon skills can play in making the moving image. Strangely enough, no one seems to have felt the need to draw former England manager Steve McLaren.
More than qualified British cartoon talent
PCOer Rupert Besley is our artist of the month for June 2008.
Besley has been widely published for over 20 years. Most of his detailed watercolour work has been in providing illustrations for schoolbooks, educational publishers and business presentations in need of charm and direct communication. But he has also supplied gag cartoons for many books of cartoon jokes, often focusing on travel and holidays inside Britain.
His postcard art is notorious, especially if you’ve had an experience of the weather in Wales, or the midges in Scotland. He has also been published in a large number of magazines including Country Talk, The Oldie and Country Life. Resident on the Isle of Wight, he is, naturally, a chronicler of all life there and had a one-man exhibition - Island Fling - recently.
Bloghorn says click B for Besley.
British cartoon talent
Here is our last portfolio piece from Arthur Reid, our cartoonist of the month for May 2008. Bloghorn runs examples of artwork from the PCO's membership every Friday morning.
See some more British cartoon talent
Please note that the PCO's members' portfolio website is currently down for technical work. We will have it online again soon. Apologies for any inconvenience.
UPDATED: Friday 23rd May. The folio site is now back online - apologies for the inconvenience.
PCOer Arthur Reid has more than thirty years experience as a cartoonist. A graduate of Gray's school of Art in Aberdeen, he has contributed cartoons to many magazines and newspapers including Punch, Private Eye and The Oldie. He is a winner of numerous awards for visual joke-making and has also served as a judge at several international festivals, including Knokke Heist in Belgium.
The best 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
PCOer Tayo Fatunla reports a recent book signing and launch of his illustrated book Black History - Our Roots at A+B Books in Brooklyn, New York during February. Bloghorn says click F for Fatunla for more on Tayo and his work.
British cartoon talent
PCO cartoonist William Rudling on the joy of painting.
This is another sneak preview of submitted work for the Is it Art exhibition from the forthcoming Shrewsbury cartoon festival.
British cartoon talent
