Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival 2019

I drew a Big Board at the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival last weekend. That's me, above, with John Landers in the background. This year we were all indoors, at the Darwin Shopping Centre, a last-minute change as a result of so-called Storm Hannah. 

This is the finished board. Click to enlarge. The theme was "Animals" so I drew some animal-related cartoons with, inevitably, a Brexit slant. People laughed, always the hoped-for reaction, because I think everyone is quite exasperated by Brexit whether Remainer or a Leaver. It's not the first time I've done a board full of Brexit cartoons. Here's one from the Herne Bay Cartoon Festival in 2017. I may well do more, the way things are going ...

We made it to the Shropshire Star! Including a reappearance for my Dog's Pollocks cartoon, bottom. Click images to enlarge.

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Cartoon drawn for fun

I was approached to draw a cartoon recently for an event called the Whitstable Museum of Fun. They put out a call on Twitter asking for suggested themes for the cartoon.

Many, as you might expect, were about local issues relevant to Whitstable residents, but someone, apparently in New Zealand, said "How about a penguin sword fighting a unicorn?" Well, how could I say no?

The result is above. Click the image to enlarge. It was pinned up at the event and kids, who hopefully weren't too traumatised by the impaled penguin, use it as a jumping off point for their own "random" cartoons, drawn on Post-it notes (see below, click to enlarge). All good fun!

Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book, one of which has a penguin on the cover!

Animal cartoon: Do not adjust your monitor

"If you could have any super power, what would it be?"

An upside-down cartoon from the current issue of Saga.

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Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival 2012 flies by

"Take over, Number Two, I'm updating my Facebook status."

The Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival was held last weekend and was as great a success as ever, despite the presence of rain this year (we've been lucky in the past).

Above is a cartoon of mine from the Flights of Fancy exhibition, which can be seen at the Visual Arts Network gallery in the town's Market Hall until the end of the month (the exhibition then goes on to other venues, details here). I've got three others in the show, all original drawings (this is a signed print of a cartoon drawn for a PR company a few years ago, on the theme of "social not-working" in the workplace).

"Insert funny caption here ..."

This cartoon was used on the Reader's Digest stall at the festival, as one of the drawings for the Beat the Cartoonist caption contest on the Friday. They'd packed up for the day before I made it to the stall, so I've no idea what the public came up with, and the cartoon has not yet been published, so I'm not going to tell you the original caption.

I was not an official participating cartoonist this year, so I was able to get around and see more than usual, without having to worry about getting a Big Board painted. So this year I managed to get to the Reader's Digest talk by Steve Way, the cartoon editor, and Martin Colyer, the design director.

Cartoonists work in isolation and part of the fun of Shrewsbury, for us, is meeting the public and getting feedback for our work, which is hard to find. You don't usually get to hear anyone actually laugh at your gags. The Digest talk gave me that as they showed all the cartoons from the past year and I had 11 gags in those 12 issues. Martin put a few questions to me and, as readers of this blog will know, I'm always happy to yak on about cartoons ...

I'll spare you the pics of drunken, singing cartoonists this year, but here's one of Matt Buck and I (thanks to Nicolette Petersen) at the Humurals, where cartoonists do on-the-spot drawings to create an instant exhibition. Here's one I came up with, on the festival theme of Flying.

Lots of us involved in the festival, and others, were tweeting about #shrews12 throughout the weekend and posting pictures. You can see a round-up of lots of that here, and we've put lots more words and pictures at the Procartoonists.org blog. I'm already looking forward to next year's festival which, amazingly, will be the tenth.

Cartoon advent calendar: Day 22. Turkey talk

This pocket cartoon was drawn this week, to accompany a local paper story about a woman who keeps a turkey as a pet -- a spot of seasonal silliness!

The glassy eyes of the turkey, to indicate cuteness, were the result of looking at my son's drawings. He draws them like that a lot, a trick picked up from watching Spongebob Squarepants and Pokémon cartoons.

It's not too late to buy Royston's cartoon book for Christmas (2012)

Running cartoon: From Private Eye annual

"What are we running for? For me, it's Cancer Research this year."

The Private Eye Annual 2011 is in the shops, and I've got a couple of cartoons in it, including the one above.

This cartoon illustrates that submitting cartoons is often about timing. I drew it about a year ago but it seemed like the wrong time to be sending it out, as we headed into winter, and no-one would be thinking about "fun runs" any time soon. So I sent it in early 2011 and Private Eye took it, then used it in the week of the London Marathon in April.

Music cartoon: Whale of a time

"Forget whale song, I'm giving them some death metal."

I haven't blogged as much as I'd have liked to lately. This is due to a combination of things, one of which is that I've been busy lately putting together a book collecting cartoons I've had published over the years. More on that once they're back from the printers, but in the meantime here's another cartoon from current issue of the Foghorn, the magazine of the Professional Cartoonists' Organisation.

Royston's portfolio website

Cartoon from The Spectator Australia

Here Today: Chimps' Dinner Party

I only recently found out that there is an Australian edition of The Spectator, and that sometimes cartoons taken by the magazine will appear there. News has just reached these shores that this one was in an edition of the magazine last month.



I hope my friends in Australia won't be too offended that the first thing that sprang to mind when I heard that there was an Australian edition of The Spectator was the Monty Python "Bruces" sketch, set in the "Philosophy Department at the University of Wallamaloo". You know the one: "Bruce here teaches logical positivism and is also in charge of the sheep dip ..."



Royston's portfolio website