Comic Relief T-shirt

As today is Red Nose Day, my son was required to dress up for school. Like most six-year-olds he's really into drawing dinosaurs, so I traced two of his creations on to a white T-shirt and added some red noses. It was my wife's idea, so all in all it was a real family effort!

The dinosaurs are, of course, a T-Rex and a Brachiosaurus. Let's take a closer look. Raaaar ....
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Boardroom cartoon: The doodle bug

"I've no objection to doodling during meetings, but it must be within reason."

You may have seen a story in the news recently reporting that boffins have declared that doodling is now officially A Good Thing. A business publication I draw for regularly wanted a cartoon on this subject, with reference to board meetings (above).

As you might expect, I am a compulsive doodler. I often doodle a lot when I'm thinking up cartoon ideas. Sometimes they can help develop the joke, if you keep within the themes you're thinking about, but often I just end up drawing funny looking blokes. And clowns, lots of clowns. Here are some of my doodles (click to enlarge, should you wish to).


My cartooning pal Tim Harries is the master of the odd-looking bloke doodle. So much so that he's turned it into a regular feature on his blog, called Strange Looking Bloke Wednesday.

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Cartoon inspired by Watchmen, it turns out

"No, I can't make it next Friday. How about a week Tuesday?"

I recently re-read the graphic novel Watchmen, partly to remind me of the story ahead of the release of the forthcoming film adaptation (particularly in case it turns out to be rubbish!) but mostly just because it's a brilliant book.

Watchmen is the superhero comic for people who don’t like superhero comics. I have never been a fan of the genre myself but in 1988 I was urged by a friend to read Watchmen, so I did. And I’ve read it several times since.

A key part of Watchmen's appeal is its humour. And as I read it this time, it occurred to me that I may have subconsciously pinched a joke from it, namely the one in the cartoon above, which was published in a, ahem, men's magazine four years ago. In the graphic novel there is a character who carries an "End is Nigh" sign who always thinks Armageddon is due today, yet makes a point of ensuring that a news vendor puts aside the following day's issue of his favourite newspaper.


It's certainly a similar joke. Still, if you are going to steal, subconsciously or otherwise, they do say that you should steal from the best.

Watchmen image © DC Comics 1987

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Cartoons on any subject you like

I will draw cartoons on any subject a client can think of ... as long as as it's legal and they are willing to pay me the appropriate fee for it. It's all part of the "cartoonist for hire" side of the job. Above is a cartoon for a car-trade magazine. Below is an excerpt from a strip for a finance company's intranet (click to read).



Recently I was asked to come up with six cartoons on the subject of "anaerobic digestion". That, as I'm sure you know, is the process of turning waste products into bio-fuels. I've asked around, and no cartoonist I know has so far come up with anything more odd as a commission! Clearly, it's not an obvious subject for humour, but it can be done (and was).



The key is not to get bogged down in jargon and detail. The cartoon should be quick and simple, a humorous counterpoint to the serious stuff. And it can be very serious: the above is from a book called The Business Impact of Enterprise Asset Management.

Here's a random selection of some other subjects I've been commissioned to draw cartoons about over the years: planning regulations, the Lord Mayor's Show, NHS governing boards, accountancy, tourist guiding, the London Local Authorities Act, curry (and rice), health and safety, life in medieval times, careers, grammar and punctuation, golf, caravanning, IT marketing ... I think you probably get the point.

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Coming soon: Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival

The Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival website has been updated, with details of this year's events. The festival takes place from April 23-26, with various exhibitions in April and May. There's more at The Bloghorn.

This will be my fourth time at the festival. Here's what I got up to last year, and in 2007 and 2006. Or click this link for all my Shrewsbury- related posts.

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Family cartoon: Life imitates art

When this Reader's Digest cartoon was published last summer, I showed it to my son as it had been inspired by playing Hangman with him. After I explained the joke (he is only six, after all) he suggested that we play a game of Whole Life Tariff! So we did.

I mention this now as earlier in the week I found the game on a piece of paper, while sorting through a pile of receipts. Here it is:


My son – who is not called Josh, by the way! – did not get the answer (below, upside-down of course) so the prisoner spends his life in jail. Humane, but not quite as much fun as Hangman.

Answer:
(ɥɔɐǝq ǝɥʇ ʇɐ ǝɹǝʍ ǝʍ) ɹıɐɥɔ ʞɔǝp

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My new advertising campaign

Someone told me that in times of recession you should spend more on advertising your business. So I have. What do you reckon? Oh OK, it's not real. This was created on the Bus Slogan Generator website which was inspired by the recent "No God" advertising campaign, run by the British Humanist Association.

That website address again: roystonrobertson.co.uk

Biology cartoon: It's only natural

This is one of four cartoons I submitted for the "Science of Nature" (working title) exhibition which is part of the 2009 Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival. The festival takes place from April 23-26, though the exhibitions will open before that.

As 2009 is the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and he was born in Shrewsbury, the festival has a Darwin-related theme. The organisers suggested that "Science of Nature" be interpreted widely though, presumably so they weren't inundated with too many "Ascent of Man" gags.

This is a cartoon that I was touting around some months ago. It has got a great reaction from everyone I've shown it to, but the magazine editors have not bitten. I suppose it is a bit of a weird one, it doesn't look like your usual magazine gag cartoon. Maybe they don't want people to turn the page and suddenly think they're reading a textbook on sexual reproduction.

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The Massive White Horse of the South

We're getting a new piece of public artwork here in Kent, it was announced yesterday. It has been "dubbed" the Angel of the South, apparently (though when the media says something has been dubbed it's usually them that do the dubbing).

It could more accurately be described as the Massive White Horse of the South, as it's going to be 50 metres high. Of course, the knives (chainsaws?) are out already, with people complaining that it is a white, er, elephant. It costs too much, they say, it won't stay white for long etc.

I was living in the North East when they were planning the Angel of the North. Many people voiced their opposition in much the same way ... costs too much, it won't stay looking like an Angel once the vandals have had a go at it, someone will strip it for scrap metal and so on.

We all know what happened. Everyone went, Ooooh, it's a great big statue! For us! They fell in love with it and took it to their hearts. I wouldn't rule out that happening here.

Public art gets a bad press from art critics. But it's not for them, it's for the people and quite often they embrace it. Look at the John Betjeman statue at the new St Pancras Station (if you can get near it). It it such a bad thing to produce art that people can really relate to?


The Professional Cartoonists Organisation team gather by the John Betjeman statue at St Pancras Station after the Battle of the Cartoonists, part of the 2008 Big Draw. Left to right: Royston Robertson, Pete Dredge, Kipper Williams and Robert Duncan

Of course, the White Horse creator Mark Wallinger is famous for another animal-related artwork: the man in the bear suit wandering around a gallery. I'd like to have seen that 50 metres high, looming over the Kent countryside.


Here's an archive blog post on the last time there was a big art project down this way.

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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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Blogging cartoon: Now we are five

Amazingly, it's five years since I started this blog. I began it on January 31, 2004, and at first I really didn't know what to do with it. To be honest, I think I started it because it was what a lot of people were doing, and I kind of liked the idea of blogging.

So, a few months into the first year, the number of posts tailed off. And once I went full-time as a cartoonist, in August 2004, they almost stopped completely. Blogging took a back seat because I was in panic mode about being a full-timer for at least 12 months. Since January 2006, though, I've posted fairly regularly and now have a good idea of what I want to do with the site.

This is not the sort of blog where you get lots of news about what's happening in the world of cartoons. There are plenty of people that do that far more comprehensively than I ever could, and it's a very valuable service that they provide. Instead, this blog is simply about my little corner of the cartooning world.

Blogging gives me a more flexible way to talk about what I'm up to than the more static portfolio site. I look at the visitor stats from time to time, so I know that people do pop in fairly regularly. Your visits are much appreciated and I hope you continue to find reasons to come back occasionally.

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Underwater cartoon: Pretentious, moi?

Here's a cartoon from the February issue of Prospect, which is on your newsstands now. It's always nice to be in Prospect as it's an elegantly designed magazine. The cartoons are mostly in colour and are well presented.

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I met a Dalek yesterday

I've only been to BBC Television Centre once before and the only famous person I spotted that time was James Robbins, the BBC News Diplomatic Correspondent. No offence, James, but meeting this fella was a bit more exciting.

I was at the Beeb with five other cartoonists to take part in the recording of the BBC2 quiz show Eggheads. I'll put the transmission date on this blog when I know it.

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Credit crunch cartoon: The car-boot sale

As a result of the credit crunch/economic downturn/recession, whatever you want to call it, there has been a boom in car-boot sales, apparently. This cartoon accompanies a local newspaper article on that very topic this week.

When you do on-spec cartoons for magazines, you find that you have certain favourites that you're sure will sell, but never seem to. This cartoon, which I originally drew 14 months ago (though it was redrawn for the paper, mainly to make the signs bigger and clearer) was one of those. It did the rounds.

I suppose the problem for the magazine market was that it is not a "boom boom" joke, as such, more a humorous aside about the kind of tat that people try to get rid of at boot sales. So it works better in an illustrative capacity, accompanying an article on the same subject.

The "three-sign" joke is one I've used several times. Here are two examples, from Private Eye and Reader's Digest.



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Rejected cartoon: Rover and out

I have a topical cartoon in the current issue of Private Eye. This is not it. They passed on this one, and probably with good reason: you need to have a working knowledge of Patrick McGoohan's cult TV series The Prisoner to get it.

The gag made me chuckle though, so I thought, What the heck, I'll draw it up for my own amusement! If you don't get it, this may help: Wikipedia on Rover.

Or it may not ... nothing's very clear with The Prisoner. I was one of a generation of kids who were sat in front of the TV by their parents, when the series was repeated on Channel 4 in the Eighties, and told: "Watch this and see if you can tell us what the heck it's about. We didn't have a clue when it was shown in the Sixties!"

I can't claim to have understood it all, but I did find it hugely enjoyable, as is this musical tribute from little-known band The Times from 1983.

"Be seeing you!"



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"If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

Normally, I'm not one to pass on any kind of self-help advice, it's an area that I can be a bit cynical about. But there's one piece of advice that I read a few years ago that I was reminded of again recently, and it comes from an equally cynical source, the often gloomy but always life-affirming author Kurt Vonnegut.

Here's what he said: "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"

It's essential advice for what are currently quite gloomy times. We need reminding that it's not all bad. And you know what? It really works. Try it. It doesn't have to be big stuff, just those little moments. But you'll find that you say it (or think it, if you prefer!) quite a lot, and those moments do stack up.

I've had a few this week. Once just sitting watching TV with my kids. "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is," said I. They ignored me, of course, and carried on watching "Horrid Henry". Another time I saw a tiny bird in the street whose skittish way of walking made me laugh. I thought the phrase this time, so no one would think I was mad.

So remember: Please notice when you are happy.
:-)

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Alien cartoon: One from the archives

Let's take another delve into the past, with a ten-year-old cartoon. This one appeared in the Times newspaper's Metro supplement dated January 30, 1999.

It's an exceptionally silly joke. The pay-off is a dreadful pun, of course, but the image of the nagging aliens, and the things they are saying, means I just about got away with it (he said, hopefully.) "Your skirting boards need a good clean," is exactly the sort of thing my late Mum used to say.

When this appeared on an early version of my main website, I was flattered when Tony Reeve, a far more established cartoonist, referred to it as "one of the all-time great alien invasion jokes" when he linked to my site. But I can't help feeling that he was overstating the case, somehow.

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Bloghorn moves. Royston not at all worried ...

The Bloghorn, for which I write cartoon-related pieces and help with proofreading etc, is moving home.

The online diary of the Professional Cartoonists Organisation can now be found at thebloghorn.org ... so if you have the blog bookmarked or subscribe to the feed you'll need to update.

There's a brand-new look for the site, as well as a new address. It's looking great, though a fellow cartoonist did point out one disturbing thing that cropped up in the "word cloud" of topics on the left:


I'm assuming that I am simply being mentioned alongside a fondly remembered British humour magazine. But I'm watching my back just in case ...

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Weather cartoon: Cold enough for ya?

Here's a local paper cartoon for this week on the topic of it being a bit parky out. I wish the wind had been coming from the Antarctic as penguins are funnier (and easier to draw).

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New Year's resolutions can work

New Year's resolutions get a bad press. You often hear people say that the chances of you sticking to them are so slim that you may as well not bother. But I made one in 1997 that I'm still sticking to: to be a cartoonist.

I've dabbled in cartooning as long as I can remember, but it was at the beginning of 1997 that I decided I would draw regularly and keep posting batches of cartoons out to magazines. Within a few months I was getting published. Of course, I still had a day job and it was a few years before I became a full-time cartoonist, but it was that New Year's resolution that got the ball rolling.

I suppose the key to sticking to a resolution is to pick something positive, which that was. I'd decided I was going to do something, rather than stop doing something. Having said that, my resolution this year (there's just the one, let's not get carried away) falls into the latter camp.

Remember that Simpsons scene where Homer tells Bart to get back to the dinner table, then the voice in his head says, "What are you doing, you fool, that food could be ours!"? Yep, my resolution is to stop finishing off my kids' meals when they leave food on their plates! Five days in, I'm holding up OK. And now I've committed it to the blog I'll have to stick to it.

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