Environmental cartoon: No glow area

Seems like a while since we've had any colour on this blog, so here's one of the two cartoons by me that you can see in the June issue of Reader's Digest.

I'm not against low-energy lightbulbs in any Jeremy Clarkson kind of way, we have them throughout our house, it's just that, well, they're a bit crap aren't they? When I sit reading a book I try to console myself with the fact that I'm helping to save the planet as I tilt the page towards the light.

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Cartoons that keep on going

Article from The Weekly News, click to enlarge

It's always amazing to me how some cartoons seem to take on a life of their own. My leopard on a psychiatrist's couch cartoon, which was first published 11 years ago (albeit as a different, black and white version) is a case in point.

Thanks to The Jester, newsletter of the Cartoonists' Club, I've just found out that it was picked for a preview of the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival in Scotland's Weekly News (above, click to enlarge). That's it in the bottom, left. Shame they cropped the signature. The BBC also used it in a Shrewsbury piece.

I don't get paid for these PR uses, but the cartoon has already been published, I sold the original, and I've sold it for re-use many times, so that's OK. I'm happy to help promote the festival and it's good to know that the cartoon is still out there, hopefully making people laugh.

Incidentally, I normally cringe a bit at the attitude shown in this article i.e. "We're all wacky, zany cartoonists here to cheer you all up with a chuckle!" but at the moment it feels quite appropriate, like a genuine public service.

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Return of the scary clown cartoon

Regular readers to this blog will know that when I doodle I often seem to end up drawing sinister and/or sleazy looking clowns. Some people have even been helpful enough to suggest that this indicates some deep-seated psychological problem and I should probably seek help.

I'm starting to think they may be right, as even by my standards the guy above, who emerged yesterday when I was supposed to be thinking of a cartoon for a client, is pretty disturbing.

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Journalism cartoon: It's about multi-tasking

Here's a cartoon which accompanied a newspaper article about how journalists are embracing the multimedia world.

It's almost five years since I left newspaper journalism, where I was a reporter on local papers and later a sub-editor on the nationals. There was a degree of multitasking involved back then but I know from friends in the industry that it has rocketed over the past few years.

Clearly this cartoon, like the article it accompanied, which was about last week's Local Newspaper Week, is a positive look at the subject, which is fair enough. It's only right that journalists learn new skills in order to get their stories seen and heard across different media. But there is often a danger that they can spread themselves too thinly, and I know that they can be pretty stressed and overworked in the new media world.

Anyway, I'll be watching developments in journalism closely, as these are certainly changing times for the industry. Let's hope that, however the stories are delivered, quality journalism survives.

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Legal cartoon: Fun with mortgage fraud

"I got into mortgage fraud just as the market started to fall."

Here's a cartoon I drew for a business magazine to accompany a piece on mortgage fraud. Given recent events in the news, you may like to imagine that the guy on the right is a Member of Parliament, but I couldn't possibly comment.

This is not the first time I've done a cartoon playing on the "convict's arrows" motif, which is so beloved of cartoonists. And it probably won't be the last

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Business cartoon: Out in the open

"As part of the company's spirit of openness, I've decided to tell you all a little about the real me."

There's a new Star Trek movie out today, so I dug out this business magazine cartoon from 2003. It was this or the inevitable Captain's Blog gag.

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Social-networking cartoon: Pub name fun

"Must dash ... I want to spend some time on my social-networking websites."

Here's a cartoon from the archives, it seemed like a suitable one to illustrate a piece about Twitter and pubs.

I took part in an ultimately pointless but rather fun Twitter exercise yesterday. Someone started a topic called "Crap names for pubs", or rather #crapnamesforpubs in Twitterspeak, and it snowballed. Thousands of people contributed and at one point it was the number one "trending topic" globally! Pretty bizarre.

I submitted more than I'd care to admit to. Here are some of the Crap Names for Pubs I came up with: The Hair of the Dog and Duck, Bar Humbug, The Elephant and Another Elephant, The Red Dragon's Den, On The Waggon and Horses, The Hole in the Wallet, The Three Crap Lagers, The King's Headache, The Sticky Carpet, The Last Orders, The Rat in Me Kitchen, The Anne Boleyn's Head ... you get the idea!

Incidentally, this cartoon appeared in Private Eye in November 2007. I don't think I had even heard of Twitter then, but I was on MySpace (I have a page there but I no longer use it) and Facebook. Where will it all end?

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Write your name with zombies

Yes, at last you can write words with a font made from zombies. I mean, really, what took them so long to provide this vital service? Thank you The Internet.

Here's the site: Spelling with Zombies

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