Cartoons in living colour

A lot of my cartoons are black and white linework, so here are some recent examples of full-colour published work.

Click any image to enlarge.

Law Society Gazette cover, illustrating an article on how to use LinkedIn.

Cartoon for The Critic magazine.

The Broadstairs Beacon features a cartoon by me in each issue.

From Saga Magazine.

A company Christmas card.

Cartoon for Mischief Comedy, the people behind The Play that Goes Wrong

Book cover illustration.

Doctor Who cartoon from the late, lamented Reader's Digest UK.

A Private Eye Christmas card.

And finally, here's one you can print and colour yourself! From the Professional Cartoonists' Organisation's Great British Colouring Book

Click here to buy Royston's cartoon books

Humorous illustration: No punchline required

Humorous illustration is slightly different to joke, or gag, cartoons: you use a funny or odd scenario, usually to illustrate an article in a magazine, newspaper or website, without necessarily having a punchline, as you would in a joke cartoon.

Sometimes these are wordless or they may have words within them as part of the drawing, but they generally don't have a caption or speech bubble.

Here are some examples from the Law Society Gazette.

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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 ...

Exhibition cartoon: Ideas man

"Sure, I came up with fire and the wheel – but you're only as good as your last idea."

This original drawing is in a selling exhibition of cartoons in my native North Yorkshire, although as I live 275 miles away I probably won't be going to see the show.

The exhibition, Three Centuries of Cartoon Art, is organised by the Chris Beetles Gallery of St James's, London, but will be held at Nunnington Hall, near York. A colour version of the cartoon was in Prospect magazine in 2008.

You can see the full exhibition online here.

Prospect Cartoonist of the month

“Sure, I came up with fire, and the wheel, but you’re only as good as your last idea.”

Hop over to the Prospect blog if you've got a few minutes, as I am Cartoonist of the month for April. Woo-hoo!

Royston's portfolio website

Life imitating cartoons. Part 3

"I don't think 'discrimination against lazy people' is a valid claim"

Time for another in my occasional series of cartoons that predict the future. And I think this must be the best one yet.

The evidence, above, is a cartoon from a careers textbook on the subject of job interviews from 2007. It accompanies a chapter called Equal Opportunities Issues. Ha ha, look, I made a ridiculous joke! That could never happen!

Fast forward to 2010 and we have a news story which broke this week: The word "reliable" in a Jobcentre advert was removed as it "may discriminate against the unreliable".

I'm beginning to think I should work for a think tank as a "futuroligist". Check out my previous posts in this area:

Life imitating cartoons. Part 1

Life imitating cartoons. Part 2

Biology cartoon: It's only natural

This is one of four cartoons I submitted for the "Science of Nature" (working title) exhibition which is part of the 2009 Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival. The festival takes place from April 23-26, though the exhibitions will open before that.

As 2009 is the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and he was born in Shrewsbury, the festival has a Darwin-related theme. The organisers suggested that "Science of Nature" be interpreted widely though, presumably so they weren't inundated with too many "Ascent of Man" gags.

This is a cartoon that I was touting around some months ago. It has got a great reaction from everyone I've shown it to, but the magazine editors have not bitten. I suppose it is a bit of a weird one, it doesn't look like your usual magazine gag cartoon. Maybe they don't want people to turn the page and suddenly think they're reading a textbook on sexual reproduction.

Royston's portfolio website

DIY cartoon: Fun with flat packs

Here's proof that even old, tired, neglected and rejected cartoons can find a happy home, somewhere in this big ol' world of ours ...


Thank you Dr Flat Pack! He's in Australia, wonder if he's a flying flat-pack doctor?

Royston's portfolio website

Desert island cartoon: A personal milestone

The desert island is probably the most well-worn gag-cartoon scenario. I've drawn a few over the years, though not that many. But I think this is the first one to appear in a newsstand magazine, which must be some sort of personal milestone, I suppose.

It is one of three cartoons by me in the November issue of Reader's Digest. I was surprised to see so many used in the one issue, though obviously I was also pretty happy about it!

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

Animals cartoon: What's in a name?

I spent an inordinate amount of time deciding on the names for the animals in this cartoon, which can be seen in the October issue of Reader's Digest. Click the image to enlarge it.

They had to be fairly ordinary names, the type that people have, rather than the names people give to animals. Yet it still took time deciding which one would be Pete, which one Trish, etc. Thinking up names for characters in single-frame cartoons is always tricky because they have to work just once. You can't come up with a name that the readers will get used to over time, as with a comic strip.

By the way, if I know you personally, and you have the name of any of the animal characters above, please don't take offence! Any similarity to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental. I just thought I'd better point that out.

Royston's portfolio website

Cat and dog cartoons

Over the years I have done many cartoons on the subject of cats and dogs, including the one above which was in Private Eye in 2004. So when I came to do a revamp of my portfolio site recently I decided to create a gallery exclusively consisting of cat and dog cartoons from various publications, for all you pet lovers out there.

Here it is: Cat and Dog Cartoons. Enjoy (I hope no one's allergic?).

Chav debate: Cartoonists don't have to be nice

Here's a cartoon I drew last week to illustrate an article about new words in the Oxford English Dictionary, including slang phrases such as "muffin top". For those who don't know what that means, well I hope it's obvious from the cartoon.

As you can see, I have depicted characters that you might, in the current British parlance, describe as chavs. I sometimes do this in cartoons as a shorthand for a loutish or yobbish person. The Burberry baseball cap and sportswear usually does it.

But should I be doing this or does it merely show that I am a middle-class snob with a deep level of hatred towards the working class? That's what the Fabian Society would say. Last month the think tank said that the word chav should be banned.

I thought about this at the time, and can kind of see what they're getting at, they're worried about people being demonised. But isn't it patronising and insulting to imply that chav equals working class?

I guess I have to admit to being middle class because I went to university, read The Guardian, and have a passing acquaintance with sun-dried tomatoes, but my upbringing was working class and I know, possibly unlike the Fabian Society, that there are all kinds of working class people, many with no interest in designer sportsgear and hanging out at bus shelters.

It was left to Simon Donald, co-creator of Viz, to be the voice of reason when he pointed out that the word chav is meant to be a term of abuse. He has a point, it's like saying that the word idiot should be banned as it is offensive to idiots.

But the real question is: should I as a cartoonist even concern myself with the debate? Cartoonists don't have to be nice. Cartoons are meant to provoke and offend on occasion. That's why when Viz launched it was the funniest comedy around in any medium, because unlike the comedians on the TV and the radio they weren't constantly worrying about offending certain sections of society.

I'm not advocating a return to the days when racist and sexist humour was dominant, merely suggesting that we don't need to be concerned at all times about who gets upset by jokes and cartoons. Lampooning louts and idiots goes back to the days of Hogarth, so Burberry baseball caps won't be disappearing from my cartoons any time soon.

Anyway, on balance I probably do more jokes about the middle classes (see the Reader's Digest and Private Eye cartoons below). Everyone is fair game.


Royston's portfolio website

Cartooning in the media

This is a version of a cartoon I had published a few years back. I use it by way of illustration, though really it has nothing to do with the following article which is considerably less cynical. It is a short piece I wrote for the PCO blog about media coverage of cartooning

There’s no doubt that cartoons are enjoying an unusually high profile in the British media at the moment.

We’ve seen acres of coverage for the launch of new kids’ comic The DFC, the 70th anniversary of The Beano and Phill Jupitus’s comic strip programme on Radio Four. There has even been a graphic novel serialised in The Times.

So, are cartoonists happy about this? Not a bit of it.

I agree with Neil Dishington, who wrote on the PCO blog yesterday, that the Phill Jupitus thing was nothing special, but is that because we’re cartoonists and therefore he’s preaching to the converted? I think it’s likely that many listeners would have found Jupitus’s sincere enthusiasm about comic strips quite infectious.

Isn’t it a good thing that shows like these exist? Is it not the case that the only thing worse than the media talking about cartoons is the media not talking about cartoons?

But they misrepresent cartooning, some cartoonists cry, it’s obvious they don’t know what they’re talking about. Well, maybe. I’m sure I heard James Naughtie talking about "animators" at The Beano on the Today show on Monday, but is there a single profession that doesn’t think it is often misrepresented by the media? I know journalists who think the media misrepresents them.

Another common complaint is that any media obsession with cartoons is just a passing fad. Again, that may be true, perhaps they’re using cartoons to cheer us up amid all the credit crunch stuff, but then that is the role of most cartoons. And let’s not forget that the media treats many subjects in a faddish way before moving on to the next thing.

And as for the grumbling over celebs such as Jupitus drawing cartoons, cartooning has always been something where everyone wants to have a go. That's because it's fun. We often encourage that attitude, at events such as The Big Draw and the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival.

All you can do is keep on doing good cartoon work and hope that those who commission cartoons for publication will realise that it is best to go to a professional.

Royston's portfolio website

Celebrity cartoonists: What a bunch of quitters!

The comedian Phill Jupitus has produced a couple of comic strips to promote the radio programme Comic Love, in which he talks about his love of comics and newspaper strips. One can be seen in the July 19 edition of Radio Times and the other (excerpt above) here: Seeing the world in four panels.

Jupitus is one of many celebrities who, in their younger days, dabbled with careers in cartooning before going on to make their name in a different way. Usually a more profitable one.

Three years ago I wrote an article for The Jester, newsletter of the Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain, which was a round-up of these erstwhile cartoonists. It is reprinted here.

MEL CALMAN called his autobiography What Else Do You Do?, after the question that is so often put to cartoonists. In fact, there appear to be many cartoonists who not only did something else, but found that that occupation eventually made their name, to the point where the career in cartooning became a largely forgotten footnote.

I started thinking about this when I heard after the death of the comedian Bob Monkhouse that he had once been a cartoonist. A little light research on the internet turned up the fact that he worked for D.C. Thomson, but other than this I know very little and I’d be grateful if anyone could shed any light on the matter.**

At about the same time, I read an article about the novelist John Updike and how he had been obsessed with cartoons as a child. He regularly badgered his cartoonist heroes for original artwork for free (how we know that feeling). Updike also tried his hand at being a cartoonist before coming to his senses and deciding that writing was the better path to take. It was certainly the more lucrative.

Another writer who has dabbled with cartooning is Will Self. Some of his work can be seen in a compilation of his newspaper and magazine articles called Junk Mail. The drawing is crude but some of the gags are pretty good. A friend of mine used to work as a sub-editor at an architecture magazine called Building Design where Self once wrote a column and regularly submitted a cartoon along with it. My pal took a rather dim view of Will Self the artist because he never rubbed out his pencil lines and the lowly, overworked subs had to do it.



BBC 6Music presenter Marc Riley, formerly “Lard” of Mark and Lard fame on Radio One, and an ex-bass player with The Fall, is an ex-cartoonist whose drawing was somewhat on the crude side. Readers may remember his Harry the Head from Oink! Comic. He also appeared in photo strips in Oink! He was the guy with the big nose.

Former 6Music breakfast show presenter Phill Jupitus, the comedian and Never Mind the Buzzcocks team captain, also dabbled as a cartoonist apparently, though again I was unable to unearth any details about his early work (seems you can’t find everything on the internet) so it would be great if anyone could fill in the, er, sketchy details.

Another former cartoonist is broadcaster Andrew Collins, also an ex-New Musical Express journalist, EastEnders scriptwriter, Radio Times film writer and general overachiever. He chronicled his love of cartoons and half-hearted attempts to make a living drawing owls and wizards for puzzle magazines in Where Did it All Go Right and Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, his bestselling memoirs of growing up in the 1970s and 1980s.

Talking of the NME, anyone who used to read the music paper in the early 1990s may remember a cartoon drawn in the style of Gillray called Dr Crawshaft’s World of Pop. But did you know that it was drawn by Arthur Mathews who went on to co-script the sitcom Father Ted? Of course comedy writing and cartooning often go hand in hand. I know that some Cartoonists’ Club members have scripted stuff for radio and TV.

So I suppose there’s hope for us all if we get disillusioned with the world of cartooning. If you know any other examples of famous former cartoonists, let me know.

Right, time to get back to the drawing board/typewriter/record decks …

Comic Love is on BBC Radio Four at 10.30am on Saturday 19 July.



**UPDATE**
Here is a cartoon by Bob Monkhouse of cartoonist Noel Ford, along with a photo of Bob working on that very drawing. Noel, who once worked with Bob at the BBC, says he really did look that weird in the 1970s! Thanks for sharing, Noel.

Royston: Non-celebrity cartoonist!

Dalek cartoon: The director's cut

This cartoon is in the current edition of Private Eye. The Dalek cartoon was popular a few years back, notably during the lengthy period that Doctor Who was off air. Here I've combined it with a current popular obsession among cartoonists: outdoor smokers.

Private Eye added a sign reading "Stage Door" on the left hand side of the cartoon. I had considered putting in a sign saying "BBC" when I submitted the gag, but I thought it might be over-egging the joke. I don't think a sign is needed really.

Apart from anything else, I thought that rather than actors smoking inside the Daleks, maybe this takes place in the Doctor Who universe – the Whoniverse, if you will – and these are Daleks taking a break from conquering the human race. Well, whatever the interpretation, it's smoking Daleks, what more do you want?

It's not the first time I've had a Doctor Who gag in Private Eye. Here's one from 2005, just before the series was relaunched.

In actual fact, having been a big Doctor Who fan as a child, I was really looking forward to the new series, but sometimes you have to play Devil's Advocate as a cartoonist. There had been an excessive amount of hype surrounding the series (that seems to have been maintained!) and the media kept falling back on the old "get ready to hide behind the sofa" cliche, hence this cartoon.

Royston's portfolio: Star Wars cartoons also available ...

News media cartoon: More relevant than ever

Here's another cartoon from the archives. A ten-year-old gag from Private Eye (26 June, 1998) that is probably more relevant now than ever. TV news was just getting going on dumbing down back then.

This is another pre-Google Image Search cartoon. I drew Sooty from memory and knew at the time that he didn't look quite right. When the cartoon appeared in print I saw what was wrong ... his ears were white! So when I put together my first portfolio website, a year later, I put up a version with black ears.

The cartoon made a reappearance in the Private Eye annual of 1998 (with white ears). It was also one of the first cartoons where I sold the original. A friend snapped it up for a sum that was cheap even for 1998 (hope you realise you got a bargain, Simon!)

Royston's portfolio website

One from the archives: My oldest drawing

For this journey into the past we're going back a l-o-n-g way, to the oldest drawing of mine that I still own. It was drawn when I was ten years old.

Clearly it was kept (by my mum) as it's an "award-winning" cartoon: Third Prize in the Schools Painting Competition run by the Catterick and District Caged Bird Society. Oh, yes. Here's the proof:



It was not intended as a cartoon as such, but I think the drawing betrays a cartoonist's sensibility ...



Yes, that's right, I drew a dodo for the Caged Bird Society! I remember being slightly obsessed with the extinct bird as a kid. Not sure why. I love the fact that the certificate just says "His painting of a bird". It's not even a painting as it's drawn with coloured pencils. I also like the fact that the dodo looks pretty evil.

I did draw cartoons before this. I made my own comic when I was about eight or nine called "Ka-Pow!" I used to draw it with carbon paper underneath and an extra sheet of paper so I'd have a copy for my friend Richard. I've no idea what happened to the comics, so my strips "Gomez the Gorilla" and "Toot and Carmen" are sadly not available to be shown here.

That's probably a good thing, on reflection.

Some more up-to-date cartoons by Royston

Arts and culture cartoon: The waiting game

Sometimes you have to wait quite some time before a cartoon which is taken by a magazine actually appears in its pages. The above cartoon is a case in point. It appears in the current issue of The Spectator. My records show that it was part of a batch of cartoons sent to the magazine on May 8th, 2007. So it has taken 13 months to see the light of day.

I've found, from talking to other cartoonists, that this is not unusual. Some have horror stories of even longer delays. My own personal record is the cartoon below which appeared in the New Statesman in early 2001, two years after they took it.

By the way, Newsnight Review, for those not familiar with it, is a BBC2 arts show that is screened on a Friday night after the regular Newsnight show. It's always good for a laugh as some of the comments of the participants can be a bit on the pretentious side. It's particularly amusing when discussing stuff that isn't generally what you'd call high-brow. For example the poet and critic Tom Paulin seems to say about more or less any Hollywood film, "Essentially, I think, the subtext here is Vietnam."

Kids, on the other hand, have two default settings when it comes to "reviewing" films and TV. As a parent I'm acutely aware that everything is "cool" or "boring". They should hand Newsnight Review over to the kids for one show. They'd get through a lot of stuff.

***UPDATE July 4, 2008***
Unbelievably, the "Newsnight Review for Kids" cartoon has come true! This week they brought in a panel of kids, rather than the usual pundits, to discuss the stage version of High School Musical. The words "like" and "cheesy" were heard a lot more than usual. Here it is: The REAL Newsnight Review for Kids.

Royston's portfolio website

Boardroom cartoon: A bit topical

I do cartoons for various business/trade magazines. Usually they're drawn to accompany an article, in this case one about governing boards putting together questionnaires to assess their own effectiveness. But on occasion you can allow a spot of topicality to creep in – which is what happened here.

Note to non-UK readers: there has been a spate of cases where officials have left top-secret documents on trains and buses lately. The public reaction to this phenomenon was summed up neatly by the comedian Jeremy Hardy on Radio 4's News Quiz: "Everyone says, That's ridiculous! What kind of person would do that? And then you stop and think ... I would do that ..."

Royston's portfolio website