Music cartoon: Changing the mood

"One of my songs has been used in a major advertising campaign, so I'm afraid I no longer have the blues."

This can be seen in the new issue of the PCO's Foghorn magazine, which features cartoons on the theme of "We're all in this together" (think Tory Party slogan, rather than High School Musical). This will be the final issue of Foghorn -- more on that here.

Restaurant cartoon: Bon appétit

I don't get my cartoons in The Oldie too often, but this small portion of captionless humour is on the menu in the March issue.

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Newspaper cartoon: Court out

This was drawn for an article about a court replacing stenographers with a system where proceedings are digitally recorded and transcribed on computer later.

I liked the "Facebeak" joke, but I was concerned that some might not be familiar with the slang term "the beak" for a magistrate or judge (as in "up before the beak"). But I took a "you can't please all of the people" approach, and went with it.

The rush towards doing everything digitally does seem crazy. Just because we have the technology, does everything have to be digital? This move, inevitably, involved laying people off, and the paper couldn't find one person who thought it was a good idea, or that it would be a better way of doing things. It's "progress" for the sake of it. Add your "Luddite" and "old fart" comments below.

Topical cartoon: The buzz phrase

"How come we never get invited to these extreme weather events?"

Listening out for "buzz" words and phrases is a key part of being a cartoonist -- there are often jokes in them.

"Extreme weather event" is a phrase that seems to have entered the lexicon of forecasters over the past year or so. It just sounds to me like a party I never get to attend. This is one of two cartoons of mine in the current issue of Private Eye.

Here's a photo of the kind of weather event we've been enjoying here in east Kent this week. The same forecasters, with their love of hyperbole, have been calling it "The Big Freeze". We used to call it winter.

Out of office cartoon

When asked to provide cartoons to accompany trade magazine articles, I find it's often the small details I pick up on. This accompanied an article about the new National Civil Business Centre, part of the county court system.

What caught my eye was that the centre is in Northampton in name only, as it's linked to their court, but it is physically located in Salford. It put me in mind of people who are at work but in their minds are somewhere else. We've all been there.

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Prospect cartoon: Post haste

"I refuse to be pigeonholed."

The February issue of Prospect magazine features an article about the Post Secret project, which this cartoon sits alongside. As usual, this was just coincidence and I had no idea they were planning that when I sent it in. This kind of thing has happened before and I wish it happened more often.

Here's a blog post I wrote a while back on the talking-object cartoon. I don't do that many, I think some mags are probably not keen on them, but they are fun to draw.

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Law cartoon: Impute vs Infer

This cartoon, which pastiches the work of the pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, which was itself a pastiche of comic art, recently accompanied an article in a law magazine.

It was about the legal problems involved in separations with "cohabitant" couples. The difficulty appeared to be trying to establish what the parties' intentions had been, as there was no marriage contract, and the fine legal definition as to whether these were inferred or imputed ...

Yes, I was lost too! But I think I got enough of a gist of the topic to come up with the right cartoon. A law firm has just bought a colour print of it, so I suppose I must have.

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Beat the Cartoonist: Vote now

"Accurs'd stag nights!"
"This is the last time I volunteer to be a designated driver!"
"Hey, you at the front, no smoking in first class!"
"I don't know what you're all laughing about. This is the tumbrel."

These are the captions for Beat the Cartoonist on the Reader's Digest site. Click here to vote for your favourite. As usual, there are three from readers plus mine. Do your worst! Or your best, if you like.

See all my Beat the Cartoonist gags here.

History cartoon: Scott of the Antarctic

"I'm just going outside ... you can follow me on Twitter."

It's exactly 100 years since Robert Falcon Scott led his men on their ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. It's a story of British heroism and bravery in the face of terrible odds, and subject matter for many flippant and disrespectful jokes ever since.

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Gag for the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival

"I hope you're not planning on flying close to the sun?"

This week I submitted cartoons for exhibition at the 2012 Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival, the theme of which is "Flying". This is one of them.

Festival events take place through April and May. The main weekend of free activities, now known as Cartoonists Live, which includes live drawing, workshops, talks and caricaturing, takes place from April 20-22. Visit the website for more.

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New year cartoon: Happy 2012!

I do a lot of Christmas cartoons, as we have seen, but not so many New Year ones. This was drawn for the current issue of a law magazine

Some context: CPD stands for continuing professional development. Lawyers, and other professions, have to do a certain number of CPD hours in a year, and giving lectures counts towards them, as does attending conferences, getting articles published etc.

It was continuing professional development for me too: I don't think I've used Photoshop effects to draw fireworks before, and they came out pretty well, I think.

Happy new year, everyone!

Beat ye Cartoonist

One of my cartoons is the Beat the Cartoonist image in the January Reader's Digest, allowing readers to write their own captions then vote on the best.

Click here to take part.

And you can see my previous Beat the Cartoonist entries here. So far I have won three and lost one ...

Another year over: My 2011

As tradition dictates, it's time for the round-up of my cartooning year. So here are my highlights of 2012. This is not a round robin OK, as I haven't sent it directly to you and it doesn't contain details of my daughter losing her first tooth this year (although she did ...)

I went to the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival as usual, my sixth visit. I drew a Big Board, knocking out a olden-days version (you had to be there) of an early cartoon of mine. I'm now in the process of coming up with cartoons on a "flying" theme for the 2012 festival.

"I must say, your explanation of the offside rule was most pertinent."

Being part of the Private Eye at 50 exhibition was definitely a highlight of 2011, along with the accompanying opening night and, a week later, the "Golden Jubilee" bash at the Guildhall, left.

I visited the Eye offices for the first time this year, which was fun, as part of a PCO team presenting them with an award. Here's the report at The Bloghorn.

Painting a board for the Great Wall of Ramsgate, above, a public art project, was very rewarding. The wall got a great reaction from the local community. Below is a picture from the Isle of Thanet Gazette, when the wall picked up the local Town Image award.

OK, it looks a bit like The Great Wal Lof Ramsgat3, but you get the point. That's me putting the R in Great. Ahem. Click to enlarge, if you like.

As well as the Private Eye show and the Shrewsbury exhibition, I had cartoons in several exhibitions: Marriage a la Mode at the Cartoon Museum (one of which was picked for a BBC preview, below); the Chris Beetles Gallery at Nunnington Hall; a Spectator cartoon exhibition in Mayfair; and even Henley Regatta. Not forgetting the Post Nude exhibition in Whitstable.

I usually pick out some favourite cartoons of the year, so here goes: I liked this one. It was actually drawn in 2010, but it appeared in print this year.

"Hey, that one looks just like a visible mass of condensed water vapour floating in the atmosphere."

I was looking through the Private Eye at 50 book last week, which Father Christmas brought me, and was surprised to see this cartoon in it. It's about the size of the nail on my little finger, but it's there! It's in a photo of the magazine being put together.

This one, from Reader's Digest, is also a favourite and is probably the one I got the most positive reaction for in 2011 ...

Talking of public reaction ...
I achieved a long-held ambition in 2011: I made it to the letters page of Private Eye, thanks to the Doctor Who cartoon on the left. But unlike most reactions to cartoons, this was neither pedantry nor outrage.

Here are some jolly cartoonists on a cartoon jolly! The Cartoonists' Club organised a great trip to the West Country. Here's a few of us giving our best cheesy grins at Cheddar Gorge (geddit?!)

And finally ... regular readers will know that I published a book of my cartoons this year. In order to sell them I have gone ON and ON (and, indeed, ON) about it quite a lot on this blog, not least with the "Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book" links at the foot of most posts. It was great to get the book out there and it seems to have gone down very well, so I can't promise that I won't keep doing it. At least until the next one's out.

So, happy new year all. And if you haven't done so already Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book in 2011!

Cartoon advent calendar: Day 24.It's the taking part

Here's the final advent calendar cartoon. This was my Christmas card this year, and like the drawing from day one, the gag was in the Christmas issue of Reader's Digest.

I picked this as the final one as it looks forward to 2012. Thanks for reading and a merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all!

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Cartoon advent calendar: Day 23. Making a list

Today's advent cartoon is another from the Christmas Private Eye.

I did one similar to this a few years ago, which didn't sell, where he had three lists: Nice, Naughty and Misunderstood. But it seemed right to rework it this year in the light of the riots across England, after which people were searching for reasons for young people going on the rampage.

"Alienated" and "disaffected" were words used by Tony Blair in a post-riots speech.

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