Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Here's my Christmas card for this year. Have a great one and don't overdo it like this chap.

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Season's greetings ...

This cartoon is one of Private Eye magazine's Christmas cards this year. Throughout December I have been posting Christmas cartoons old and new on my Twitter page.

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Merry Christmas to you all.

The Snowman revisited

Cartoon from the December issue of Skip Hire Magazine. It was good fun to imagine a Donald Trump snowman.

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The art of the snowman

"That Gormley kid is such a show-off"

Here's a snow cartoon. Because it's been snowing. Do you see? I don't just throw this stuff together, you know. This is from Saga magazine.

I'm no Antony Gormley when it comes to snowmen. I built one at the weekend with my kids, and this is how he looked this morning. Remarkably relaxed for someone whose face has fallen off and is about to collapse (he did, a couple of hours later).

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Cartoon advent calendar:Day 24. Built to last

"Have you given any thought to legacy and sustainability?"

This is a full-colour version of a cartoon that was used as one of the 12 Private Eye Christmas cards this year.

They decided to go with my original version, which had a small amount of spot colour, applied with brush pens, and I must admit it fits more with the Eye's famed "low-fi" look. So I used this one as my Christmas e-card instead.

And on that note, have a very merry Christmas folks!

Cartoon advent calendar:Day 18. Cold stare

Here's today's advent calendar cartoon. Only seven more sleeps and six more cartoons until Christmas!

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Cartoon advent calendar:Day 16. Freeze a jolly good fellow

"My lawyer negotiated this."

Today's advent calendar cartoon, drawn for a law firm's Christmas card.

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Cartoon advent calendar:Day 6. Good health

"I'm making sure I get my five daily portions."

Here's an old one that was in a Christmas issue of Reader's Digest. Slightly cheekily, it was a riff on one of my own cartoons.

The cartoon is four years old and there were a few elements I was unhappy about with the original drawing, so I have tinkered with it digitally, like a cartooning George Lucas.

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Snow joke, it's that time of year again

I drew one of the Private Eye Christmas cards this year. You can see it by taking a magnifying glass to the bottom right-hand corner of the above promo image. Yes, it's another snowman cartoon (I'll post it here nearer the time). You get the pack of 12 cards when you subscribe, but they're also available to buy. Visit the Private Eye website.

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Cartoon advent calendar:Day 21. Recession Christmas

"Luckily for you, we're only taking on temporary staff right now."

Today's advent calendar cartoon is from the Private Eye Christmas issue, which is out today. We're on the home stretch now ...

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Cartoon advent calendar:Day 18. Food for thought

"Apparently, it's organic"

Day 18 of the cartoon advent calendar and this is the fourth snowman joke, and there may well be more to come. This was in Prospect magazine at Christmas two years ago.

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Cartoon advent calendar:Day 8. Arty Christmas

"It's my homage to Picasso."

Here's an art cartoon for day eight of the advent calendar. Drawn for a local paper last Christmas. That's three snowmen cartoon so far, and there's more to come.

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Cartoon advent calendar:Day 7. The accused

"It is alleged that you did pose as a clergyman in order to carry out sham marriage ceremonies ..."

After the punnery of yesterday's advent cartoon, this one is possibly a little more sophisticated -- by which, I mean that some people didn't get it. Private Eye did though, and it was in the magazine last Christmas.

Royston's cartoon book: it's got no Christmas cartoons in it but the one on the cover does have some snow in it

Cartoon advent calendar:Day 3. Meet and Magritte

Today's advent cartoon is an oldie. This was in a Private Eye Christmas issue in 2008. Day three and I'm already revisiting past glories! Mind you, I don't think I've posted this here before, though there are other Magritte cartons.

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Deconstructing the snowman cartoon

Can I really post two snowmen cartoons in a row? Well, it is [almost] Christmas. Snowmen gags are great to do, as you can take the joke in so many different directions, as Bill "Calvin and Hobbes" Watterson demonstrates in these strips ...



My cartoon above came about as I was trying to think up Christmas cartoons and decided to break the "classic" snowman image into its constituent parts: two lumps of coal, a carrot, two sticks etc. The joke more or less instantly came out of that process. This is one of two I've got in the current Reader's Digest.

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Cartoon about woman who dialled 999 over snowman theft

You may have heard or read about the woman who called the emergency services over the theft of a snowman. It has provoked quite a few chuckles on Twitter and Facebook.

It happened here in Kent – in Chatham, innit? – so one of the newspapers for the area asked me to do a cartoon. As a subject for humour, it was a bit of a gift.

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Smoking cartoon: Not big or clever

Here is yet another snowman cartoon, just as the ice is melting (around here anyway.) This can be seen in the current issue of The Spectator.

Someone asked me if that's an underage smoker at the front. He does look a bit small. I think I just ran out of snow. I drew this last summer so there wasn't much around. Either that or it's conclusive proof that smoking stunts your growth.

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

"Apparently, it's organic."

Well, after complaining last week that we've not had any festive snow, some did finally arrive here at the weekend. And here is the snowman we made ...

My wife tells me that the carrot is organic, which makes it a case of life imitating cartoons i.e. the one above which can be seen in the current issue of Prospect.

Talking of snowmen, I was commissioned by one of the Kent papers to do a snowy weather cartoon and somehow managed to turn it into a gag about Rage Against the Machine making it to the coveted Christmas Number One spot.

The funny thing is, I already had a punk snowman, with a carrot mohawk, in my sketchbook from months ago when I was brainstorming Christmas cartoons. I liked the image but didn't know what to do with it as a cartoon. Until now. So the moral is never throw away old sketchbooks!

I'm now taking a break from blogging until January 2010. All the best of the festive season to you. Have a good one.

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Snowman cartoon: Who's that?

Apparently, lots of people here in the UK have snow today. People in London appear to be getting particularly excited about it on Twitter. As usual, there is none here on the tip of the Kentish coast, so I have to make do with snow cartoons instead.

This one can be found on a Christmas card in a gift shop near you (I sold the card company this and a slightly rude caption for a photo card). It can also be seen as a full-page cartoon on the back of the latest edition of 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.

In other news: There's an interview with me over at a US blog called David Wasting Paper. David is a self-confessed cartooning geek and has put the same questions to a whole load of cartoonists and comics artists, including Bill Griffith, Nick Downes, Dave Coverly, Chris Browne and Larry Gonick. There's lots to read there, well worth a look during the inevitable festive period down-time.

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Snow cartoon: A load of rubbish

Why does everyone insist on saying "Blimey, a bit of snow and the whole country grinds to a halt!" as though that's a bad thing? We need more grinding to a halt. Surely it's time to petition the Government for an officially recognised National Grinding to a Halt Day?

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