Drawing for RD at the V&A

Much fun was had last Sunday at the Battle of the Cartoonists, part of the launch of this year's Big Draw, at the V&A in London. That's me, centre, above, with Steve Way, left, and Rob Murray, working on the Reader's Digest banner. Also on our team were Simon Meyrick-Jones and Nathan Ariss.

We were assigned the Raphael cartoon The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, so we drew a bunch of characters around an approximation of it – thanks, Steve! – some reacting to it, some not so much.

As usual, the drawing surface was horrible and the pens were smudgy, but the results have a certain scruffy appeal. Here's a few of the bits I drew.

Yes, I drew a Dalek, purely to appeal to the kids! It seemed to do the trick. And I make no apologies for the Salvador Dalek groaner.

See lots more post-Big Draw stuff at the Procartoonists.org blog here, here, and here.

Afterwards we ate, drank and got a little too merry, as is required at these things. Oh, and we didn't win. Private Eye won. Private Eye always win.

(Thanks to Ger Whyman and Nikki Harries for the photo).

Going into Battle once more

This Sunday I'll be taking part in the Battle of the Cartoonists at the launch of The Big Draw at the V&A in London at 2pm.

I took part, on the Procartoonists.org team, in 2008, at St Pancras International, and in 2010, above, at the Hays Galleria. I had planned to sit this one out but at the last minute another team was needed so Reader's Digest was asked to form one and I was asked if I wanted to take part.

The full list of teams is: Private Eye, Reader's Digest, The Sun, The Telegraph, The Guardian/Observer, Big Girls Drawers and Procartoonists.org. The seven teams will be tasked with coming up a comic response to seven cartoons (the non-funny kind) by Raphael. And we don't know which one we'll get until minutes before we start!

See the full list of cartoonists taking part here. To see more about the launch, which this year is called Big Draw, Big Make and runs from 11am-5pm, go here and download the programme. Come along and, er, nod approvingly ... apparently there's no clapping or cheering allowed in the Raphael Room!

Photo courtesy of Denis Dowland

Battle of the Cartoonists 2010

Well, the PCO/Foghorn magazine team put together a cracking banner for the Battle of the Cartoonists at the Big Draw on Saturday, but we were pipped at the post in the "cheer-o-meter" by Private Eye.

I've written a full report on the day's fun and games over at the Bloghorn. Pictured above, with the banner, are, left to right, Cathy Simpson, Ian Ellery, myself, Robert Duncan and Nathan Ariss. Thanks to Denis Dowland for the photos.

The theme was "Make your mark on the future", and here's one of my cartoons:

Royston's portfolio website

Doing battle at The Big Draw

This weekend I'll be taking part in the Battle of the Cartoonists, part of the Big Draw Festival in London.

I'm on the Professional Cartoonists' Organisation team and we'll be competing against teams from Private Eye and The Guardian. The idea is that each team produces a banner on the festival theme of "Make Your Mark on the Future".

This year we're at The Scoop, an ampitheatre close to City Hall, aka the Greater London Assembly building, and Tower Bridge on the South Bank. The Battle takes place on Saturday between 3.15pm and 5pm. Voting is by public approval, so come along and cheer for us! There will also be workshops for cartoon enthusiasts of all ages.

I last took part in 2008, that's the banner we came up with above. That event took place at the revamped St Pancras station, hence the train tickets motif.

Appearing on TV's Eggheads tomorrow

OK, I said I'd remind you nearer the time: I can be seen on the TV quiz show Eggheads tomorrow (October 29th) at 6pm on BBC Two.

I'll be appearing with a group of fellow cartoonists from the PCO. Our team is called, logically enough, The Cartoonists. It was that or something naff like "Drawn to Quizzing"!

The Cartoonists, seated left to right, are: Chris Burke, who was on the subs' bench but will not be seen on the show, Alex Hughes, myself, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson.

I would say wish us luck, but of course I already know how we did! The show was recorded on January 29th, which means it will have had a gestation period of nine months to the day.

Royston's portfolio website

Cartoonists on TV's Eggheads

You may, or may not, remember that I mentioned on this blog back in January that I took part in a recording of the TV quiz show Eggheads with a group of fellow cartoonists from the PCO. Well, we finally have a broadcast date.

Thursday 29 October is when the show will go out on BBC2. It's still a few weeks off, so I'll remind you nearer the time (the date has already changed a few times, so it may do so again.)

Pictured above are our team, left to right, Chris Burke, our sub in case any of us fell prey to sudden illness (or stage fright), Alex Hughes, myself, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson.

On the back row is presenter Jeremy Vine, second left, with the Eggheads, CJ de Mooi, Barry Simmons, Daphne Fowler, Chris Hughes, Kevin Ashman, and Judith Keppel, who was the Eggheads' sub on this show.

On each edition of the show a team of challengers are pitted against the Eggheads, who are all quiz specialists. Between them they have won most major TV and radio quizzes.

And no, I can't tell anyone how we did. Sworn to secrecy, and all that!

Royston's portfolio website

Big Draw banners up for auction

Remember the Professional Cartoonists Organisation banner which we created at the Big Draw back in November? Well, the Campaign for Drawing, which runs the event, has put it up for auction on eBay.

The other "Battle of the Cartoonists" banners, by the teams from Private Eye, The Guardian and The Independent, are also for sale. All profits go to the Campaign for Drawing which, like any small arts charity, is always in need of extra funds.

In a press release, the campaign says:

"Six for the price of one! Individually signed cartoon strips by the brilliant Pete Dredge, Robert Duncan, Royston Robertson and Kipper Williams. A series of cartoon scenes on over-sized train tickets look at the painfully funny side of travel. There are six classic jokes with great appeal for all who have suffered on British public transport. Irresistible to cartoon fanatics, train spotters – anyone with a sense of humour!"

So get your credit card out. You'll need a pretty big bank balance as well as a big wall though!

Royston's portfolio website

Big Draw at very big train station

Another Big Draw has come and gone. This time at the revamped (and very large) St Pancras International in London.

My role this year was to be one of the four cartoonists drawing a banner for the Professional Cartoonists' Organisation, on the theme of "Transports of Delight". We were competing in the Battle of the Cartoonists against teams from Private Eye, The Independent and The Guardian. So we were up against such well-known cartooning names as Steve Bell, Martin Rowson, Dave Brown and Ken Pyne.

My team-mates were Pete Dredge, who draws The Directors in Private Eye, greetings card maestro Robert Duncan (that's Rob and Pete holding the banner above) and Guardian business cartoonist Kipper Williams. We had two hours to draw the banner and it was the fastest two hours of my life. We came up with a series of single-panel gags where the frames were drawn to look like train tickets.


Left to right: Kipper Williams, Robert Duncan, myself and Pete Dredge

Voting was by members of the public, on a "who can cheer the loudest" basis and sadly we did not win. That honour went to the Independent, which was nice as the Guardian usually wins. We did get a lot of good feedback from the public though. The design of the banner was much admired, particularly as we were the only team that didn't go for the motif of a train careering off the tracks filled with politicians and City fat cats ...

Here are my gags from the banner (click to enlarge). We had planned to do one each but when we saw the banner we realised it was bigger than we thought! So we had to improvise and do one and a half tickets each, the second being a version of one I posted here just a few days ago.





See the full banner at the PCO blog

Royston's portfolio website

The Big Draw: Transports of Delight

Transports of Delight is the theme for the main cartooning event in the 2008 Big Draw campaign, which this year takes place at St Pancras International Station in London on Saturday (October 18).

The Big Draw is an annual, month-long campaign designed to get the nation drawing. I've taken part in the cartoon-based Big Draw events for the past two years, at Somerset House and Covent Garden respectively, and they're always fun.

This year, for the first time, I will be taking part in the ever-popular Battle of the Cartoonists, where four teams slug it out to produce the best 12ft cartoon banner. I'm on a team of four representing the Professional Cartoonists Organisation (PCO). My team-mates will be captain Pete Dredge, Kipper Williams and Robert Duncan. We'll be up against teams from The Guardian, The Independent and Private Eye.

The Battle of the Cartoonists runs from 3pm-5pm. The winning team is decided clap-o-meter-style – i.e. via vocal public approval, so please come along and shout for us!

There will also be workshops for all ages run by PCO members between 10am and 5pm. So that's the place to be if you want to learn how to draw cartoon characters, caricatures or comic strips.

Activities will take place in The Circle – second side entrance on St Pancras Rd and opposite the Gymnasium. I'm told that the dedicated area will be marked out with artificial grass and picket fencing so you can't miss us.

The Big Draw: Get involved

Royston's portfolio website

Review: Pont at the Cartoon Museum

I wrote a review of the exhibition Pont: Observing the British at Home and Abroad, which is at the Cartoon Museum in London, for the Professional Cartoonists' Organisation blog. Here it is:

It's probably asking for trouble to use the word "important" in relation to a cartoon exhibition, but it seems applicable here as Pont, who was known as Graham Laidler to his mum, is so often overlooked when histories of cartooning are written.

Also, these cartoons from the 1930s were clearly instrumental in helping to create the magazine cartoon as we know it today. And a tribute to their worth is the fact that so many are laugh-out-loud funny, even now.

Pont's The British Character cartoons, which appeared in Punch and make up a large chunk of the show, still seem to hit the nail on the head. Even the captions in themselves are funny: "Fondness for laughing at our own anecdotes"; "Passion for not forgetting the moderately great"; and, my particular favourite, "A tendency to leave the washing-up till later".

The drawings demand your attention, and repay you with lots of brilliant details. Look at that impatient left foot in the drawing above! In "Life in the Flat Above", part of the Popular Misconceptions series, we see every member of the family jumping up and down on the floor and clanging pots, but look closer and you see that figures in the paintings on the walls, including an elephant, are also jumping.

Laidler died at 32, a tragically short life, but what a groundbreaking legacy he left. The cartoon above looks like a 1930s precursor to the melancholy of Charles Schulz's Peanuts.

So it's an important show, but it's mostly just very, very funny. The exhibition, which includes a comprehensive and reasonably priced catalogue, is at the Cartoon Museum until July 27. Go and see it.

The Cartoon Museum website

The Professional Cartoonists' Organisation