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

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Keeping busy

Oops, no blog posts for ages. Hardly surprising when I've got cartoons like this to draw! A Where's Wally style take (don't go looking for him though) on industry trade shows. Drawn for the front cover of Skip Hire magazine's September issue.

Click to enlarge.

I also draw a regular strip for the magazine, the 100th of which, incredibly to me, is in the current (November 2021) issue.

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Zoom: A new cartoon genre

Who could have seen the Zoom cartoon emerging as almost a genre in its own right? But the rise in home-working this year, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, means I've been drawing video-conferencing quite a lot this year. Here are some examples, gag cartoons, an illustration on various Zoom scenarios and a trade magazine strip.

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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Cartoon illustration: Hot stuff

This cartoon accompanied a magazine article on hot-desking. Rather than making a joke, as such, it's an example of the cartoon as humorous illustration. I do a lot of work for trade/business magazines. Find out here how you can commission bespoke cartoons.

Cartoon illustration: Tweets beside the seaside

I wrote an article on the Twitter scene here in the Thanet area for the local Isle magazine. It's quite a vibrant scene and a great way to keep up with what's happening. I drew the above illustration to go with it.

Should you wish to, you can read the article online here. It's on page 83.

Humorous illustration: Keep it down!

This illustration accompanied a newspaper article about irritation at rising noise levels. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I can relate to this. And talking of getting older, readers of a certain age may know that Noise Annoys is a Buzzcocks song.

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Cartoon illustration: Estuary airport

I was commissioned to draw a humorous illustration for a newpaper supplement on the proposed Estuary airport in Kent. The idea was to reflect the different arguments and points of view that residents are having to deal with.

Represented are: Boris Johnson, Mayor of London as the pro lobby (the plan has been dubbed Boris Island); the anti-airport Medway council leader; environmentalists' concerns about the threat to rare wildlife; and the slightly worrying close proximity of an old gas plant and a sunken ship full of explosives!

Whatever happens, we can only hope that the wishes of residents are not treated with contempt, as is so often the case. See You've Been Trumped, a highly recommended documentary, which I saw last week. Seek it out, but be warned: it will make you angry.

Humorous illustration: On the road

This falls into the category of humorous illustration, rather than gag cartoon, and was used to accompany a magazine article about driving laws. See more examples of humorous illustration here.

Cartoons and illustrations added

I've added more sample cartoons and humorous illustrations to this site. Click "Portfolio" on the navigation bar above, and if you then click on any image you'll get a slideshow that you can click through.

Humorous illustration: Social not working

As well as joke cartoons, I draw humorous illustrations to accompany magazine articles. Here's a social-networking cartoon which I was commissioned to draw for a business magazine. Or perhaps it's a social not working cartoon, the idea being that they're communicating online but not so well in the "offline" world.

Royston's portfolio website

Social-networking cartoon: Don't tweet and drive

Here's a cartoon drawn to illustrate a newspaper article about tweeting and driving. A very real problem, apparently, along with texting and Facebooking while driving.

It amazes me that anyone would use a mobile phone while driving. I sometimes find I can't even listen to the radio and concentrate on the road at the same time!

The first draft of this was slightly more graphic. I lifted this drawing from an earlier, unsold (probably not surprising) cartoon about using phones while driving.

Ouch! That's gotta hurt. The paper didn't go for it, of course.

While on the subject, you can follow me on Twitter, provided you are not driving, of course.

Textbook cartoon: Mr Logic

This is a textbook cartoon. By which, I don't mean it's a perfect example of a cartoon, I mean it was drawn recently for a school textbook. I quite liked the joke in this one, so I thought I'd share it.

As you can see, I have attemped to draw A Young Person. An absurdly large tie and ridiculously messy haircut just about does it. I'm down with the kids, me.

Royston's portfolio website

Book illustration: Keeping it fresh

This week I've been drawing some cartoon illustrations for the updated edition of a school careers textbook, replacing the drawings by the previous artist: me.

The book is about writing CVs and applying for jobs and college courses. The last lot were drawn in late 2006 and the book came out in 2007, so I was a bit unsure at first that I'd be able to come up with a whole bunch of different ideas on the same subject.

However, a lot has changed since 2006, and now there are chapters on using social-networking sites and so on. We didn't even know what a Twitter was in 2006!

Anyway, above is an illustration from the old edition. That's genuinely how people used to look for work back in the old days of the mid-to-late-noughties, kids.

Royston's portfolio website

Website cartoons: More politics

Here are more examples of political cartoons, for this election week. These are part of a series drawn for the Taxpayers Alliance, which ran on its site for about three years, illustrating various pages.

Of course, the TPA is at a very different point on the political spectrum to the Green Party, proving that I am a shameless mercenary who goes where the money is. But you can't always do work that reflects your political viewpoint. As George W. Bush once famously said, a man has to put food on his family.

Royston's portfolio website

Humorous illustration: Political spin

Here's an illustration I drew a couple of years ago for a Green Party leaflet. Seems an appropriate one to dig out from the files as the political parties go into spin overdrive ahead of the UK General Election on Thursday.

In other news ... it was good to see The Guardian newspaper acknowledging the importance of cartoons in an editorial yesterday, with particular reference to the PCO, of which I am a member, and the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival, which you're probably sick of me banging on about (last time – until next year! – I promise.)

Here's the article: In praise of ... cartoonists

Museum cartoon: Hidden treasures

This was drawn to accompany an article about a museum which discovered lots of things in storage which they didn't know they had. Click to enlarge.

The lost autobiography by William Shakespeare makes me chuckle. I must admit to being a little pleased with myself when I decided to draw it like a modern celebrity memoir with the title "To Be! My Life Story". There are more than a few academics who would like to get their hands on that book.

Royston's portfolio website

Cartoon illustration: Computer says no

A business magazine wanted to use a photo of the Little Britain character Carol Beer, she of the catchphrase "Computer says no", to illustrate an article. When it proved too expensive to do so, they came to me. I'm officially cheaper than David Walliams.

Royston's portfolio website

Humorous illustration: some examples

You might get the impression from this blog that my work is all about the on-spec gag cartoon market. But, in fact, a lot of my time is taken up with commissioned work, and these drawings are often more in the area that is known as "humorous illustration", rather than joke cartoons.

Here are some examples, from various books and magazines. Click the images for larger versions.






Royston's portfolio website: humorous illustration and more