Big drawings from The Big Draw
October 2, 2012 in General
To spare you lots of pictures of cartoonists bending over tables and displaying their bald spots – with the exception of the Big Girls Drawers team, of course! – we present a selection of details from the seven banners in the Battle of the Cartoonists in the V&A’s Raphael Room.
The Procartoonists.org banner, a response to "The Sacrifice at Lystra", was created by William Rudling, Kate Scurfield, Guy Venables and Gerard Whyman
Private Eye drew "Paul Preaching at Athens". Banner by Martin Honeysett, Andrew Birch, Simon Pearsall and Henry Davies
The Private Eye team, captained by the non-playing Tony Rushton, emerged victorious once again.
Reader's Digest got "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes". Banner by Steve Way, Simon Meyrick-Jones, Nathan Ariss, Rob Murray and Royston Robertson
"The Healing of the Lame Man" by the Big Girls Drawers team of Chichi Parish, The Surreal McCoy, Kathryn Lamb and Rosie Brooks
Before the Battle, Rosie Brooks from the Big Girls Drawers team, who is also a member of Procartoonists.org, appeared on BBC Radio London to talk about The Big Draw and cartooning in general. You can hear it here.
The Telegraph team of Patrick Blower, Charles Peattie, Matthew Buck and John Springs took on "The Conversion of the Proconsul"
"Christ's Charge to Peter" was drawn by The Sun team of Andy Davey, Clive Goddard and Tim Harries
The Sun team must be congratulated for getting by with just three cartoonists, compared to, say, the Reader’s Digest with five. The Battle of the Cartoonists is nothing if not an uneven playing field.
"The Death of Ananias" was drawn by the Guardian/Observer team of Kipper Williams, Dave Simonds, Nicola Jennings and Harry Venning
Photographs by Gerard Whyman, Nikki Harries and Royston Robertson
The nominations for the Press Gazette’s British Press Awards have been announced. The event takes place on Tuesday 31 March. There are seven people in the running for Cartoonist of the Year, and they are as follows:
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by Blog Team
Shortsighted Observer found wanting
February 22, 2010 in Comment
The UK’s Observer newspaper relaunched with a “new look” yesterday, and to ensure publicity it grabbed the headlines with a story about the alleged workplace bullying of the Prime Minister. But the revamp also brought with it another controversy: it ditched cartoons.
Gone are the funny and colourful spot cartoons by Robert Thompson, which were once scattered throughout the paper. Gone too is Andy Riley‘s funny strip Roasted, which had been poking fun at the foibles of modern life in the Observer Magazine since 2002.
In addition to editorial survivor Chris Riddell, the paper will each week feature a cartoon drawn for another newspaper from somewhere else in the world. Bloghorn suspects this art will be sourced from an agency which means lower costs for the impoverished newspaper. We think it’s both cheaper and cheerless.
Bloghorn believes this is not good news for British cartoonists, or the readership of The Observer.
People like a laugh, it’s a given, particularly for a Sunday title published on a day that’s supposed to be about putting your feet up and forgetting the woes of the week for a few moments.
Dropping cartoons is undoubtedly a quick cost-cutting measure for a newspaper that was recently staring closure in the face. But Bloghorn believes it is confused thinking.
Other newspapers understand the power of cartoons: The Telegraph knows it needs Matt and The Daily Mail made sure they got a replacement sharpish when Ken Mahood retired recently.
Why has the Observer been so short-sighted? Please dive in and tell us in the comments below.
Tags: Andy Riley, best British cartoonists, Bloghorn, Chris Riddell, newspapers, print redesigns, professional cartoonists, Robert Thompson, The Observer 9 Comments »