Skiing cartoon: Downhill from here

"Fancy a swift one?"

While we're on the subject of alcohol-themed jokes, anyone fancy another? This is a "what happens next" visual joke, not something I do a lot of, and took a while to get right.

I have never been skiing, and have no plans to take it up. I'm more interested in the other leisure pursuit shown here, so I also spent quite a bit of time making the pub look cosy, like the kind of place I like to be in on a cold winter's day.

This cartoon is one of two of mine in the Christmas issue of Reader's Digest. It was taken in the early part of this year but they saved it until the weather got cold again. It's appropriate now as much of the UK is covered in snow, though not here on the Kent coast, as usual, to the disappointment of my kids.

Royston's portfolio website

Cartoons in 'Ink and the Bottle' exhibition

I've got a couple of cartoons in the above exhibition at the Cartoon Museum in London. Neither are quite as colourful as the Donald McGill cartoon above, because they're the original ink drawings that were later scanned and coloured, using Photoshop, for Reader's Digest.

Here's one of them, a spin on a well-worn theme ...

"Bloody students."

As you've probably gathered, all the cartoons in the show are on a drinking theme. I saw it last night and it's very well put together, covering the good and bad points of Britain's favourite leisure activity.

The exhibition is not chronological, instead cartoons are linked by different aspects of the theme. It's fun to see how many similarities there are, despite the different times, between Ally Sloper, Andy Capp, and Viz. Go see.

UPDATE: The Radio 4 discussion on the Ink and the Bottle exhibition is online: Listen here

More HMV dog cartoons (scroll down).