Sempé The Best
Rupert Besley writes: There’s a fine drawing on the cover of Le Petit Nicolas, Le Ballon which shows a small boy with an admiring smile watching as a slightly battered balloon goes off into the ether above. That’s a bit how the world is left feeling on hearing this week of the death at 89 of […]
Giants from Lilliput
Lilliput cover (Dec 1949) by Ronald Searle Rupert Besley writes: Some years back (50, to be precise) I spotted a small selection of Lilliput magazines from 1941-51 in a junkshop in Leeds. I bought all nine of them and have returned to them regularly since. This era was still the heyday of line illustration, […]
Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival exhibition comes to the High Street
Poster illustration by © Jonathan Cusick Festival Organising team member Sarah Knapp writes: Delayed by lockdowns, and consequently without it’s usual live events, Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival exhibition is going ahead this year represented by two exhibitions at the Bear Steps Gallery, Shrewsbury from 6th to 18th September. The show goes up. Our theme is ‘The High […]
#threefingers for Myanmar campaign
The Surreal McCoy writes: In collaboration with artists and creatives in Myanmar (formerly Burma), PCO are running #threefingers a social campaign in support of local cartoonists and artists, and in recognition of the deteriorating situation there. A landslide election for the National League for Democracy party was overthrown by a brutal military coup on February […]
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 […]
Still Splitting Fog
Pandemic cartoon from Nebelspalter (1918) by Fritz Boscovitz. (The crowd is gathered round a sign saying, Flu – no assembly…’) Rupert Besley writes: As a student I had the good fortune several times to work abroad on holiday jobs in the north-east of Switzerland. Happy days. Swiss newspapers then were hard work to get through […]
Not the 2020 Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival
Cancelled poster by © Roger Penwill Glenn Marshall writes: This weekend would have seen the main events of the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival but sadly, like so much else, it has had to be cancelled. One of the organisers, Roger Penwill, commented a few weeks ago when the postponement was announced “We felt that we had no […]
Borderline and Beyond
Rupert Besley writes: Congratulations to the organisers of Laughter Line in Wallsend. And commiserations too. No sooner had they got their cartoon exhibition set up than in came the requirement for museums and galleries to close (at present Segedunum have made that provisional to 1st May). Last year, you may remember, saw the Tyneside museum mounting […]
Infectious Laughter
Cartoon © Pete Dredge Naturally many cartoonists have been indulging in some sick humour whilst trying to cope under lockdown. These are from the bunkers of Procartoonists members, including the very funny and worryingly accurate Dredge cartoon above. © Sarah Boyce Of course most of us are used to working locked down at home. This is […]
