Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival 2012 flies by

"Take over, Number Two, I'm updating my Facebook status."

The Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival was held last weekend and was as great a success as ever, despite the presence of rain this year (we've been lucky in the past).

Above is a cartoon of mine from the Flights of Fancy exhibition, which can be seen at the Visual Arts Network gallery in the town's Market Hall until the end of the month (the exhibition then goes on to other venues, details here). I've got three others in the show, all original drawings (this is a signed print of a cartoon drawn for a PR company a few years ago, on the theme of "social not-working" in the workplace).

"Insert funny caption here ..."

This cartoon was used on the Reader's Digest stall at the festival, as one of the drawings for the Beat the Cartoonist caption contest on the Friday. They'd packed up for the day before I made it to the stall, so I've no idea what the public came up with, and the cartoon has not yet been published, so I'm not going to tell you the original caption.

I was not an official participating cartoonist this year, so I was able to get around and see more than usual, without having to worry about getting a Big Board painted. So this year I managed to get to the Reader's Digest talk by Steve Way, the cartoon editor, and Martin Colyer, the design director.

Cartoonists work in isolation and part of the fun of Shrewsbury, for us, is meeting the public and getting feedback for our work, which is hard to find. You don't usually get to hear anyone actually laugh at your gags. The Digest talk gave me that as they showed all the cartoons from the past year and I had 11 gags in those 12 issues. Martin put a few questions to me and, as readers of this blog will know, I'm always happy to yak on about cartoons ...

I'll spare you the pics of drunken, singing cartoonists this year, but here's one of Matt Buck and I (thanks to Nicolette Petersen) at the Humurals, where cartoonists do on-the-spot drawings to create an instant exhibition. Here's one I came up with, on the festival theme of Flying.

Lots of us involved in the festival, and others, were tweeting about #shrews12 throughout the weekend and posting pictures. You can see a round-up of lots of that here, and we've put lots more words and pictures at the Procartoonists.org blog. I'm already looking forward to next year's festival which, amazingly, will be the tenth.

Marathon v Cartoon Festival. Tough choice

It's the London Marathon this weekend, so I drew this cartoon for a newspaper preview of the event.

Sadly I cannot take part, ahem, because as usual it clashes with the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival. I'm off up to Shrewsbury tomorrow. Expect a blog post on that next week. In the meantime, here's a cartoon drawn for the "Humurals" at last year's festival, which had a sporting theme.

"Remember the plan: on the final stretch, you go down."

 Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book

Cinema cartoon: Film fun

"Wow! That's probably the best Kyrgyzstani neo-realist horror-comedy crossover I've seen so far this year."

The job of a cartoonist is to poke fun, and that can apply even when the subject is something you actually like.

This accompanies an article in Isle magazine about two local film clubs. I'm a fully paid-up member of one, the Thanet Film Society, and regularly attend its screenings at the Palace cinema here in Broadstairs.

They actually did show a Kyrgyzstani film recently. It wasn't a horror-comedy crossover though. I'm eternally grateful to them for bringing films that barely get shown anywhere to our corner of Kent, and I hope they'll forgive this spot of piss-taking. Just doin' my job.

 Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book

More family drawing talent

I've already blogged here about my son's love on drawing, but my 19-year-old nephew is a keen scribbler too.

Oscar is studying graphic design at university, but when he's not doing that he's drawing and putting stuff on his Wordpress blog, which you can at oscarianrobertson.wordpress.com

It's pretty crazy stuff, a clear influence being the drawings of Vic Reeves, with a touch of David Shrigley. Take a look. Warning: contains wrestlers. Lots of wrestlers.

Greetings card cartoon: Here we row again

This cartoon, which was in an exhibition at last year's Henley Regatta, is now available as a greetings card. It will be sold in the shop at Henley this year.

It costs £2.50, with proceeds going to the Stewards' Charitable Trust, which works with schools across the country, encouraging young people to learn to row. Even Trenton Oldfield can't complain about that.

Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book

Topical cartoon: April fuel

OK, I know "Keep Calm" poster spoofs have been done to death, but it seemed appropriate for this cartoon about the UK's fuel "crisis" (read "panic") which appears in a local Kent newspaper this week.

I tried the gag first at Private Eye last week but they passed on it -- probably because they'd planned this Keep Calm cover spoof. You can't keep a good meme down.

Topical cartoons for newspapers

Here are some recent topical "pocket" cartoons drawn for local newspapers here in Kent. They are about the hosepipe ban in the South East ...

... the announcement of the route of the Olympic torch ...

... and the Government's controversial "workfare" scheme. In this case the cartoon was for a column, and it illustrated both a piece about workfare and a rant about being put on hold! All part of the cartooning service ...

Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book

Cartoon for the Shrewsbury festival

"Some blue-arsed fly you turned out to be."

Here's another cartoon submitted for exhibition at the 2012 Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival, the theme of which is "Flying". Though clearly this is about not flying.

This is a new version of an old cartoon that was published some years ago in a magazine that you wouldn't want to show to your family (you can see the original in this post). The festival organisers may not go for a cartoon with the word "arsed" in it, though they have included cartoons with naughty words in the past.

Festival events take place through April and May. The main weekend of free activities, now known as Cartoonists Live, which includes live drawing, workshops, talks and caricaturing, takes place from April 20-22. Visit the website for more.

Cartoons and illustrations added

I've added more sample cartoons and humorous illustrations to this site. Click "Portfolio" on the navigation bar above, and if you then click on any image you'll get a slideshow that you can click through.

Technology cartoons: Silent contemplation

Computers and gadgets are a huge part of our lives these days, so it's no surprise that this is one of the key subjects I seem to draw about now. People spend so much time in silent, heads-down contemplation of their gadgets that cartoons with no captions seem to work well. Here's a small selection.

If you'd like to reuse any of my cartoons on technology, or any other subject, or would like to commission cartoons, get in touch.

Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book

Magazine cartoons: Delay and defeat

"Health and Safety, mate."

Sometimes cartoons take a while to appear in print, as I've mentioned here before. This was taken by Reader's Digest in April 2010 and appears in the March 2012 issue. Thankfully the waiting period is not usually that long!

Also in the issue is the result of the Beat the Cartoonist contest:

"Accurs'd stag nights!" was my original caption but I was beaten by Malcolm Ainge, a reader who suggested "This is the last time I volunteer to be a designated driver!" ... which I have to admit is pretty good. Curses!

This now brings my personal Beat the Cartoonist score to: Me 3, Readers 2. So, the tide is turning! Click here for all posts on Beat the Cartoonist entries.

Boardroom cartoon: Teamwork

"You're right, there is no 'I' in team. But there is 'tea', so I'm nipping off for a break right now ..."

Everyone hates people who use slogans like "there is no 'I' in team", am I right? See more cartoons in my Boardroom series here.

Music cartoon: Changing the mood

"One of my songs has been used in a major advertising campaign, so I'm afraid I no longer have the blues."

This can be seen in the new issue of the PCO's Foghorn magazine, which features cartoons on the theme of "We're all in this together" (think Tory Party slogan, rather than High School Musical). This will be the final issue of Foghorn -- more on that here.

Restaurant cartoon: Bon appétit

I don't get my cartoons in The Oldie too often, but this small portion of captionless humour is on the menu in the March issue.

Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book

Newspaper cartoon: Court out

This was drawn for an article about a court replacing stenographers with a system where proceedings are digitally recorded and transcribed on computer later.

I liked the "Facebeak" joke, but I was concerned that some might not be familiar with the slang term "the beak" for a magistrate or judge (as in "up before the beak"). But I took a "you can't please all of the people" approach, and went with it.

The rush towards doing everything digitally does seem crazy. Just because we have the technology, does everything have to be digital? This move, inevitably, involved laying people off, and the paper couldn't find one person who thought it was a good idea, or that it would be a better way of doing things. It's "progress" for the sake of it. Add your "Luddite" and "old fart" comments below.

Topical cartoon: The buzz phrase

"How come we never get invited to these extreme weather events?"

Listening out for "buzz" words and phrases is a key part of being a cartoonist -- there are often jokes in them.

"Extreme weather event" is a phrase that seems to have entered the lexicon of forecasters over the past year or so. It just sounds to me like a party I never get to attend. This is one of two cartoons of mine in the current issue of Private Eye.

Here's a photo of the kind of weather event we've been enjoying here in east Kent this week. The same forecasters, with their love of hyperbole, have been calling it "The Big Freeze". We used to call it winter.

Out of office cartoon

When asked to provide cartoons to accompany trade magazine articles, I find it's often the small details I pick up on. This accompanied an article about the new National Civil Business Centre, part of the county court system.

What caught my eye was that the centre is in Northampton in name only, as it's linked to their court, but it is physically located in Salford. It put me in mind of people who are at work but in their minds are somewhere else. We've all been there.

Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book

Prospect cartoon: Post haste

"I refuse to be pigeonholed."

The February issue of Prospect magazine features an article about the Post Secret project, which this cartoon sits alongside. As usual, this was just coincidence and I had no idea they were planning that when I sent it in. This kind of thing has happened before and I wish it happened more often.

Here's a blog post I wrote a while back on the talking-object cartoon. I don't do that many, I think some mags are probably not keen on them, but they are fun to draw.

Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book

Law cartoon: Impute vs Infer

This cartoon, which pastiches the work of the pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, which was itself a pastiche of comic art, recently accompanied an article in a law magazine.

It was about the legal problems involved in separations with "cohabitant" couples. The difficulty appeared to be trying to establish what the parties' intentions had been, as there was no marriage contract, and the fine legal definition as to whether these were inferred or imputed ...

Yes, I was lost too! But I think I got enough of a gist of the topic to come up with the right cartoon. A law firm has just bought a colour print of it, so I suppose I must have.

Click here to buy Royston's cartoon book

Beat the Cartoonist: Vote now

"Accurs'd stag nights!"
"This is the last time I volunteer to be a designated driver!"
"Hey, you at the front, no smoking in first class!"
"I don't know what you're all laughing about. This is the tumbrel."

These are the captions for Beat the Cartoonist on the Reader's Digest site. Click here to vote for your favourite. As usual, there are three from readers plus mine. Do your worst! Or your best, if you like.

See all my Beat the Cartoonist gags here.