Weather cartoon: No November

I was asked to do a cartoon to accompany an article about unseasonably warm November weather, with trees in full blossom and roses in bloom in some areas. This put me in mind of the Thomas Hood poem November, because I'm such a cultured kinda guy ...

OK, I admit that I only know the poem because it was in a pop song years ago (Opus 4 by the Art of Noise). Anyway, it was a chance to do something a little different from the usual gag cartoon and I was quite pleased with the way it turned out.

Having said that, I may have made a mistake, as looking online now I'm not 100 per cent sure the poem is called November. I've also found references to it as simply "No!". That would make sense, as the word November is really a punchline. Either way, this is of course just an excerpt from the poem. You can read the full text here.

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Environmental cartoon: No glow area

Seems like a while since we've had any colour on this blog, so here's one of the two cartoons by me that you can see in the June issue of Reader's Digest.

I'm not against low-energy lightbulbs in any Jeremy Clarkson kind of way, we have them throughout our house, it's just that, well, they're a bit crap aren't they? When I sit reading a book I try to console myself with the fact that I'm helping to save the planet as I tilt the page towards the light.

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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!

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Recycling cartoon: Climate change is such a laugh

I "do my bit", as they say, in terms of recycling, composting, re-using stuff, using public transport, etc, and I certainly believe that climate change is a problem ... yet I find that it's so much easier to make jokes about "Green enthusiasts" than about the climate-change deniers. Above is an example, which appears in this week's Private Eye.

I read an article in the Guardian last week about whether it's possible for comedians to do jokes supporting environmentalism, or whether they just end up sounding preachy. I've certainly seen the latter with some comedians who have tackled the issue. But maybe I'm just being lazy and should attempt some pro-environmentalism gags. Watch this space.

Appropriately, the joke in this cartoon was originally written for a commission but it was rejected by the client in favour of another option. So I "recycled" the joke by drawing it as a cartoon to go out with an on-spec batch.

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