The Big Draw

I attended the launch of The Big Draw, the annual campaign to get the nation, young and old, drawing. Myself and fellow Cartoonists' Club members spent part of Sunday in a marquee, encouraging kids to draw funny faces and offering tips and advice ... though to be honest, few of them seemed to need any, as they were very keen.

Here is some of their handiwork:



The Battle of the Cartoonists was fun too. Teams representing Private Eye, The Guardian, The Independent and that laugh-a-minute publication the Financial Times, each produced a banner on the day's theme of "Amazing Space", as the event was held in the marvellous Somerset House. These were then put to the public vote, with The Guardian emerging victorious.


It was a very well-attended, well-organised day, with beautiful sunny weather (the kids were playing in the fountains!) There are Big Draw events throughout the UK in October. See their website for details.

Hey Joe

Underground comics artist Joe Matt has gone and got himself a Myspace page, which is pretty surprising if you've read his work as he portrays himself as something of a technophobe. The profile in itself is very entertaining, a cut above the usual Myspace stuff. Matt draws the aptly named Peepshow autobiographical comic, which is so revealing in terms of detailing his personal obsessions that he makes Robert Crumb look like he's withholding. And the good news is that the ludicrously over-due issue 14 is out soon. The last one was 2002!

Rejected cartoon: Not this time, thanks.

Here's a rejected gag for you ...

Surely you jest?

Purely for fun, I’ve had a section on my cartoon website for some years now called Other Roystons, with links to other people with my less-than-common firstname and to websites for towns and villages called Royston – of which there are many, mainly in the UK and North America.

As a result I get occasional emails from Roystons from all over the world, and from people who live in Roystons! One said, tongue firmly in cheek (I hope) “I wept with joy to find others with this fine name ... you have given my life new meaning.” Another person sent me a photo of a puppy called Royston, and then another one when it grew up.

But this month I got the best one yet: a gentleman from Lynchburg, Virginia, called Royston Jester. What a great name that would be for a cartoonist. And it's Royston Jester IV, in fact. It's also ironic because I am editor of the monthly newsletter of the Cartoonists' Club which is called ... The Jester.

Don't know anything about this Royston, but I want that record ...

Cartoon markets: Writing the right gag

Like any job, you have to wear different "hats" as a cartoonist. Ordinarily, if asked to to a cartoon about Damien Hirst I would probably come up with something a bit sarcastic (as many cartoonists have done!). But when it's for a profile of said artist on the Artyfacts section of the Children's BBC website, something just plain silly is the order of the day.

Old cartoon revisited

I was chuffed to get a gag in the "Best Cartoons Ever" selection in the latest issue of Reader's Digest. Unlike some magazines, they pay a generous reprint fee. Which is nice.

The cartoonist's dilemma

One of the key dilemmas that faces the cartoonist is this: Do I get out of bed to jot down that idea that I have just had ... or do I leave it and hope that I will remember it in the morning?

The case for staying in bed: It's warm. And comfy. I'd have to find my glasses in the dark. It probably won't seem that funny in the cold light of day anyway.

The case against: You will never remember the idea. It never works.

Curiously I didn't write down last night's idea and yet I did remember it (didn't seem that funny in the cold light of day). Could this be because I also thought, "I could do a blog entry on this cartoonist's dilemma" ? Hmmm.

Where there's smoke

The furore over editing out scenes of Tom and Jerry smoking reminded me that my four-year-old son never sees these cartoons, as we tend to only let him watch CBeebies, the BBC's station for pre-school kids (no pester-power adverts, you see!) which, sadly, is all Bob the Builder, Tweenies, and the like. So I sat him down and we trawled the net for some of the Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes cartoons cartoons that I remember from my youth (thank you You Tube)

The biggest hits by far were the Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons. It's staggering to think that these 50-year-old cartoons can still make a four-year-old and a 38-year-old cry with laughter. Get them watched know folks, before the Powers That Be decide to edit out all irresponsible scenes of anvils being dropped on to heads from a great height.

Religion cartoon: I confess

Got one in the September issue of Prospect.

Rubbish cartoon

I draw a weekly cartoon to accompany a story in a local Kent newspaper. This week's was very much of the "you couldn't make it up" variety. Apparently the council are now so keen to enforce the use of wheely bins (wheely bins are always big news in local papers!) and to reduce the number of black rubbish sacks left out for collection, that they employ people to rifle though them in order to ascertain the identity of those who dump them – so they can be prosecuted! Nice job.

Such a story easily lends itself to a cartoon ...

Techno fear

There have been no posts for a little while as I've been doing a bit more raging against machines. I found myself unable to pick up my emails for a couple of days – the problem being a power “outage” at my internet service provider. When did the Great British Powercut become lumbered with the US term outage, by the way? It looks too much like outrage to me – though that would have been quite applicable in this case as I found myself banging my head on the wall in frustration as I realised just how much I now rely on this technology.

Out-of-the-blue emails can be a good source of commissions for me. Did I have any waiting for me that I didn’t know about, I wondered. Also, many of my regular clients communicate by email. Did they have any cartoon jobs for me? I could hardly phone all of them on the off-chance.

Things then went from bad to worse. I started having internet connection problems, so not only could I not get emails, I could not even connect to the web. At one point, even the telephone helpline was “temporarily out of order”. They were, of course, sorry for the inconvenience. That’s OK then. Back online now though and the few days of missing emails have been sent on. And although I should be thankful it happened at a quiet time of the year, there were a couple of jobs waiting to justify my frustration!

Smashing time

My computer printer finally went kaput after years of threatening to do so. I refused to mourn because its passing gave me the chance to carry out a long-cherished fantasy ...



I didn't quite go so far as to take a baseball bat to it (as in the film Office Space) but it was still very cathartic.

Insight into the strange world of cartooning ...

Rejection is such a part of the cartoonist's life that the other day I was actually pleased because I got the more encouraging rejection slip on the left, rather than the slightly abrupt one on the right. Sad but true, folks!

Office cartoon: Going large

This cartoon is in the August issue of Prospect. I was pleased to sell this gag as it's one that I came up with while I was at the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival (see May 3 entry) and therefore not at my desk trying to earn money! The general theme of the festival was "Size".

Holy copyright violation!

I have some cartoons for sale on the Cartoonstock website. They recently removed a handful because of a new policy of not featuring trademarked characters from films etc. Now, it's not necessarily copyright violation to feature such characters in cartoons, but the problem Cartoonstock run into is that they sell their cartoons to be used on mugs, mousemats etc. So then you could be seen to be exploiting the character. I think, actually, it's more of a problem overseas than in the UK, but I suppose it's all part of being a global business. Anyway, to be honest I wasn't that bothered as it was just a few gags and most of them were from very early on in my cartooning career.

There is one I'm fond of though. It was one of the first gags I had published. It was in The Times's Saturday supplement Metro (now defunct) circa 1998. Of course I'd draw it completely differently now (hopefully a lot better!) but it's still an OK gag I think. Note to DC Comics: please don't sue. I'm not planning on putting it on a T-shirt.

Two links

This recently launched blog is definitely one to bookmark: A Gag a Day by my cartooning pal and fellow Cartoonists' Club member Tim Harries. It does exactly what it says on the tin, as they say. Or, indeed, as Tim says on the blog. "One gag published every day, unless I'm on my hols or get a bit bored," he adds.

And here's some practical cartoon advice from the Andertoons blog.

19-year-old rejection slip found!

While having a bit of a sort-out, I found a rejection slip from Oink comic from 1987 (it was kind of a Viz for kids).


It was probably the first rejection slip I ever got. I was 19 years old and, being a teenager, was depressed by it and never sent them anything else! But what's interesting to me now about it, after years of bog-standard "sorry, no thanks" rejection slips, is the fact that it's a proper letter and is incredibly positive. If I got a rejection letter like this now I think I'd be pretty happy about it!

Crazy name, crazy guy

Many thanks to cartoon blogger Clangnuts for linking to my blog with a rather nice review. Clangnuts says: "I've been a printer, postman, weekend hippy, driver and support worker, but underneath all of that I've always been a cartoonist." I know that feeling.

How to traumatise young children

Toy manufacturers, why not package Postman Pat in such a way that it looks like he's about to be dumped in the river by the Mob? My son was unperturbed, but you must admit it is a bit sinister.



There's real fear in those eyes.

Who you gonna call?

I recently set up a Myspace page, mainly to increase my web profile and provide a link to my main cartoon website. The "social networking" side of it is quite fun, up to a point (it's slighty bizarre when you get a link request from someone who seems to be online purely to show their bum to the world). I have discovered some good cartoonists that I wasn't aware of though, which is good.

Here's me at Myspace

Now, not being as great a reader of Terms & Conditions as I should be, I didn't know that putting your work up on Myspace effectively granted them a licence to exploit it, potentially for profit. But as soon as I became aware of this appalling situation I found out that it had been changed, and all rights now remain with the artist. So who managed to get Myspace to make this amazing U-turn? Who d'ya think?

Billy Bragg

Whatta guy.