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The Round-up

May 10, 2013 in Events, General, Links, News

The Premier League was rocked this week by the unexpected news of Sir Alex Ferguson‘s retirement, and cartoonists had a ball with it (sorry). In The Telegraph, Christian Adams put the news in context (above), while Matt Pritchett drew parallels with another recent shock resignation. Over in The Guardian, Kipper Williams considered the impact on industry. On the news that David Moyes is taking the reins, Procartoonists.org member Andy Davey pictures the handover in The Sun.

Rob Murray (full disclosure: the writer of this post!) will be opening up his studio to the public from 16-19 May, exhibiting and selling original cartoons from Private Eye, Reader’s Digest, The Spectator and elsewhere as part of the Summer Open Studios show at Wimbledon Art Studios. Entry is free and all are very welcome.

Stephen Collins celebrates the publication of his new book, The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil, with a launch party this evening at Gosh! in London. See preview pages in the ‘Big Comics’ section of his website.

Own-it offers a helpful and concise look at the ongoing controversial changes to UK copyright legislation, which pave the way for licensing of orphan works. Read it here.

An obituary for Margaret Groening reveals that her son – Simpsons creator Matt – believes in writing about what (or who) he knows. The Telegraph picks up on the story and provides this handy interactive family tree.

And finally, having recently challenged New Yorker cartoonists to a reverse-engineered caption contest, cartoon editor Bob Mankoff invites readers to have a go.

Tags: Alex Ferguson, Andy Davey, Bob Mankoff, Christian Adams, David Moyes, Fergie, Kipper Williams, Matt Groening, MattPritchett, New Yorker, orphan works, Own-it, PCO, Procartoonists.org, Rob Murray, Stephen Collins, The Simpsons, Wimbledon Art Studios No Comments »

by Rob Murray

The Round-up

November 9, 2012 in General, Links, News

Bruce Eric Kaplan, the cartoonist and TV writer who signs his distinctive New Yorker cartoons as BEK (above), tells Co.Create about how day-to-day frustrations lead to many of his best ideas. Read the interview and see a selection of BEK’s work here. (Thanks to cartoonist Mike Lynch for the link.)

British comics artist Lew Stringer alerts us to some tweaks that have been made to The Beano this week – including a new run (geddit?) for Billy Whizz by Procartoonists.org member Wilbur Dawbarn. Wilbur had previously offered a teaser on his own blog.

Political cartoonist David Trumble looks back over several cartoons he devised to comment on the various possible outcomes of the Obama/McCain US presidential election four years ago, and offers his take on this week’s Obama/Romney vote. See them all here.

Also to coincide with polling day in the States, The New Yorker offers a selection of its election cartoons.

And finally, a striking and appropriate design has been chosen for the planned Comics and Animation Museum in Hangzhou, China. Take a look.

Tags: Barack Obama, BEK, Bruce Eric Kaplan, David Trumble, Lew Stringer, Mitt Romney, New Yorker, Procartoonists.org, The Beano, Wilbur Dawbarn 8 Comments »

by Rob Murray

The Round-up

October 12, 2012 in General, Links, News

Ralph Steadman – the acclaimed cartoonist, Hunter S. Thompson collaborator and member of Procartoonists.org – is the subject of a new documentary film, which premieres at the BFI London Film Festival this evening. Watch the trailer of For No Good Reason, above, and read more about the film courtesy of Empire magazine.

Sticking with cinema, Charles Schulz‘s Peanuts characters are set to celebrate their 65th anniversary in 2015 by appearing in a new feature film.

Christian Adams of The Telegraph writes about the challenges that can arise for a topical cartoonist tackling daily newspaper deadlines, and reveals a cartoon that didn’t make it into print this week. Read the blog post here.

And finally, some entertaining pieces by New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff. In one, he looks at the importance of writing to the gag cartooning process, and Peter Steiner pitches in with his thoughts on making the transition from cartoonist to novelist. In another post, Mankoff offers some statistical advice to help you win the magazine’s caption contest.

Tags: Bob Mankoff, Charles Schulz, Christian Adams, New Yorker, Peanuts, Peter Steiner, Procartoonists.org, Ralph Steadman, UK Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation No Comments »

by Rob Murray

The Round-up

September 14, 2012 in General, Links, News

A recent New Yorker cartoon by Mick Stevens, above, led to a temporary ban on the magazine’s Facebook page this week, because it apparently broke the social network’s decency rules. Bob Mankoff, the New Yorker’s cartoon editor, looks in detail at the supposed offence on his blog.

The latest collection of Punch artwork focuses on the full-colour, and often full-page, cartoons, illustrations and caricatures that graced the magazine’s pages throughout the 20th century. The Best of Punch Cartoons in Colour also features a large number of cover illustrations and artist biographies, and includes work by Fougasse, E H Shepard, Trog, Quentin Blake, Norman Thelwell and Procartoonists.org member Mike Williams, among many others. See more here.

Kevin Kallaugher, political cartoonist for The Economist under his pen name KAL, provides an interesting overview of how his depictions of US leaders have changed as they have been weathered by their time in office (for similar insights from other cartoonists, see last week’s Round-up).

And finally, Forbidden Planet responds to a BBC report about the decline in reading among children, by calling on adults to help create new comic readers.

Tags: Bob Mankoff, Forbidden Planet, kal, kevin kallaugher, Mick Stevens, Mike Williams, New Yorker, Procartoonists.org, Punch 1 Comment »

by Rob Murray

The Round-up

July 27, 2012 in General, Links, News

As the 2012 Olympics get under way here in the UK, a piece of comics journalism by the cartoonist Tom Humberstone considers the negative impact that an event of this size can have on the host nation. Read the strip here.

New Olympics-themed works by Banksy have presented the London authorities with a dilemma. Meanwhile, The New Yorker offers a slideshow of its best Olympics gags.

Sticking with The New Yorker, a three-part blog entry by the cartoon editor Bob Mankoff takes a look back at a classic episode of Seinfeld – in which the characters struggle to “get” the magazine’s cartoons – to consider what’s funny and why. Read part one, part two and part three.

Terry Gilliam‘s daughter Holly is archiving her father’s work online, and has already unearthed some visual gems. Take a look here, and revisit for more treats as they are added.

As ever, please post any comments below.

Tags: Banksy, Bob Mankoff, John Roberts, London 2012, New Yorker, Olympics, Procartoonists.org, Seinfeld, Terry Gilliam, Tom Humberstone No Comments »

by Rob Murray

The Round-up

June 23, 2012 in General, Links, News

The final instalment of Life In Hell, © Matt Groening

Life In Hell, the long-running syndicated comic strip that first made a name for Simpsons creator Matt Groening, has come to an end after 32 years and a total of 1,669 installments. Read more about the strip and Groening’s decision to call time on it here, here or here.

A little under a year after his hands were broken in an assault by members of the Assad regime, the Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat is drawing again and appears in this moving video on The Guardian site.

In a piece for his New Yorker blog, cartoon editor Bob Mankoff looks at some of the seemingly innocuous cartoons published by the magazine that have nevertheless succeeded in causing offence.

The Mankoff post includes a case in which a cartoon was both attacked and defended on Facebook. Elsewhere on the social networking site, Procartoonists.org member Clive Goddard has discovered that one of his cartoons has drawn thousands of ‘likes’ and dozens of comments – check out the responses (and more importantly, the cartoon) here.

Tags: Ali Farzat, Bob Mankoff, Clive Goddard, LIfe In Hell, Matt Groening, New Yorker, Procartoonists.org, The Simpsons No Comments »

by Rob Murray

The Round-Up

June 1, 2012 in General, Links, News

Alexander Matthews and Wilbur Dawbarn, both Procartoonists.org members and known for gag cartoons as well as comic strips, are collaborating on “Useleus”, a new series for the weekly comic The Phoenix. Alex writes the strip, while Wilbur provides the artwork, above. The strip will tell the story of “by far the most rubbishest warrior in all of Ancient Greece”. You can find out more here. Meanwhile, Alex is also working on a new strip for the Dandy, called “Grrrls!”, as alluded to on his blog.

Vanity Fair conducts an interview with Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor of The New Yorker, about that most prevalent of cartoon cliches: the desert island.

Tom Richmond, cartoonist for MAD Magazine, has been awarded the top honour of Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year at the Reuben Awards. Read more here.

And finally, don’t make him angry, it’s his birthday. Time magazine looks back at 50 years of the Incredible Hulk in this slideshow.

Tags: Alexander Matthews, Bob Mankoff, Hulk, New Yorker, Procartoonists.org, Professional Cartoonists Organisation, Tom Richmond, Wilbur Dawbarn 1 Comment »

by Royston

A Monday Round-up

April 16, 2012 in News

You may have noticed a lack of blog posts last week, this was caused by various changes going on behind the scenes to this website. To make it up to you, we offer an early round-up of cartooning links this week, as later we’ll be concentrating on this week’s Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival (April 19-22).

First up, you may have noticed that it’s 100 years since a certain large boat sank, and if you’ve not had enough of the excessive media coverage, here’s Bob Mankoff of the New Yorker on The world’s largest comedy cliche. We also revisit the definitive cartoon on the subject, above, originally in Punch in 1968, by the Procartoonists.org patron Bill Tidy.

Still on matters New Yorker, Liza Donnelly has transcribed one of her talks so you can read it on her blog: Word and image: The art of cartooning. And Carolita Johnson outlines her somewhat unusual career trajectory for the women’s website The Hairpin inHow to become a cartoonist in about 20 jobs.

Robert Crumb continues to be lauded by the art establishment in France, where he lives, and talks to AP about how odd he still finds it to see his art on walls in galleries. And talking of Art with a capital A, Charles Saatchi has his eye on a cartoonist.

Here’s something of which we were aware, from the AOI’s magazine, Varoom, but we hadn’t realised was now online. It’s a great read too. Martin Colyer, design director at Reader’s Digest, talks to cartoonists John Cuneo, Steve Way and Tom Gauld aboutThe process of cartoons.

Mark “Andertoons” Anderson does a bit of soul-searching on his blog and tells us Why I’m a cartoonist.

The popular DC Thomson comic strip The Numskulls is 50 years old, so comics artist Lew Stringer looks at how this story of little people in our heads fascinates and considers its many imitators, in Variations on a small theme.

The little people in my head tell me that’s enough links to be going on with. Expect Shrewsburyness tomorrow.

Tags: Bill Tidy, Bob Mankoff, Carolita Johnson, Lew Stringer, Liza Donnelly, Mark Anderson, Martin Colyer, New Yorker, Punch, Robert Crumb, Titanic Cartoons 2 Comments »

by Matt Buck

Round-up: What the Bloghorn saw

June 24, 2011 in Comment, News

Rob Murray writes:

Over at the New Yorker blogs, cartoon editor Bob Mankoff has been looking at what makes a good caption for a gag cartoon – and argues, contrary to popular opinion, that novelty is overrated.

Following up, he considers whether it is possible to generate a universal caption that would work with all the cartoons featured in the magazine’s long-running caption contest, and asks readers to suggest their own. Mankoff analysed some of these in a subsequent blog.

Five postcards by prolific cartoonist and master of the double entendre, Donald McGill, have gone on sale for the first time since being banned on obscenity grounds 56 years ago. The cards have been reprinted and sold by the Donald McGill Postcard Museum on the Isle of Wight, and the Daily Mail has the full story here.

Two months on from the royal wedding, Pippa Middleton is still making headlines – this time in cartoon form. The Duchess of Cambridge’s sister stars in a tongue-in-cheek comic strip, one of several released as part of the marketing campaign for video game Infamous 2.

A New York Times blog entry by historian Adam Goodheart deconstructs a cartoon that ran in Harper’s Weekly at the start of the American Civil War, and which later proved prophetic. It should make interesting reading for enthusiasts of both history and cartoons.

Meanwhile, in Russia, a new cartoon strip depicting prime minister Vladimir Putin and president Dmitry Medvedev as superheroes foiling a Speed-style bomb plot has become an internet hit. Creator Sergei Kalenik says he created the Superputin strip to change people’s depressing views of Russia’s political scene. You can read the strip in English translation here.

Bloghorn adds if you see something we should know, please tell us.

Tags: best British cartoonists, Bloghorn, Bob Mankoff, caption competitions, Dmitri Medvedev, Donald McGill, Donald McGill Museum, New Yorker, Pippa Middleton, professional cartoonists, Professional Cartoonists Organisation, Sergei Kalenik, The Bloghorn, Vladimir Putin No Comments »

by Matt Buck

Round-up:What the Bloghorn saw

June 3, 2011 in News

Rob Murray writes:

The Telegraph‘s Hay Festival coverage includes an interview with the paper’s own longstanding pocket cartoonist, Matt Pritchett, in which he talks about how he got started, his typical work process and the challenges of producing a daily cartoon. You can read the entire piece here.

Elsewhere, New Yorker cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan (BEK) has shared an excerpt from his illustrated story about a man trying to come up with the perfect graduation speech. The picture book – like most BEK cartoons – combines concise, dark writing with sparse line drawings, and can be sampled on the Huffington Post blog.

Another New Yorker contributor, the self-effacing cartoonist and illustrator Ivan Brunetti, is profiled by the Chicago Tribune here.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports on an embarassing situation for German newspaper Die Zeit that should serve as a reminder to all topical and political cartoonists – namely, keep track of who’s in charge.

Tags: BEK, best British cartoonists, Bloghorn, Hay Festival, Huffington Post, Ivan Brunetti, Matt, Matt Pritchett, New Yorker, professional cartoonists, Professional Cartoonists Organisation No Comments »