Magazine cartoon: Time and tide

"Sire, the risk-assessment people say, No way."

Here's a cartoon from the September issue of Saga magazine. The subject of risk assessments and health & safety regulations has been a rich seam for jokes for some time now.

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Private Eye cartoon: Dangerous business

"The BBC want you back, Danger Mouse – subject to a full risk assessment."

This cartoon from the current Private Eye could land me in Pedantry Corner again. Several people have pointed out that Danger Mouse was on ITV. However, they may not be aware that this is a topical cartoon as the much-loved cartoon series is indeed returning ... to be screened on Children's BBC.

So technically it's not wrong, depends on how you read it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

UPDATE: The cartoon was mentioned in the next issue's Pedantry Corner, as predicted!

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Magazine cartoons: Delay and defeat

"Health and Safety, mate."

Sometimes cartoons take a while to appear in print, as I've mentioned here before. This was taken by Reader's Digest in April 2010 and appears in the March 2012 issue. Thankfully the waiting period is not usually that long!

Also in the issue is the result of the Beat the Cartoonist contest:

"Accurs'd stag nights!" was my original caption but I was beaten by Malcolm Ainge, a reader who suggested "This is the last time I volunteer to be a designated driver!" ... which I have to admit is pretty good. Curses!

This now brings my personal Beat the Cartoonist score to: Me 3, Readers 2. So, the tide is turning! Click here for all posts on Beat the Cartoonist entries.

Fairytale cartoon: Health & Safety gone mad

It's inevitable, with the amount of cartoons you produce working for magazines, that you like some more than others. This one I thought was just OK, a solid enough joke but generally I'd call it a batch-filler.

So, of course, it was the only one that sold in a recent batch sent to The Spectator, and can be seen in this week's issue.

Originally, I drew it for the CCGB online cartoon contest, in one of the weeks where you have to come up with a captionless cartoon. The theme was "Hot". However, completely "silent" cartoons, i.e. with no wording in them at all, are preferred, so it didn't do very well!

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Cartoons appreciated by their subjects

"It may surprise you to hear that, actually, morphine is the best medicine."

This old cartoon is to be reprinted to accompany an article written by, wait for it, a clown who works in hospitals, voluntarily giving his time to cheer up patients.

It's not often that someone who is effectively the subject of a cartoon gets in touch to say how much they appreciated it, but it's great when it happens.

Here's another example: This Reader's Digest cartoon was used in a lecture on black holes by a professor who is an expert in that field.


"I'm afraid there's a black hole in our finance department."

And here's my favourite example. Unlikely though it sounds, the original of this cartoon, which appeared in The Spectator, was bought by someone whose work involves Health and Safety regulations pertaining to fairground rides.
"Damn those Health & Safety guys."

If only this kind of thing happened with every cartoon, we cartoonists would be a lot richer!

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Spectator magazine cartoon: All change

When this cartoon was first sent out the caption was "Bloody Health and Safety". The cartoon was rejected and when I sent it out again I thought that maybe it didn't need the swearing, even though it's not exactly offensive, so I changed it to "Curse those Health and Safety guys". The cartoon is in The Spectator this week, and clearly the cartoon editor did think it needed swearing as he changed "curse" to "damn"! Of course, I don't mind if such changes are made (the cartoon editor also changed "and" to an ampersand and added an exclamation mark) as long as the meaning of the joke isn't changed.

Some years ago though, a magazine did make a change that I felt was not needed. It was a cartoon with a leopard on a psychiatrist's couch. The psychiatrist was saying, "You have got to want to change." When it appeared in the magazine it had been changed to: "You have got to want to change your spots." I felt that this was really spelling the joke out, and denying the reader that "penny drops" moment. A couple of years later a re-drawn version of the cartoon appeared in the Metro, the now-defunct listings mag that came with the Saturday Times, with the caption in its intended form.