The Great British Colouring Book

Clive with the colouring book hot off the press Clive Goddard writes: Back in July 2023 cartoons hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, had ordered the removal of children’s cartoon murals from the walls of two migrant centres in Kent. The colourful, cuddly Disney characters were apparently sending out […]

Tony Husband – A Tribute in Cartoons

All at PCO were shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Tony Husband, one of the cartoon world’s all time greats. There have already been numerous fine tributes written about Tony – here’s a great memoriam by John Freeman on Down The Tubes comics-related blog. Another excellent testimonial with wonderful photos and video […]

Bring Back The Birch

Drawing © Andrew Birch.  @marshallcartoon writes: Our esteemed membership secretary Andrew Birch has been exiled from Twitter after complaints from Tory Chair Greg Hands. Hands had posted a photo opportunity of himself eating a fish and chip supper. Andrew had replied that he ”hoped his supper didn’t go down well (or words to that effect, […]

Raise Three Fingers for Myanmar at St Just Cartoon Festival

Our ‘Raise Fingers for Myanmar’ exhibition was recently shown at Saint-Just-le-Martel cartoon festival in France. This was coordinated by PCO Overseas committee member The Surreal McCoy. Cartoonist Rights Network International (CRNI) Executive Director and PCO Member Terry Anderson kindly sent photos of the displays. The exhibition poster Procartoonists Chairperson Clive Goddard wrote the following on the […]

New Yorker, New Yorker, it’s a wonderful ‘toon

‘I can explain the meaning of life, but not the meaning of New Yorker cartoons.’ Cartoon © Nick Newman Why do cartoonists struggle to break America? by Nick Newman and courtesy of The Spectator.  Cartoons are like gossamer and one doesn’t dissect gossamer.’ So says Mr Elinoff, the fictional cartoon editor of the New Yorkerin […]

Can cartoons be both funny – and diverse?

Cartoon © Nick Newman By Nick Newman and courtesy of The Spectator.  Of the many challenges cartoonists face — rejection, money, drink, or lack of — one of the trickiest is the growing pressure to depict diversity. Nowadays readers often write to publications complaining about the dearth of ethnic minorities in our drawings and demand […]

The PCO Cartoon Review of the Year 2020

Cartoon by © Andy Davey. Glenn Marshall wrote: Once more my friends it’s time for the PCO Cartoon Review of the Year, featuring work from members of the PCO (speech) bubble. It’s been a difficult year to find humour in, although it would be a nightmare for cartoonists if any year was filled with just […]

Draw The Coronavirus – The eBook!

The ‘Great’ Glenn Marshall (WINNER of Draw The Coronavirus competition) writes: Many cartoonists, illustrators, artists and fly-by-nights have been taking refuge from the cruel world by joining in Martin Rowson’s regular cartoon challenges. He sets a subject and we all vent spleen (most of us were in lock down and online twiddling our thumbs-up emojis anyway so […]

Spectator Article: the future of cartooning

A rare mass-gathering of Private Eye cartoonists in 2013 (Rob Murray standing, 9th from right) Rob Murray writes in response to Nick Newman’s Spectator piece (see previous post): Nick Newman, one of the UK’s best and most prolific gag cartoonists, has written an article for this week’s Spectator about the challenges facing our art form. […]