Cosmetic surgery cartoon, more on "Keep Calm"

"Of course, there's a possibility that you are a swan, but do you want to take that risk?"

This cartoon is in the April issue of Reader's Digest. I referred to one of my kids' nursery rhyme books to get that sad-looking "ugly duckling" right.

The repeated caption, by the way, is for the benefit of those looking at this site on phones, who tell me that sometimes the words on the cartoons are not readable. I may go back and laboriously add all the other ones, when I have a spare couple of days ...



Talking of feedback, thanks to everyone who who emailed asking for a copy of the cartoonists' propaganda poster I posted here a couple of weeks ago, and everyone else who made nice comments about it, online and off.

It was really only intended as a joke, a riff on the original Second World War poster, I never intended it to be a "motivational" poster, as such. But it seems to have touched a nerve, and some people even found it inspiring, it seems.

Particular thanks to the following for linking to it: Jason Chatfield, Tim Harries, Mike Lynch, Chichi Parish, Cathy Simpson, The Surreal McCoy, and my PCO colleague Matt Buck who put it on The Bloghorn.

Royston's portfolio website

Propaganda poster for cartoonists

The Keep Calm and Carry On World War Two propaganda poster is proving to be a big hit, as a result of the economic downturn, according to the Guardian. So here's my version for cartoonists (above, click to enlarge).

It's not hard to see why people love the 1939 government poster, they're embracing the "Blitz spirit", refusing to let the credit crunch get them down. Here's the original:


But, as a cartoonist friend said to me recently, "Your whole life's a credit crunch when you're a cartoonist!" Like many self-employed people, cartoonists do find it tough-going sometimes, recession or no recession. You may not be selling enough gags, maybe not getting enough commissioned work ... it can get tough.

All you can do is keep calm and carry on, as the poster says, and hope that something turns up. It usually does. So in that spirit, I created my own version of that poster for all you cartoonists out there.

If you would like a non-watermarked version of my poster for your own use, contact me and let me know. You can put it on your blog or print it off and stick it on your wall ... stiff upper lip chaps and chapesses, noses to the drawing boards, we'll get through it!

Royston's portfolio website