Here is the last interview answer from Andy Davey our PCO Artist of the Month for August 2008.
Bloghorn asked him what’s the future for cartooning in the digital age?
I’m sure cartoons will thrive and flourish, after they emerge from this difficult period, but in what form they will do this, I have no idea. It may be that animation will provide the extra selling point they seem to need in the rush to digital. It seems many people under 30 now think of animated cartoon art when they hear the word “cartoon”, so the deed may be already be done.
It’s increasingly difficult to get any kind of still, newsprint cartoon published at a reasonable fee, so it may have become less attractive to new entrants and this may lead to a downward spiral in the quality of work. But there are, still, good new people coming in*.
Interestingly, the route to being a cartoonist is usually circuitous or tangential; there aren’t any really useful training schools. This means it still attracts lateral thinkers, oddballs and eccentrics – thank goodness. Long may it do so. Satire and drawn humour are as natural (and enduring) as camel farts. The art-form might mutate but it won’t die.
Can I go now?
Bloghorn says click D for Davey.
* See some of it at this link British cartoon talent