Cartoon on the poster by Tom Matthews.
Glenn Marshall writes:
The fabulous Galway Cartoon Festival has reached ten this year and for a fairly young festival it’s already established itself as a major European cartoon jamboree, or as the organisers label it an ‘international celebration of funny drawings’. There’s always an extensive and varied roster of events featuring international and home grown talents. This year is no different.
An array of all the posters from the first ten years…and Dean Patterson’s elbow.
Dean with Irish cartoonist legend Tom Matthews. Embarrassingly both turned up to the festival launch in the same outfits!
Highlights include cartoonists from that cartoon loving nation Belgium, home of Tintin and The European Cartoon Centre. Nicolas Vadot will be talking about his career in television, animation and editorial cartooning (Nicolas also did the very first festival poster)
Cartoon by in Nicolas Vadot.
There will also be a showing of Belgium cartoons from the travelling exhibition ‘From Flemish Masters to the Cartoon Strip’.
Cartoon by Jean Claude Salemi from the Belgium cartoon exhibition.
From the European Cartoon Centre, Saskia Gheysens will be giving a talk ‘Are Women Cartoonists Different?’ which addresses the challenges women confront in the cartoon world.
If that’s not enough, one of Belgium’s most revered cartoonists Luc Descheemaeker will be talking about his cartoons and photography.
Cartoon by Luc Descheemaeker, AKA ‘O-Sekoer’, which perfectly sums up Britain’s status now.
Away from Belgium, raconteur extraordinaire…I’m stuck in French for some raison…from Le Guradein Monsieur Martin Rowson will be giving one of his barn storming (assaut de grange???) talks.
Guardian cartoon by PCO stalwart Martin Rowson.
Other highlights include an exhibition celebrating the first ten years charting the growth from a single exhibition to the current fun-filled itinerary.
Cartoon by US cartoonist Liza Donnelly which will be in the ten year retrospective show.
Another from retrospective show this by Netherlands cartoonist Joep Bertrams.
Cartoon by Marco De Angelis from Italy showing in this year’s central exhibition.
There will be the usual main exhibition including cartoons from around the globe. There’s a new bookshop trail showcasing the work of invited guests including newly enlisted PCO member the multi-talented Mick ‘Zig or is it Zag’ O’Hara…welcome Mick! Following the sad closure of The Phoenix magazine after its satirical tenure of forty years there will be an exhibition and a panel discussion on ‘What Now For Irish Satire?’ It’s a similar issue asked everywhere with the diminishing outlets for cartoons.
This year’s festival featured Irish cartoonist is Fergus Boylan, creator of, among other things, the hit ‘Catholics and Protestants’ card game! Here in the UK Fergus won the Cartoon Museum’s ‘Young Cartoonist of the Year‘ in 2020 & ‘Political Cartoon of the Year’ in 2024.
Cartoon by Fergus Boylan AKA Infinite Guff.
On the Sunday the festival decamps to the magical small Aran island of Inis Oírr in Galway Bay. I hear tell of wild abandon on this night from Dean Patterson ‘PCO-er’ and lover of a Bishops Finger (it’s a BEER!) who is actually on the island spending a month long residency.
Cartoon by festival island dweller Dean Patterson.
A workshop.
On top of all this there are cartoon coffee mornings, workshops for adults and children, the Freedom Wall where cartoonists will be pasting their posters on the theme of fundamental freedoms, games including a ‘Where’s Joey?’ hunt around Galway to find artist Joey Mason and then again on Inis Oírr (seems careless for Joey to go missing twice) and a screening of the film ‘Persepolis’ whose comic book creator Marjane Satrapi sadly died just a few months ago.
Did I mention I’m going…how very remiss…the festival organisers obviously only invite the world cartoonist elite….ahem. I’m doing a couple of events but I’m hoping the schedule will at least allow time to nip away to a pub for an hour or three as I love a pint of the black stuff….pinot noir.
I’ve counted over FORTY events and that’s just on the festival’s main days! For a full schedule of the festival happenings visit the website.
Hats off to all involved in organising the festival – it must be a task of gargantuan proportions.