Reader's Digest cartoon: Generating ideas

"Well, well ... if it ain't the Limbo Kid."

I used this cartoon in my recent talk at the Summer Squall arts festival as an example when talking about how to come up with ideas.

People often think that ideas arrive out of the blue, in some kind of lightbulb moment. That can happen, of course, but it can't be relied on. You have to generate ideas. Clearly this is a bit of an off-the-wall cartoon, so how did I arrive at the idea?

Firstly, while staring at that blank piece of paper you can just give yourself a subject. So I decided I wanted to do a cowboys cartoon, as they're fun to draw. That got me thinking about the clichéd saloon door entrance that we've all seen in westerns and I wondered if there could be another way for a cowboy to make an entrance.

I could have drawn him jumping, maybe pole-vaulting, over the saloon doors and that may have led to another cartoon. Instead I started to sketch him going underneath and it occurred to me that he could limbo dance under. While I was drawing that, the phrase "the Limbo Kid" came to me. That was the lightbulb moment but, as you can see, it took some time to arrive at that point.

The cartoon appears in the October issue of Reader's Digest. One of my drawings is also in this issue's Beat the Cartoonist contest. So if you can come up with a better idea than me you can win £100 and the original drawing. Click here for details on how to enter.

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.

What a laugh: Cartoons with an audience

My cartooning talk and slideshow at the Summer Squall arts festival in Ramsgate went very well, I'm relieved to be able to report. I'd been a little nervous beforehand, mostly wondering if people would laugh at the cartoons (in the desired way, that is) but laugh they did.

As we cartoonists work alone we don't usually get much feedback on our jokes, bar the odd email, or comments from friends, and you're never there to actually see and hear the reaction to your work. So it was a rare privilege to have an audience.

The caption on the opening cartoon above is "Ooh, tough crowd." Tempting fate, I know, but thankfully they weren't.

I was relieved also that plenty of people turned up for the talk, which I named Back to the Drawing Board (after the Peter Arno cartoon which introduced the phrase to the language) despite the fact that there were alarmingly few pre-bookings. The room was full to capacity and I'm told there were around 45 people there, of all ages too, from children (I'm glad I removed a couple of the more risqué cartoons) to senior citizens.

The talk took place in the seminar rooms at Ramsgate Library, and included showing the creation of a cartoon from beginning to end, starting with notebook rough, on to the pencil drawing, below ...

... through to the inked version, the scanned and amended version which gets sent out, the full-colour version, when required, and finally the cartoon on the magazine page, below.

It was the cartoon below, from Reader's Digest in 2008, because I'd saved the original pencil sketch (which I normally throw away) for a planned "beginning-to-end" blog post that never got written.


"I'm uncomfortable with the idea of Hangman, so Josh and I are enjoying a game of Whole Life Tariff."

I showed how to generate ideas by riffing on favourite themes, such as art and paintings -- as it was an arts festival -- and how you can narrow it down and concentrate on a very specific theme, illustrating this with a load of cartoons, published and unpublished, on Nipper, the HMV dog.

The latter was one of the most successful parts of the talk. This unpublished one, in particular, drew a surprising, but oddly satisfying "Aaaaah!" from the audience ...

There were also sections on cartoons with very long captions (as an example of how sometimes you can go against the grain and still have a cartoon that works), new spins on old cartoon themes such as the desert island, captionless and wordless gags, and puns to avoid. I finished up with a selection of my personal favourites, ending with a cartoon that features a truism relevant to all cartoonists:


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

So, a success and a very enjoyable experience. And now that I've done my first cartoon talk I can announce that I am available for weddings, parties, bar mitzvahs, funerals ...

Booking now!

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

Caveman cartoon speak truth

The phrase "you're only as good as your last idea" certainly applies to cartooning! It's something I often think to myself, usually when facing a blank piece of paper and struggling to come up with fresh ideas for gags. In this case the phrase became a gag itself, one which can be seen on the letters page of February's Prospect magazine.

Cartoons by Royston