Social-networking cartoon: Like or dislike?

Here's a gag about Facebook's recent experiments to introduce emoticons to express sadness, sympathy etc., rather than just providing the usual Like button.

I'm not sounding the death-knell of this blog with this cartoon but I think we have to accept that since the rise of the likes of Twitter and Facebook, there is more "conversation" happening on social-media than on blogs these days ... hence this is my first post of the month!

I will continue to post stuff here, seems a shame to stop after more than ten years, but you can also find me on Twitter and Facebook ...

Blogging cartoon: Now we are five

Amazingly, it's five years since I started this blog. I began it on January 31, 2004, and at first I really didn't know what to do with it. To be honest, I think I started it because it was what a lot of people were doing, and I kind of liked the idea of blogging.

So, a few months into the first year, the number of posts tailed off. And once I went full-time as a cartoonist, in August 2004, they almost stopped completely. Blogging took a back seat because I was in panic mode about being a full-timer for at least 12 months. Since January 2006, though, I've posted fairly regularly and now have a good idea of what I want to do with the site.

This is not the sort of blog where you get lots of news about what's happening in the world of cartoons. There are plenty of people that do that far more comprehensively than I ever could, and it's a very valuable service that they provide. Instead, this blog is simply about my little corner of the cartooning world.

Blogging gives me a more flexible way to talk about what I'm up to than the more static portfolio site. I look at the visitor stats from time to time, so I know that people do pop in fairly regularly. Your visits are much appreciated and I hope you continue to find reasons to come back occasionally.

Royston's portfolio website

Sex cartoon: What to do afterwards?

I was commissioned to do bunch of cartoons on the theme of relationships for a forthcoming book. Here's one of them. And, yes, it's yet another blogging cartoon. Surely the well will run dry on that theme soon?

As you can see, I've gone for that old comedy stand-by, the post-coital cigarette, to indicate that sexual congress has just taken place. But even as I was drawing the cartoon, I was thinking that it's probably a cartoon signifier that should be retired. It's difficult to know how else to suggest that they have just "done it", without the cartoon getting too graphic, but the post-sex fag does seem a bit dated. Maybe something else will take it's place. All suggestions welcome ...

Royston's website: clean family fun

Blogging cartoon on a cartooning blog

I've not had much time for blogging lately, so instead here's a recently published cartoon about blogging.

There are bloggers who, like the deluded fool in this cartoon, believe that people they know are hanging on to their every word via their blogs. But, of course, with a hundred gazillion other blogs to choose from, not to mention other websites and distractions, you can never assume that anyone gives a stuff.

Hang on a minute ... is anyone reading this?

Royston's portfolio website