Problematic cartoon

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New cartoon book alert!

My second collection of magazine gag cartoons is available now. It's called Cartoons on Demand and is the same format as my first book i.e a 104-page glossy paperback with lots of cartoons in it from magazines such as Private Eye, Reader's Digest, Prospect and The Spectator.

Head over to my Online Shop where you can see some of the cartoons and buy a signed copy of the book for £5.99 plus £2 p+p. (Or, bargain hunters, you can buy it with the first one for just £11.49 plus £2 p+p). The perfect gift for the cartoon lover in your life etc etc.

My cartoon collection ... still out now!

I've just ordered a new batch of cartoon books, so it's probably a good time to remind you that one would make an ideal Christmas present ...

Penguin vs Polar Bear and Other Ridiculous Cartoons is 104 pages long and has lots of funny cartoons in it, taken from Private Eye, Reader’s Digest, The Spectator, Prospect, The Oldie, New Statesman and others.

Visit my shop to buy a signed copy for £5.99 plus £2 p+p. It's also available at the Cartoon Museum shop in London, and at their online store. Plus you can buy it at Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Lulu.com. There's even a bargain-price digital download version available.

Out now: My new cartoon book ...

My first collection of magazine gag cartoons is available now. It's called Penguin vs Polar Bear and Other Ridiculous Cartoons, is 104 pages long and, well, has lots of cartoons in it.

Here's part of the back-cover blurb: "An encounter between a penguin and a polar bear may sound ridiculous, but it is just as plausible as a prehistoric man attending a job interview, or a cat completing a sudoku. Anything is possible in the world of the magazine gag cartoon.

"This collection by Royston Robertson is made up of cartoons featured in Private Eye, Reader’s Digest, The Spectator, Prospect, The Oldie, New Statesman and others. Some are satirical, others just a bit silly, and they cover subjects from art to technology, the environment to religion, history to Health & Safety. All human (and inhuman) life is mocked."

Sound good? The ideal present for the discerning cartoon lover in your life? Then head over to my newly set-up Online Shop.

You can see some of the cartoons there and buy a signed copy of the book for a mere £5.99 plus £2 p+p.

Royston's portfolio website

Cycling cartoon: An Olympian effort

Here's a sneak peek at one of the cartoons I have submitted for exhibition at the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival 2011, which takes place in April.

The theme is Olympian Sports, and this is a new version of a cartoon I drew for the Kent Messenger when the Tour de France came through the county in 2007. This version is coloured using Faber-Castell Pitt brush pens, for those that care about that sort of thing.

It was a bit of an Olympian effort coming up with four cartoons on a sporting theme, as it's not a subject I turn to a lot, to say the least. This year I'll also be drawing a Big Board cartoon in Shrewsbury market square, so I need to think of another gag too. That one won't have bicycles in it though. I hate drawing bicycles.

The theme may appear to be a year early, as the London Olympics are in 2012, but it is in fact a tie-in with the Shropshire Olympian Festival, which takes place in June, and the Wenlock Olympian Games, also in Shropshire, in July.

Royston's portfolio website

Review of the Year type thing

It must be time for what reality-TV presenters call my "best bits", a round-up of the highlights of my cartooning year, as seen through this blog (mostly).

Yes, I know it's basically a round robin, but at least I didn't print it out with dodgy festive clip art around the edge and I'm not boring you about my kids' achievements or any challenging health issues, so cut me some slack.




Presenting a talk and slideshow about my cartoons for the first time was certainly a high point of the year for me. I wrote about that experience here. It was a buzz getting an audience reaction to my cartoons.

The Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival, the fifth I've attended, below, was great as usual, and I'm now in the process of trying to think up cartoons on an Olympics theme for next April's festival. More live cartooning took place at the Big Draw, where I fought valiantly in the Battle of the Cartoonists – didn't win though.

It was great to be in an exhibition at the Cartoon Museum for the first time. Ink and the Bottle is entirely cartoons about drinking. Here's another from the exhibition, and a festive one too ...

"Oh no, look who's in..."
Another first for me was spending the General Election night at the Groucho Club. We drew lots of cartoons and people supplied us with lots of free booze as a result. That was a better outcome than the election. Here's a cartoon about the fallout from that ...

"Remember, it's not the winning that's important, it's the not losing ..."

More drunkenness ... this year the Cartoonist's Club of Great Britain celebrated its 50th, so we had a party and we even kicked it old school with a convention at Butlins.

"Life's a beach."
I usually include a couple of cartoons that went down well in this round-up. This cloudspotters' cartoon, which I thought was too odd to sell, generated a lot of good feedback.


"Ha ha, that cloud looks just like Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, 1929-1931."

A personal favourite was my Bayeux Tapestry cartoon. That also got a lot of reaction, though quite a bit was of the "I don't get it" variety. Scoring a hat-trick in the Reader's Digest caption competition caused me to do a lap of honour around the room.

I should mention all the great cartoons by other people I've seen this year in exhibitions, many of which I wrote about for the PCO's Bloghorn: Ray Lowry, Fougasse, Toy Tales, Modern Toss, Rude Britannia, and Roland Searle.

And finally, it's great to know that I can head into 2011 knowing that I am officially as funny as Matt!

If you've enjoyed my cartoons this year, why not commission me to draw some for you in 2011!

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

Private Eye Christmas cards

'Tis the season to be thinking about how near Christmas is getting, and Private Eye is on the case with its usual pack of festive cards for sale. And this year one of them is by me.

That's mine second from bottom on the right-hand side. I'm not putting it on here just yet, but you can see it on the site or, better still, buy sets of 12 cards online.

And if you'd like me to draw a Christmas card for you, it's probably a good idea to start thinking about it. Annoying, I know, but true!

Officially as funny as Matt

"I know our brains see patterns where there are none, but you must admit that looks like Richard Dawkins."

It's nice to know that I can come up with the same joke as the nation's favourite cartoonist (editors take note.) Check out my cartoon from the August issue of Prospect, above, and today's Matt cartoon in the Daily Telegraph.

I should point out that I am in no way accusing Matt of plagiarism. Cartoonists often unwittingly come up with jokes that others have done. I've certainly done it. It tends to happen as we're all thinking about similar topical themes and working within the limited parameters of the joke cartoon.

Still, as I say, editors take note! ... Royston's portfolio website

Hat tip to my cartoonist pal Wilbur Dawbarn for spotting it.

Not Yet Sold: Cowboy cartoon

"Actually, my name, if you had bothered to ask, is Keith."

Geddit?! He's been through the desert on a horse with no name! You know, like in the song? Oh, suit yourselves.

Perhaps the joke is a bit obscure, or expects a bit of a leap of logic, either way this cartoon is a long-time occupant of the rejected pile. Click the link for more Not Yet Sold cartoons.

It made me laugh, anyway. I liked the idea of a horse called Keith. My kids have a similar sense of humour, I think. We recently got an adorably cute kitten and they decided that he is to be called Mike. Not Fluffy, or Mr Tibbles. Mike.

Royston's portfolio website

Not Yet Sold: Art cartoon

"Funny guy, eh?"

Here's another rejected cartoon. One of quite a few I've done over the years which riff on the René Magritte painting The Son of Man. Here's one which did see publication, and so is all coloured in properly.

Click the link for more Not Yet Sold cartoons.

Once again, this gag has been given an airing in a non-earning fashion, as it appears in the latest edition of the Foghorn, the magazine of the Professional Cartoonists' Organisation.

You can read an archive of the Foghorn online, just click the button on the right-hand column of this blog (scroll down). To buy a print subscription to the mag, which comes out six times a year, go here.

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

Angling cartoon: Tribute to a dead fish

Occasionally, local-paper stories which my cartoons accompany turn up on the national news. You may have heard this week about the death of Britain's biggest freshwater fish. Two Tone was a, er, local fish, from the Canterbury area. Here's the cartoon I drew.

"He was the carp of our hearts ... the people's oily freshwater fish ..."

It's a classic silly-season story if ever there was one, particularly when you hear that the fish has caused several broken marriages.

When I read that anglers were leaving messages of condolence on internet forums I decided the joke could be about the over-the-top way the public seems to react to death these days, and has done since the death of Princess Diana.

This cartoon shows that reference material can be a useful tool for cartoonists. I needed something to go with "the people's" so I looked up carp online and used the Wikipedia definition. I have to admit to chuckling at the idea of "the people's oily freshwater fish" as I drew!

Royston's portfolio website

Not Yet Sold: Sherlock Holmes cartoon

"I remember when you used to look for answers using your astute powers of deduction."

As there's a new Sherlock Holmes on our TV screens here in the UK, and he's a contemporary, all-texting, all-Googling kind of guy, I thought I'd dig out this cartoon from last year, for my occasional series on rejected cartoons.

I now realise that instead of being a one-off, joke cartoon, the idea of a Googling Holmes was really best suited to a three-part BBC TV mini-series. Missed a trick, there. I do hope that as it has a contemporary setting they will at some point work in the tried-and-tested line of dialogue "No shit, Sherlock?"

Click the link for more Not Yet Sold cartoons.

Medieval cartoon: Not exactly topical

"When did we permit the Jester to start doing impressions?"

Here's a cartoon from the current issue of Private Eye which shows that they don't just use topical cartoons. More medieval humour, that's what we need.

Exaggeration is the key to this joke, and I went to great trouble to make sure that the mimicking Jester is an exact copy of the King, right down to the throne and the way he's sitting.

Royston's portfolio website

Election cartoon: Winners and losers

"Remember, it's not the winning that's important, it's the not losing ..."

This was drawn for a local paper this week. I notice that another cartoonist came up with basically the same joke in the current Private Eye. This kind of thing happens a lot with topical cartoons, it's inevitable when we're all thinking about the same subjects and working within the parameters of the gag cartoon.

Now, of course, we know who won, and I suspect that the resulting Conservative and Lib Dem coalition will be a gift for cartoonists.

Royston's portfolio website

Graffiti cartoon: One from the files

"To deter vandals, I'm doing my own graffiti."

When you do on-spec cartooning you soon build up quite a bank of gag cartoons. This means that when someone wants a cartoon on a particular subject, you can pull one from the files.

So this cartoon, which was languishing in the rejected file, was taken by a client to illustrate an article about graffiti – which was nice, as I spent a fair bit of time on the graffiti when I drew it originally!

Originally the old guy was "Alf", rather than "Wilf", as that was my Grandad's name and it strikes me as the perfect name for an old-man character. But then I thought people might take the "ALF" as standing for the Animal Liberation Front, which could confuse matters.

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

Review of the Year type thing

As the end of the year approaches, it's time for a round-up of my cartooning highlights, as seen through this blog. Don't worry, I'm only doing 2009, not the whole decade, as most papers seem to be doing these days ...

The main highlight of the year has to be being a member of the Cartoonists team on TV's Eggheads, especially as we won!

The Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival is always a highlight of the cartooning year. As is the Big Draw.

It's always great when posts on the blog touch a chord with people. And If this isn't nice, I don't know what is and Keep Calm and Carry on Drawing, above, both got a good reaction.

It's also good to get good feedback from published cartoons, of course, and inevitably this happens most with cartoons in Private Eye. The Picasso cartoon and Granny on drugs went down well, someone emailed me to tell me they carry a copy of the latter around with them to show it to people! But the most astounding reaction was to the cartoon that appeared to show purveyors of organic food in a less than positive light ... I sold many copies to owners of organic food businesses, deli owners etc. Go figure.

"Everything here is organic, free-range, naturally produced, locally sourced, pesticide free, minimally packaged, and fairly traded – and yet, ironically, I am a complete bastard."

Contributing to the PCO's Travelling Moleskine, which was organised by the Culture Vulture was fun.

Getting a reaction to my IT Crowd-based cartoon from Graham Linehan, writer of the show, made me see there could be something to that Twitter lark.

It was amazing to find out that there was once another cartoonist called Royston who I later found out was a woman. I was sent a book featuring her work so I was able to see her brilliant Disney cartoon and other more saucy stuff.

It was nice to be one of the few cartoonists to win the Reader's Digest caption competition. And a caption contest with a difference over at the CCGB website proved to be a fun challenge.

Commission me in 2010, why dontcha?