Smoking cartoon: Last gasp

Smoking is banned in public places in England from July 1, so obviously there are a lot of smoking cartoons in British magazines these days (notably more than when it was banned in Wales and Scotland, of course!) I was pleased, therefore, to get one in The Spectator. I'm also glad that I gave up a few years ago ...

Planning cartoon

The government says it plans more public consultation and greater openness on planning matters, while at the same time promising to speed up the whole process. How can this possibly be done, you may well ask. Here's my take on it, in a cartoon drawn for a property law magazine:


I draw cartoons regularly for several business and trade magazines. And I find that the often dry, serious subject matter usually lends itself quite well to cartoons. Whereas if someone asks you to come up with a cartoon for a story that is already funny or bizarre in some way, that's a far greater challenge.

By the way, I know there's only three legs on that chair. There were four, but it looked cluttered and distracting so I took the fourth one out! The perspective is out of whack too. But it matters not a jot, because it's a cartoon. That's the beauty of the artform. If anyone questions it you say, "Tut, That's my style..."

Stock cartoons: Using the backlog

Inevitably, with on-spec gag cartooning, you end up with lots of cartoons that have been sent to several magazines but remain unpublished. Occasionally, just occasionally, you'll get a commission where these gags can be used. Most commissions are on a very specific subject, they're often illustrating an article, for example. But if it's a more general subject, it's time to dig out those unpublished gags.

Over the past few weeks this has happened a couple of times with the cartoons I draw for a local newspaper group. The subjects were rotten weather (a perennial British favourite) and CCTV security cameras. The cartoons were re-drawn to fit the newspapers, but it was nice that the hard work, ie. coming up with the idea, was already done.