The main Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival exhibition, Flights of Fancy, opens on April 4. Here is another cartoon submitted for exhibition by a Procartoonists.org member.
This is by Alex Hughes and seems appropriate on this post-Budget day. The exhibitionwill be held at the VAN Gallery, Shrewsbury Market Hall, and will visit other venues after the festival, including RAF Museum Cosford.
US cartoonist Ted Rall, who put himself up for sale on eBay earlier this month, has written about how his left-wing views have seen him dropped by even left-leaning publications. In an opinion piece titled Rise of the Obamabots, he recounts some of the rejections he’s received from left-of-centre magazines and argues that the US press is so enamoured with Barack Obama that “there’s less room for a leftie during the Age of Obama than there was under Bush”.
Bloghorn also spotted an opportunity for cartoon fans to become part of Scott Adams’ Dilbert strip. Readers can upload photos of themselves and personalise one of 25 strips online, replacing one of the regular characters and becoming part of the action.
Closer to home, a selection of work by the profilic cartoonist and illustrator Ern Shaw (1891-1986) will be auctioned off next month. Hull-born Shaw had a career spanning more than 60 years, in which he is thought to have had around 25,000 cartoons published in newspapers and magazines, as well as illustrating children’s books and card games. More information on the sale can be found at the website of the auctioneers Dee Atkinson & Harrison.
Bloghorn says, if there is anything big we have missed please do tell us in the comments below
You may have not noticed, but there’s been a general election in Britian recently. And a general election means it’s open season for the political cartoonists, so here Bloghorn presents a brief summary of the events of the last month or so in cartoon form, starting at the beginning of the election with Dave Brown of the Independenton the runners and riders and the Guardian‘s Martin Rowson on the approaching media obsession.
During the campaign The Guardian‘s Steve Bell talks about drawing at the manifesto launches, the Sky debate, and drawing Nick Clegg, Peter Mandelson and David Cameron (and the cartoon that came from this).
The TV debates may have changed the direction of the election, but they were seen differently by TimSanders in the Independent, Dave Brown, Peter Brookes of the Times, Steve Bell and Paul Thomas of the Daily Expesss,whilst Morten Morland of the Times produced a series of short animated responses to each of the debates (ITV, Sky, BBC).
Gordon Brown made what was probably the biggest political gaffe of the campaign by calling a member of the public a “bigoted woman”; Peter Brookes, and Dave Brown, Mac of the Daily Mail, Paul Thomas provided their own takes on Bigotgate.
Looking forward to the challenges for the new Government were Harry Venning’s Clare in the Community and Kal in the Economist, and looking back, Bloghorn‘s very own Matt Buck produced a series of weekly despatches for the Guardian from the 1710 campaign as seen by Tobias Grubbe (2, 3, 4, 5). The Times produced a 9 page comic summary of the election campaign available for download here (PDF, 7Mb).
(“Keep Calm and Cameron” cartoon by Nathan Ariss).
The Editor adds: We are bound to have missed many other great examples of cartooning so please do feel free to add things you have seen in the comments. Thanks.
A new Foghorn magazine is published. Click the picture to subscribe to a beautiful print copy of your very own if you don’t already pay £30 for six issues a year. You can explore some free digital back copies here. This issue the cover artwork is by Alex Hughes.
What’s inside?
Spitting Image – Royston Robertson finds a cartoon namesake down under, and unearths some suprises.
Cool for Cats – Chichi Parish surfs the internet, stopping off to interview a cat-loving, Harley Davidson-riding nudist.
Yes, you read that correctly.
King of the Roundabout – Gerard Whyman gets behind the wheel for the first time in 21 years, and lives to tell us the tale.
Such Larks! – Foghorn’s resident Critic Pete Dredge takes on Lark Rise to Candleford.
Plus:
A four page preview of Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival featuring more cartoons than you can shake a stick at. The Surreal McCoy – a full-page spread of artwork!
With Buildings in the Fog, The Foghorn Guide To, The Potting Shed and many more random acts of humour.
The Eggheads (Chris Hughes, Daphne Fowler, CJ de Mooi, Barry Simmons, Judith Keppel and Kevin Ashman) by Cartoonists' team member Chris Burke
The Cartoonists, a team put together by the Professional Cartoonists Organisation, stormed to victory on the TV quiz show Eggheads last night, after winning each of their head-to-head rounds. Egghead Kevin Ashman described it as “the most comprehensive defeat we’ve ever had”. Here, team captain Alex Hughes explains how it all happened
A little over a year ago, I was approached by the makers of BBC quiz showEggheads and asked if I’d like to put together a team of cartoonists for the upcoming series. I’ve done the odd pub quiz in the past, so accepted the offer and duly went about recruiting a team from the ranks of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation – a team comprising myself, Chris Burke, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell, Royston Robertson and Martin Rowson. We sailed through the December audition and subsequently were invited to record the show in January of this year.
For the uninitiated, Eggheads itself is a fairly straightforward quiz. Each day, a new team of challengers goes up against the Eggheads, a team comprising past winners of other TV and radio quizzes such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Mastermind, Fifteen to One, The Weakest Link and Brain of Britain – the cream of British quiz talent.
The Cartoonists (Alex Hughes, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson)
For our bout, the Eggheads team comprised Kevin Ashman, CJ de Mooi, Daphne Fowler, Chris Hughes and Barry Simmons. Judith Keppel was waiting in the wings and Chris Burke was the stand-in for the Cartoonists.
The first four rounds are a series of head-to-head questions from a given category, where we pick one of our team to go up against our pick from the Eggheads. The contestants then go into the “question room” (in reality, a bench behind the main set) and are given three multiple choice questions each. If there’s no outright winner, it goes to “sudden death”.
The winner of each round is “safe” and allowed to compete for their team in the final round, whilst the loser is not. The final round is a general knowledge team round with the surviving challengers competing directly against the surviving Eggheads for the prize money, which, if it’s not won is rolled-over to the next day.
The Cartoonists (Alex Hughes, Robert Duncan, Royston Robertson, Chris Burke, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson) outside BBC Television Centre
On the day of the filming we arrived bright and early on a crisp January morning with, as requested, a selection of light, brightly coloured non-patterned shirts at BBC Television Centre in White City, London. After resting in the former Top of the Pops Green Room we were ushered into the studio, which is when the nerves kicked in. Make-up was applied, microphones were attached and we met host Jeremy Vine.
There wasn’t much time for chit-chat though (up to five episodes are shot per day), so we went straight into the contest …
…and we won! We were only the sixth team out of the ten series to beat the Eggheads in each of the first four rounds. But to top that, we are the first team to have beaten the Eggheads outright, winning in every single round plus the final – we only got three questions wrong between us in the whole show.
And best of all, the last question, which surviving Egghead Kevin Ashman could not answer, was a cartoon question.
So, well done, team, we did brilliantly! Congratulations to Robert, Royston, Graham, Martin, and Chris in reserve. And our thanks to Al Capp‘s Shmoo…
The editor adds: The BBC iPlayer recording of the show should be available online until November 5th 2009.
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A team representing the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation, the organisation behind the Bloghorn, is set to appear on the BBC quiz show Eggheads tonight (October 29) at 6pm on BBC Two.
The Cartoonists are, left-to right, Chris Burke, who was team stand-in, Alex Hughes, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson.
See the Bloghorn tomorrow for a full post-match report.
As mentioned previously in the year here on Bloghorn, a team representing the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation is set to appear on the BBC quiz show Eggheads. The team, comprising Chris Burke, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell, Martin Rowson and myself, Alex Hughes, will air on BBC2 at 6pm on Thursday 29th October. Obviously, we can’t let you know how we did, but you can expect full coverage here on Bloghorn the following day…
A team from the Professional Cartoonists Organisation, which runs The Bloghorn, is to appear on the daily BBC Two quiz show Eggheads.
The team, called simply The Cartoonists, will challenge the Eggheads team, who are all winners from other quiz and game shows.
Pictured (seated, left to right) are PCOers Chris Burke, Alex Hughes, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson.
Stood behind them are the host Jeremy Vine (second left) with the Eggheads team – CJ de Mooi, Barry Simmons, Daphne Fowler, Chris Hughes, Kevin Ashman and Judith Keppel.
As soon as we know the transmission date of the programme we’ll let you know, via The Bloghorn.
The time difference between the UK and the USA meant that newspapers here were unable to report the victory of Barack Obama the day after the election. So British cartoonists had another day to gather their thoughts, and we saw the results yesterday.
Two cartoonists noted a certain messianic quality in the President Elect. Peter Brookes in The Times came up with a saintly Obama and Matt in the Daily Telegraph wondered if he could work miracles.
Andy Davey in The Sun saw the election as a new dawn and Paul Thomas in the Daily Express also looked at the notion of new hope for America.
A celebratory tone was notable. Steve Bell in The Guardian depicted a slam-dunking Obama and Dave Brown in The Independent showed his ballooning popularity.
It will be fascinating, of course, to see how cartoonists will react once Obama is doing the job of President, when the news stories are not all positive.
Have you seen any other great Obama cartoons in the UK media? Let us know via Comments below
Disclaimer: Any opinion expressed here is that of the named individual and not that of the UK Professional Cartoonists' Organisation unless explicitly stated. Artwork attributed to a named author or publication on this diary should be noted by anyone linking to us from any other site. Thank you. If you wish to reproduce an image please contact the artist from here.
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Disclaimer: Any opinion expressed here is that of the named individual and not that of the UK Professional Cartoonists' Organisation unless explicitly stated. Artwork attributed to a named author or publication on this diary should be noted by anyone linking to us from any other site. Thank you. If you wish to reproduce an image please contact the artist from 
by Royston
By George! It’s almost exhibition time
March 22, 2012 in Comment, General
The main Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival exhibition, Flights of Fancy, opens on April 4. Here is another cartoon submitted for exhibition by a Procartoonists.org member.
This is by Alex Hughes and seems appropriate on this post-Budget day. The exhibition will be held at the VAN Gallery, Shrewsbury Market Hall, and will visit other venues after the festival, including RAF Museum Cosford.
As mentioned previously here, a group of cartoonists from France will be attending the main festival weekend, April 19-22, this year. They are: Roger Thisselin (Roth), Jean-Michel Renault, Antoine Darmatoff (Jepida), Phil Umbdenstock and Emmanuel Maillard (Manu). Their exhibition French Flies (geddit?!) will be held at Theatre Severn.
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Tags: Alex Hughes, Flights of Fancy, Procartoonists.org, Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival, UK Professional Cartoonists' Organisation Portfolios 1 Comment »