Music cartoon: Memory man

"You know what they say: if you can remember the Sixties then talk about them endlessly on BBC Four documentaries."

Actually, I really like BBC Four's music documentaries, but we have probably done the Sixties now, so it's good that they're also doing some great ones about bands of the Seventies and Eighties. I particularly enjoyed the recent ones on Squeeze, the Undertones, and, yes, Chas 'n' Dave. This cartoon is in the February issue of Prospect.

Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book

Talk and slideshow ready for arts festival

"Death, where is thy Sting?"

This weekend I'll be putting the case for when puns are acceptable (the case for the defence, above), looking at how to generate ideas, presenting the "journey" of a cartoon from rough idea to magazine page, and generally showing off and hoping for laughs, with a talk/slideshow at A Summer Squall, the Ramsgate arts festival.

I've put the slideshow together this week and have written a few notes to go with it. There will also (hopefully) be a Q&A session.

If you're in the area, come along. It's on at Ramsgate Library at 2pm on Saturday. Admission is free but you need to book. Tickets are available at the Custom House, Harbour Parade, Ramsgate, or by calling 07544-971 685.

For more on A Summer Squall, a three-day event which includes music, theatre, film, exhibitions, workshops etc, see the website.

Football cartoon: Make some noise

His Master's Vuvuzela

As the England football team face their final chance in the World Cup in South Africa tomorrow, here's a topical spin on a favourite cartooning theme. Paarp!

Royston's portfolio website

Music cartoon: Taking it easy

His master's chill-out album.

It's been a while since I've had a cartoon featuring this little fella on the blog, so here's another one.

I've drawn so many variations on this theme over the years. Perhaps I should do a whole book of them and try to sell it through the HMV chain. Or maybe they would just tell me to stop.

Royston's portfolio website

Not Yet Sold: Pub quiz cartoon

"I don't know much about history, don't know much biology, don't know much about a science book, don't know much about the French I took, but we'll be OK if there's a round on song lyrics."

Another rejected cartoon for you, from 2006. The caption's a bit long, but don't blame me, blame Sam Cooke.

More Not Yet Sold cartoons.

Royston's portfolio website

Music cartoon: In with the IT Crowd

"Have you tried turning it on, turning it on and turning it on again?"

I drew this cartoon for a "just for fun" competition over at the public forum on the Cartoonists' Club website. Well, I say that I drew it for the competition, in fact it was immediately ineligible (or illegible if you don't know the Genesis song that it refers to!)

The idea behind the weekly competition is that everyone draws a cartoon to go with a caption, without changing the wording at all. The caption was "Have you tried switching it off and on?" but my mind went off at a tangent and came up with this one.

The competition has been running for a few weeks and I've entered a couple of times. It's a fun exercise, but it's pretty far from how I would normally create cartoons. Usually I do have a clear joke in mind when I sit down to draw the cartoon but often it gets tweaked or changed completely, which is what happened here. As the competition was just for fun, I posted it anyway.

Royston's portfolio website

Music cartoon: Return of the HMV dog

"Bloody students."

This cartoon, which appears in the July issue of Reader's Digest, was the result of a deliberate attempt at getting more mileage out of a well-worn cartoon theme!

I've had a few HMV dog cartoons published over the years, so I decided to see if I could come up with some more. I opened one of them on my computer in Photoshop and played about with the elements of the drawing – the dog and the gramophone – moving and rotating them, resizing them, copying and pasting etc.

It's an unusual way of developing gag ideas, for me anyway, but I came up with a few. Once I was happy with each one, I printed off the cobbled-together image and redrew it on my lightbox, so it looked more fluid. This is the only one that has been published so far, but you may yet see more HMV dog cartoons from me.

Royston's portfolio website

Music cartoon: Another from the archives

Time for another delve into the archives. This one was published ten years ago on this very day, in the New Statesman magazine.

It's quite a detailed cartoon and I remember being pleased with the way it looked when reduced to fit a single column. Like most of my early cartoons though, it looks a bit clunky to me now ... particularly those fat-fingered hands. I was clearly also experimenting with different signatures, this one's overly ornate.

This is from before I had web access, so I would not have done any picture research to get the Village People right. A Google search now reveals that they're one short: Military Guy has gone AWOL.

The New Statesman still uses cartoonists, but sadly they no longer take on-spec stuff. I had quite a few published in there in the late 1990s/early 2000s. And while it is obviously an intelligent, serious, political magazine, they didn't always go for "clever" gags. Often they'd take ones that were very silly, like this one, or even a bit rude.

Shortly before this, they published a gag of mine that featured a couple in bed. The bloke is looking smug and the woman is wide-eyed, saying "I can't believe it, Jake. To think I actually thought it was an extra leg." I'd have said that was a shoo-in for Fiesta, perhaps, but no, it was in the New Statesman.

Royston's portfolio website

The Best of Punch Cartoons

Punch is synonymous with British cartooning. The magazine closed in 2002 but as it had started in 1841 the name still carries a lot of recognition. I played only a very small role in the story of Punch: a handful of gags published in its final years. It was barely a walk-on part in the 160 years of the magazine, but I'm always proud to say that I made it in there.

Above: My first Punch cartoon, published in 1997, the year I began gag cartooning

Sadly, I did not make it into The Best of Punch Cartoons*, a new book which is out this week, so I was not invited to the launch party at Harrods yesterday ... but that wasn't going to stop me!

My cartoonist pal Clive Goddard passed on his invite to me, as he couldn't make it, so I phoned up Harrods (the Punch brand is still owned by Mohamed Al Fayed) and begged in a frankly unseemly fashion to be allowed to attend.



It was a great night. Lots of champagne and canapes, as you would expect, and the chance to catch up with fellow cartoonists and meet a few for the first time. The long-established guys reminisced about the Punch do's of old and lamented the fact that a magazine once seen as Britain's equivalent of The New Yorker is no longer with us.

Speeches were made by the publisher and the book's editor, and they pointed out many times that they were selling it at the launch at 20 per cent off. Although as someone pointed out (probably a money-savvy cartoonist) it's already cheaper than that on Amazon.

Those attending who did buy books were keen to get the cartoonists to sign them. I thought it only fair to point out every time that I'm not actually in the Best Of, but they didn't care. I think they were just fascinated and amused at seeing genuine, live cartoonists dragged out of their gloomy studios and into the glare of publicity.


Above: A Punch cartoon from 1998. Of my early efforts, I think this one got the most positive reaction from people

A fun night then, but every silver lining has a cloud: I was informed by those who are in the book that they have not received any payment. Sadly, this is not an unusual situation in British cartooning, but you do have to ask, how can it be right that cartoonists make no money from a book comprised solely of cartoons?

It's an excellent book, though, and a no-brainer as a Christmas pressie for the cartoon lover in your family (it's not exactly a stocking filler though, it's huge). So if you enjoy it, why not send a Christmas bonus to one of the non-remunerated cartoonists in the book?

Not me, you understand. Did I mention that I'm not in it?

*UPDATE 27/10/08: I have since found out that the book ignores the relaunched Punch of 1996-2002. It's a real shame that they didn't include any of the cartoons from that period, but it means I don't feel too bad about not being included!

Some Royston cartoons from existing magazines

Comic strip: The Wedding Present

Here's something else a bit different from the usual gag cartooning, an excerpt from a comic strip drawn for a forthcoming book about David Gedge, lead singer of influential indie band The Wedding Present. Click the image to enlarge.



I used to draw strips for the band's fanzine in the late 80s/early 90s and was invited, along with other cartoonists who drew for the band, to contribute to the new book. We were provided with rough storylines, and asked to illustrate and expand on them. My strip was a transcription of a real tour-bus conversation, to which I added a few humorous flights of fantasy.

A postscript to this is that I received a free copy of the band's new album El Rey this week and found that I'm among the thank-yous in the CD booklet! As I've been a fan of the band for 21 years I got quite a kick out of that.

You can see a couple of my strips from 1989 at the Wedding Present fan site Something and Nothing.

Royston's portfolio website

Music business cartoon: It's that dog again

This cartoon is in the March issue of Prospect. It was inspired by a story in the news a while back about the new EMI boss insisting that his acts work harder. But the cartoon was non-specific enough so that it has "legs", unlike some topical gags.

Bizarrely, this is the third "HMV dog" cartoon that I've had published in the last six months or so! Click on "HMV" under Labels below to see the others.

Cartoons by Royston

Music cartoon: A surprise appearance

People often ask if I send a new batch of cartoons to several magazines at once. The answer is no, I send in rotation i.e. I send the gags to one magazine at a time, then any that don't sell I will send to the next magazine on my list. And so on. The main reason is that you'd look a bit silly if several magazines wanted the same cartoon. And the editors concerned wouldn't be too happy about it.

But there's another reason and it's this: sometimes they will print the cartoon before they've got around to telling you they're using it! Or there's some communication breakdown and you don't get the message. The above cartoon is a case in point. It is in this week's Spectator magazine, but I only found that out yesterday while browsing through the mag in in WHSmiths.

Regular readers will note that this is not the first time I've done an "HMV dog" cartoon. And it probably won't be the last.

Cartoons by Royston

Original cartoons

I recently sold the original of this early cartoon of mine which was published in Punch in 1998. If I was to compile a top ten of my most popular cartoons, based on comments I've received about them over the years, this one would certainly be in there. I still think Intense Patio would be a good band name.

Selling original artwork is always satisfying because it's nice to know that someone liked a cartoon enough to consider putting it on their wall, or giving it as a gift. Plus it reminds me that all those drawings taking up space on my shelves are potentially worth something! So it's important for cartoonists to hang on to their originals.

I'm told that people who buy originals like to see all the smudges, Tipp-ex, pencil marks, creases in the paper etc. I'm relying on that fact! If you're interested in buying original artwork, email me for prices: roystonrobertson at gmail dot com ... excuse the written out address but I'm trying to prevent any more penis enlargement emails.

Prospect magazine music cartoon is silenced

This HMV dog cartoon is in the new issue of Prospect magazine, accompanying the lead feature by Robert Sandall on the rise and fall of the record industry. (It's fascinating reading for anyone interested in music. Read it here.)


The fact that it does accompany the feature is just luck though, really. I sent the cartoon in as part of my usual batch, with no idea they were planning such a piece. The cartoon had already been declined by a few magazines. Originally it looked like this.

It stems from my annoyance at the fact that we're all supposed to jump unquestioningly on to the latest technological bandwagon. And anyone who chooses to use older technology is treated with contempt. Yes, that's right ... I'm the dog on the left. I'm no Luddite though. I did have an iPod but it packed up. My record player, on the other hand, has been going strong for 15 years. I listened to a 7-inch single of Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner on it the other day. Very loud. Wow, it sounded good. All MP3s in the immediate vicinity were quaking in their tinny boots.

Anyway, Prospect asked to run it without the caption. I wasn't too sure at first but once I'd closed the dogs mouth and made our elegant chum on the left a tad more contented looking, I felt the meaning was still clear. It's more an illustration than a cartoon really, there's no belly laugh there, but that's effectively how they used it anyway.

Reader's Digest cartoon: The long journey

Got one in the current UK edition of Reader's Digest.

Sometimes the journey from sketchbook to publication can take quite a while. I first drew this as a rough (below) in July of last year. It stayed in my sketchbook for a while as I wasn't sure about it – probably because the iPod had "iBusk" on it, and musical notes were coming out of it.


Eventually, I went back to it, and once I dumped that unnecessary stuff I could see it was a better gag. It was drawn up mid-September. But even then, for reasons that now completely escape me, I didn't think it was really a Reader's Digest gag, so it was sent to several other magazines first. Add to that the fact that the Digest works a few months in advance and turned out to be a bit of a trip for the poor young thing!

Insert eggs-cruciating pun here

Sometimes when you have a really silly idea, you have to see it through. Last week my wife suggested that my 14-year-old nephew may be too old for Easter eggs. I joked, “Nah, just get him one of those Cadbury’s Queens of the Stone Age eggs.” (Like most 14-year-olds he likes his heavy rock/metal. ) At that point I knew I had to do this …

I was pleased with the way the band’s "sperm and egg" logo could be used for the window to the Easter egg!

And let’s not forget that all-important health warning on the back …

The best part is that for a split second, he fell for it.

Mystery cartoon

I recently found this cartoon illustration in an old newspaper from 1996. I have no recollection of drawing it. I worked as a journalist for ten years, as a reporter and later a sub-editor, and when I was working for my then local paper, in Walthamstow, East London, they would sometimes ask me to draw cartoons to go with articles ... for nothing of course, but I was happy then just to see my stuff in print, so I can't complain.

This one was for the music column, which was always a bit anarchic so there is nothing to indicate why the cartoon is there! It's not even Valentine's Day. Anyway, I include it here because unlike most cartoons from this period (I was 27 when I drew this and had not yet started submitting gags to magazines regularly) it doesn't make me cringe too much. It took me ages to figure out what's written on that guitar ("* Play at eleven", obligatory Spinal Tap quote).