Bloghorn asked Noel Ford, this month’s featured artist how he became a cartoonist:
I didn’t have much choice. Brainwashed by having Film Fun and Radio Fun read to me from the age of two, bombarded with my Uncle’s and Auntie’s huge backlog of Beanos and Dandys, I drew my first cartoon around the age of five (Child to mother, “Why are bananas nice?” Mother to child, “Because you like them.”) Okay, okay, I was only five, remember.
Later, during my (very) short flirtation with art college, my determination to cartoon was galvanized by my tutor who ordered me to stop drawing cartoons because, “You can’t possibly earn a living doing that.” At the time my thoughts immediately turned to the brilliant fine-artist I passed every day on the way to the college, drawing masterpieces in chalk on the pavement for pennies.
Despite diversions which led me to playing lead guitar in several sixties bands, the cartooning instinct prevailed and finally, around 1971, I accepted my fate and set about cartooning in determined fashion. I have been doing it (and earning a living, please note, Mr Fields!) ever since.