Cartoons for The New European

Here's a selection of cartoons published in The New European newspaper. All, as you might imagine, are on Brexit and related issues, such as the distrust of mainstream media and the potential rise of a new centrist political party.

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Another sequel to "Life imitating cartoons"

I have written many posts here about life imitating cartoons, where things I have drawn happen in real life. (See them all by clicking here.)

This cartoon (rejected) was drawn last week ... before the same gag was used by the host at the #Oscars last night. Note to Jimmy Kimmel: I am available for next year's ceremony.

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Strip for Hourly Comic Day 2018

I had another go at doing an #HourlyComicDay strip.

Click to see larger versions of page one and page two.

Hourly Comic Day, which happens every year on February 1, involves, logically enough, drawing a comic panel or panels every hour for all the hours you are awake and sharing it on social media.

This is the first time I've done it since 2015, which was the first one I did. You can see that here. It was later published in the anthology Dirty Rotten Comics.

I managed to do it on the actual day this year, rather than a day late, and I completed it before I went to bed this time! It was pretty exhausting though, as this year I was also determined to make it a full two-page strip with the addition of some double-size panels.

As ever, it's a bit rough around the edges and there's plenty I would change, but that is the nature of the project, drawing and publishing quickly without refining too much.

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Happy new year!

From the current Private Eye magazine. Have a good one, folks.

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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.

Nursing Standard cartoons

I draw cartoons weekly for Nursing Standard magazine. As you might expect, they often link with stories in the news. Here are a few examples from recent months.

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Halloween cartoon: Scary technology

Here's a halloween cartoon drawn for an article on the eeDesignIt website which argues that we should "forget vampires, ghouls and monsters under the bed. What’s really scary is the pace of technology hurtling towards us at 1,000mph."

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Brexit and fake news at Herne Bay Cartoon Festival

Pic: Kerry Riley

Here's me -- suppressing that moment of panic when faced by a huge blank board -- at the Herne Bay Cartoon Festival, which I helped organise, on Sunday 6 August.

I filled the board with Brexit-based gags as seen in Private Eye and New Statesman. Here's a few of them.

Bearing in mind the result of the EU referendum, I assume my efforts were only appreciated by 48 per cent of the audience (probably less as Herne Bay is a bit Ukippy). Some people certainly remained stony-faced.

But it wasn't all biting political satire. As the event was held on the Pier for the first time all the cartoonists got to go on the merry-go-round at the same time. Here's me blowing my own trumpet* with Rich Skipworth and Des Buckley.

Pic: Zoom Rockman

*It's not mine it's Des's. And it's a bugle.

I co-curated the main festival exhibition at Beach Creative gallery, which was full of top-notch stuff, as ever. Lots of cartoons on fake news and Donald Trump. Here's a couple of mine.

Cartoonist Glenn Marshall put together a "fringe" show Mona Lisa: Not Happy, consisting of parodies of the famous painting in cartoons and other art forms. Here's one of my contributions, a foray into Photoshop art.

There was the usual stuff you get at a festival: cartoonists drinking, playing ukulele etc. but I'll spare you the pics. All in all, another cracking  Herne Bay festival.

I wrote a fuller report, with lots of pictures, for the Procartoonists blog which you can read here.

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Humorous illustration: No punchline required

Humorous illustration is slightly different to joke, or gag, cartoons: you use a funny or odd scenario, usually to illustrate an article in a magazine, newspaper or website, without necessarily having a punchline, as you would in a joke cartoon.

Sometimes these are wordless or they may have words within them as part of the drawing, but they generally don't have a caption or speech bubble.

Here are some examples from the Law Society Gazette.

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Life imitating cartoons (yet again)

This is my sixth entry on this blog where something I drew in a cartoon has happened in real life (you can see one from last year here and links to the others here) but I think this is my favourite because it was deliberate.

It made my day when I saw it on Twitter! Thanks to Darren Smith. The original Private Eye cartoon is below. It's one of the most popular cartoons I've done.

Darren's clocks featured at a festival he holds at his home. I've suggested that next time he should recreate this old Reader's Digest cartoon. Might need to carry out a risk assessment first though ...

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Cartoons from The Spectator and Private Eye

"I knew I shouldn't have bothered with this internet of things nonsense ..."

Here's a bumper selection of recent gags from The Spectator and Private Eye, to make up for the fact that a whole month went by without me posting anything here.

"Stay! Sit! Be mindful!"

"Yeah, I'm pretty old school."

"We've liberated the city at last! I'm sure it's around here somewhere ..."

"D-minus? No way! This is fake news."

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Prospect cartoon: The blind date

"Darren's mate is a real catch, he's a barrister."

Cartoon from the current issue of Prospect magazine. This came from an overheard conversation about someone who had somehow confused these two occupations. Cue furious scribbling in notebook. Watch what you say around cartoonists. 

Bearded hipsters are one of my favourite things to draw right now. Here's another in a coffeeshop cartoon from Private Eye a few months back.

"You say lar-tay, I say latt-ay, let's call the whole thing off."

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"You can learn a lot from Lydia ..."

Here's a video showing the drawing of a cartoon from last week's Private Eye, with appropriate soundtrack.

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Re-live the joy that was 2016 via topical cartoons

It's time for my traditional look back at the past 12 months via the medium of topical cartoons. And it's 2016 ... what a year to look back on! 

We begin in space, where British astronaut Tim Peake started the year. But he seemed to spend rather a lot of time on his phone, tweeting ...

There were new "nanny state" guidelines on alcohol limits ...

Over-sensitive university students continued to baffle and annoy in equal measure ...

The crime trial of the year could become a film, we were told ...

The EU referendum dominated the news ...

Then came the shock result ...

Amid all this, there was only really one "silly season" story, Pokemon Go ...

And a little good news with the Olympics...

But there were problems amid the Opposition (again) ...

And I've not even mentioned the endless parade of high-profile deaths in this year ...

And then, as if all that wasn't bad enough ...

2016 was a year in which how terrible and relentless the news was became news itself ...

Who knows what 2017 will bring? Have a happy new year, but remember ...