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.

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