Dandy 75: A Roundup Of What Is Happening

The 75th anniversary, and last print, edition of The Dandy comic will be published on Tuesday 4 December, the same day that the new on-line version will be launched. In the run-up to Tuesday here are a selection of Dandy events and stories -

The ABC Show returns to the (almost monthly) London Comic Mart tomorrow, Sunday 2 December, when creators Henry Davis, Hunt Emerson, Laura Howell, Gary Northfield, Nigel Parkinson and Lew Stringer will be on hand to sign Dandys while original artwork will be on display. The event runs from Noon to 4pm at the Royal National Hotel near London's Russel Square and entrance is free.
There are more details of the ABC Show on the London Comic mart website.

Also close to Russell Square is The Cartoon Museum which continues its Dandy 75th Birthday Exhibition with displays of original Dandy artwork. The exhibition continues until 24 December 2012.
There are more details at the Cartoon Museum website.

The National Library Of Scotland in Edinburgh also has a Dandy exhibition running as part of their ongoing Treasures series of displays and, like the Cartoon Museum, it also features original artwork from the DC Thomson archive. The NLS exhibition continues until 3 February 2013  and entrance is free.
There are more details including seasonal opening times on the National Library Of Scotland website.

Dundee University's UniVerse imprint have teamed up with DC Thomson to publish their 'Special Edition' of the Dandy's 1940s superhero character The Amazing Mr X. On the final inside page of the 76 page book is a cryptic image/advert with the words "The End?". It also has some curiously copyrighted text at the bottom along with a Twitter hashtag - something to keep an eye on perhaps.
Price and ordering details for The Amazing Mr X are available by e-mailing universecomic@gmail.com

The Birmingham Post has a feature on Dandy artist Charlie Grigson who drew Korky The Cat for two decades as well as contributing to The Beano, The Topper and Judy. Now 96 years young, Charlie Grigson has lost his short term memory to dementia but has written down his life story for his family, and his son Steve talks warmly of his father's love of his work.
The full feature is available on the Birmingham Post website.

Finally, for now, George Shiers over on the Wacky Comics blog has the details of what he has termed 'Digital Dandy' and we have previously called 'e-Dandy' that were sent with the subscriber copies of the current issue of The Dandy. This suggests that 'e-Dandy' will have a weekly format. We will all know the details on Tuesday.
There are more details of this on the Wacky Comics blog.


The last print issue of The Dandy, a 100 page special including a reprint of the first issue from 1937, goes on sale on Tuesday 4 December with a cover price of £3.99. 

Anyone concerned that they will not be able to find a copy of the issue, which has a print run of 50,000, can order it directly from the DC Thomson on-line shop. The on-line shop also has a special offer of a Dandy Collectors Pack of a copy of the last issue as well as a copy of the hardback book The Art And History Of The Dandy signed by the last two editors of the comic, Morris Heggie and Craig Graham.

Olympics don't bring the gold for London's Cartoon Museum

London's Cartoon Museum has seen visitor numbers drop by 40 per cent over the past eight weeks. The Museum has now announced it's extending its opening hours in the hopes of boosting visitor numbers.

A  combination of events have reduced visitors and tourists in central London. Very wet weather in May and July combined with the celebrations for the Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee have meant that visitors have stayed away at what should have been the museum's busiest time of the year.

"We are really keen to welcome new visitors to the museum," says Museum Chairman, Oliver Preston. "We have been one of the most successful small museums, and have recorded over a quarter of a million visitors since we opened in 2006.

"We receive no government or local authority funding, and the museum survives on its admission income, museum shop and charitable fundraising. Our visitor numbers and income have been hit hard as the streets remain empty."


The museum's  current family-friendly exhibition Animal Crackers includes everything from Peppa Pig, Simon's Cat and Gnasher to political cartoons featuring fat cats and British lions. The museum is also holding special summer cartooning and animation workshops for young people.

To give even more people the chance to visit, the museum  is extending its opening hours and will open on Mondays from the 6th August 2012.

According to trade association estimates, attendance at traditional tourist attractions last week was down by 30 per cent on the same period last year, restaurants by 40%, and black cab usage by a similar figure.

The royal palaces – the Tower of London and Hampton Court among them – have been particularly badly hit, attracting only half of last year's visitor numbers. The British Museum, the Cartoon Museum's larger neighbour, has lost one in four visitors, the National Gallery, two in five.

"We are opening the museum seven days a week,” says Preston, “so that we can try and attract families – and visitors after the Olympics – to come and see the exhibition that includes Wallace and Gromit, Mickey Mouse and animals in cartoons, political caricature and comics over the past two hundred years.

"It's a lot of fun and also educational. We are delighted that the Olympics have been such an exciting success, with families and kids cheering on Team GB, at the venues and on television, but we really want visitors to return after the closing ceremony."

• The museum is open 7 days per week, 10.00 am-5.30pm, Sundays 12.00-5.30pm. You can contact Anita O'Brien for more information and can see more about the museum at www.cartoonmuseum.org or call 0207 631 0793

Beasts take over the Cartoon Museum!

Animals have always inspired cartoon and comic artists, from the British Lion to Bunny Suicides, Korky the Cat to Simon’s Cat. Now, London's Cartoon Museum is to host an exhibition of animal-inspired cartoons.

The Animal Crackers exhibition includes works by creators such as Nick Abadzis, Leo Baxendale, Alfred Bestall,  Simon Bond, Hunt Emerson, Michael ffolkes, Martin Honeysett, Don Lawrence, Royston Roberston (above), Ronald Searle, Ralph Steadman, Bryan Talbot, Norman Thelwell, Dudley D. Watkins and many, many more.

This cartoon bestiary features the iconic American Eagle, the Russian Bear and the financial Fat Cat, as well as favourite characters such as Mickey Mouse, Wallace and Gromit, Flook, Fred Basset, Gnasher, Pip, Squeak and Wilfred and Rupert Bear. Also included are cracking joke cartoons from Punch, Private Eye, The Oldie, The Spectator and many national papers. There is something for everyone with over 140 cartoons, caricatures, comics and graphic novels by over 60 artists.

Throughout history animals have fascinated us. We have hunted, eaten, studied, collected – and drawn them. They inspired our earliest art and our oldest myths. We have given them human attributes: ‘as cunning as a fox’, ‘as wise as an owl’, ‘as brave as a lion’. Selfish pigs and proud peacocks strut their stuff on our gallery walls accompanied by Aesop’s Hare and Tortoise, the Three Bears (minus Goldilocks) and other characters of fur, feather and scale from folk and fairy tales and from literary classics such as the Alice books.

Giants of the natural and unnatural world such as Moby?Dick and the Lambton Worm also feature, as well as beings which only exist in the minds of cartoon and comic artists. Among the ‘marvellous creatures’ are dragons of yore, the Loch Ness monster and a psychedelic horse.

Many of the cartoons suggest how much animals are ‘just like us’. From Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse, Jiminy Cricket and King Louie of The Jungle Book to Nick Park’s Gromit, these animals are human in every way that counts. Others, such as Simon’s Cat and Thelwell’s ponies, highlight our pets’ irritating or endearing habits.

Also represented are political animals, both individual and national. When political caricature developed in the eighteenth century it drew on the tradition of heraldic beasts – the English Lion, the Scottish Unicorn and the Habsburg double-headed Eagle. Others such as the Russian Bear and the French Cockerel became established in the nineteenth century.

Certain creatures are purely figments of the cartoonist’s imagination such as David Low’s ‘Coalition Ass’ and ‘TUC Carthorse’. At times animals themselves have taken on a political significance, as in China’s so-called ‘Panda diplomacy’. Politicians can find themselves depicted as King Kong or a chimp, a panda or even a dodo.

The world of animal cartoons is often a surreal place, allowing creatures to stray into the realms of art, business, politics and personal relationships. It reminds us just how much we share with our fellow animals.

• Animal Crackers: A Cartoon and Comic Bestiary; 25th July – 21st October 2012,  Cartoon Museum, 35 Little Russell Street London WC1A 2HH. Tel: 020 7631 0793 Web: www.cartoonmuseum.org

75 years of The Dandy exhibition

To tie-in with the 75th anniversary of the Dandy, the Cartoon Museum will be holding an exhibition of all all things Dandy related this autumn. Opening on 24th October the museum promises a fun exhibition for all the family and for readers young and old.

More details can be found on the museum website (http://www.cartoonmuseum.org/)

Panel Borders: Exhibiting Comics

Continuing Panel Borders month of shows about about non practitioners' love of comics, Alex Fitch talks to Lord Baker of Dorking about his contributions as lender and patron of The Cartoon Museum to their latest exhibition 'Her Maj: Sixty years of unofficial portraits of the Queen' and to John Huddy, founder and curator of The Illustration Cupboard about the gallery's history of exhibiting art from picture books and graphic novels. 

Also, from last week's Manga Jiman awards ceremony at the Embassy of Japan in London, Cultural Officer Simon Wright and Minister Hiroshi Suzuki, the director of the Japan Information and Culture Centre, introduce this year's winning entries to the comic book competition. 

- Panel Borders: Exhibiting Comics airs at 8.00pm, Sunday 12th February, Resonance FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast after broadcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

 

Cartoon Museum honours 'Her Maj'

London's Cartoon Museum will be celebrating the Diamond Jubilee with a humorous history of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. 

 

Her Maj: 60 Years of Unofficial Portraits of the Queen (1 February – 8 April 2012) will offer a gallery of royal portraits – affectionate, teasing and at times downright unflattering – shows how Her Majesty’s appearance in cartoons has undergone a striking transformation over the course of her reign. 

 

Since the early 1900s it was generally accepted that The Monarch might be referred to in cartoons but almost never depicted, and this Royal taboo remained unbroken right into the 1950s. As the veteran cartoonist Wally Fawkes remembers, "At that time there was a much closer link between the Royal Family and God". 

 

Her Maj follows the Queen as she emerges from near invisibility into cartoons which respectfully echo her official image on coins, stamps and banknotes, often portraying her in profile or from behind. She is pictured in her robes of state, as Elizabeth I or Britannia, but also as ‘Liz’, an ‘ordinary housewife’ in headscarf and sensible shoes. 

 

The 1960s brought a greater emphasis on openness. For better or for worse, the Palace decided to allow the media behind the scenes in the 1969 TV documentary Royal Family. The film inspired cartoonists to imagine what life was really like ‘at home with the Windsors’ in royal residences ankle-deep with corgis. The ups and downs of family life, her husband’s infamous asides, the difficulties with her children and their spouses, problems with the press – all these provide a rich vein of material for cartoonists, as does the knotty question of the Monarchy and public money. 

 

Many of the works reflect the fact that the Queen embodies not only the Monarchy, but also the State. Her actions can convey an historic significance beyond that of any prime minister. Cartoons can register key moments in international relations, such as the visit by Emperor Hirohito to Buckingham Palace in 1971 or the Royal visit to Ireland in 2011.  She appears in cartoons more frequently during periods when the Commonwealth and the Union are under strain. 

These ‘unofficial’ portraits, mostly affectionate but sometimes critical, reveal the changing face of Elizabeth II as Sovereign, as symbol and as a wife and mother through her relationships with her family, her governments and her people over the last six decades. 

The exhibition includes 80 works by over thirty cartoonists including Steve Bell, Peter Brookes, Dave Brown, Michael Cummings, Fluck and Law, Stanley Franklin, Nicholas Garland, Carl Giles, Martin Honeysett, Nicola Jennings, John Jensen, Richard Jolley, MAC, Ken Pyne, Martin Rowson, E. H. Shepard, Ralph Steadman and Trog. 

- The Cartoon Museum is dedicated to collecting and displaying the best of British cartoons, comics and caricatures.Open: Tue-Sat, 10.30-17.30; Sun, 12.00-17.30. Admission: £5.50, £4, £3, Under-18s free. Reg. charity 327 978 Web: www.cartoonmuseum.org

Comic workshops part of this year's Bloomsbury Festival

Comic creators Steve Marchant and Sally Kindberg will be on hand to keep kids happy during this year's Bloomsbury Festival in London.

Five years after the first ever Bloomsbury Festival (Friday 21st - Sunday 23rd October, 2011), this annual celebration of one of London's most culturally rich neighbourhoods returns with an eclectic programme of over 150 events, including live music, theatre, dance, walks, talks and food, all of which will be free to attend.

Bringing together locally based organisations such as the British Museum, Wellcome Collection, The Place, The Foundling Museum and Faber & Faber with community groups and businesses, the Bloomsbury Festival transforms the streets and parks of the area, inviting visitors to enjoy all that makes Bloomsbury unique.



You'll be able to learn how to cartoon with comic artists Steve Marchant and Sally Kindberg at the Cartoon Museum, which is still hosting the Doctor Who in Comics exhibition.

(Tying in with that, the Doctor's robot dog, K9 will be at the Museum on Saturday 22nd between 3 and 4.00pm. His keeper Dale has been collecting and making Doctor Who related material for over 20 years and has lots of stories about the Doctors and all their friends).

Sally Kindberg's comics workshop is titled 'Mythological Heroes and Monsters' (Saturday 22nd October, 1:30-2:30pm) and is suitable for Ages 6+. An illustrator and writer, Sally uses comic strip frames as ‘little theatres’ and is drawn towards dark humour and velvety black ink.

She lives in London, has one daughter and "many robots". Her comic strip books include The Comic Strip book of Space, The Comic Strip History of the World and the Comic Strip Greatest Greek Myths - all with Tracey Turner.

"Early influences were Beano and Dandy – Desperate Dan’s creator Dudley D. Watkins was a marvellous illustrator," she says. "I love the way you can give anyone or anything a voice by using speech bubbles, use the frames as little theatres full of surprises, and the way cropping and scale can be almost cinematic. Visual humour is most important too of course."

Steve Marchant will be prsenting three 'Get Cartooning' workshops on Sunday 23rd October at the Museum. Have you always wanted to try your hand at cartooning but never had the chance? Come along and be inspired to create your own cartoon faces at one of three 30 minute workshops. For adults and children alike, suitable for all ages from 6+ upwards.

One of the founders of Cartoon Classroom, as well as producing cartoons, comic-strips, and two books, for a host of clients, Steve has been visiting schools, libraries and other establishments for over 20 years to teach people of all ages and levels of ability how to write and draw their own comics. "I'm assured that the outcomes of my students' work fulfil several 'key stages' of the curriculum," he says, "by clients and by the Cartoon Museum, where I do a lot of my teaching. The rest of my work with young people takes place in mostly one-off visits, but sometimes as a series of sessions."


A weekend of over 150 free arts and cultural events, families will be well catered for by the Festival, with a host of activities for children, in addition to these comic workshops.

Other highlights of the Festival include the return of SOAS's hugely popular world music stage, bringing rhythms from across the globe to the crowds in Russell Square, guerilla dancers from the Place popping up throughout the area, and parks transformed with new artistic works from local architecture and sculpture students.

There will be a local food market to explore, secret gigs in unusual locations, poetry performances, a magical children's lantern procession, street parties and light and ceramic installations suspended in the area's beautiful and historic trees.


Grant's Museum of Zoology also opens its doors for Dino's, Dodos and Dugongs, a tactile exploration of extinct animals.

Because all events and activities are free to attend, visitors are encouraged to take a risk on new creative experiences: perhaps delving into the darkness of St Pancras Crypt Gallery for Kalliopi Lemos' eerie art installation, Navigating in the Dark, joining in a riotous night of literary cabaret at the iconic St Pancras Hotel, join a tea party as part of an unusual living art work by Central St Martin's students or participating in a guided exploration of the Garden Squares of Bloomsbury. Other events include the sharing of a new work by Darshan Singh called Caravaggio: Exile and Death, and an immersive theatre performance by students of RADA, inspired by the Bloomsbury Set.

Bloomsbury is one of London's most culturally rich corners, with 13 of the world's leading museums and galleries situated along 'Museum Mile' which runs through the heart of the area, including The Brunei Gallery, the Charles Dickens Museum and the Foundling Museum. Bloomsbury is also London's academic hub, with many universities and schools situated here, including leading creative education establishments such as Central St Martins, The Place and RADA.
• The Bloomsbury Festival runs from Friday 21st October - Sunday 23rd October 2011, Various times, Various locations, Bloomsbury. Free. A limited number of tickets can be booked in advance at www.bloomsburyfestival.org.uk  

• Follow the Festival on Twitter: @bloomsburyfest

 • Book here for Sally Kindberg's Mythological Heroes and Monsters workshop at the Cartoon Museum


• Book now for Steve Marchant's 'Get Cartooning' workshop

Cartoon Museum to exhibit 'Doctor Who in Comics'

(Updated with thanks to Anita O'Brien): London's Cartoon Museum has announced it will host an exhibition of art charting Doctor Who's career in comics, from his very first appearances in TV Comic in 1964 through to the present day.

Doctor Who may not have had an unbroken run on television since the character's debut in November 1963, but his adventures have continued in comics since 1964, spanning titles such as TV Comic, Countdown, TV Action, Doctor Who Weekly and, more recently, Doctor Who Adventures and IDW's US comics.

Doctor Who in Comics: 1964 - 2011 will encompass one of the Museum's three galleries and the venue will also host tie-in classes.

There's no details yet on which artists' work will feature in the exhibition, but the character has been drawn by a huge number of talents, including Dave Gibbons, John Ridgway, Richard Piers Rayner, Adrian Salmon (who has drawn the latest adventure in Doctor Who Magazine), Jamie Smart (currently busy working on a new Doctor Who part work), Lee Sullivan, Roger Langridge, Mike McMahon, Gerry Haylock, John Canning and many others.

• For up to date information on the Exhibition, which will run from 27th July - 31st October 2011 visit www.cartoonmuseum.org

No More Places for CB Cebulski

David Lloyd has just been in touch to tell us that there are no more places available for Marvel Comics talent scout CB Cebulski's appearance at London's Cartoon Museum (see news story), organised by Cartoon Classroom (www.cartoonclassroom.co.uk).

"I wish we could have offered more time for this service to aspiring Marvel talent from CB, but we've all done our best in this instance," says David.

"Hopefully, we can repeat the event at some convenient time for everyone in the future."

Artists atending the Kapow Comics Convention in London will also of course have a chance to see CB.

• More about the Kapow Con at www.kapowcomiccon.com

Marvel Comics scout to hold UK portfolio reviews in April

(updated 21/3/11, with thanks to Mark Stafford and David Lloyd) On Friday 8th April (the day before the London Kapow comic convention) London's Cartoon Museum will be hosting portfolio review sessions with Marvel Comics talent scout CB Cebulski, so anybody who thinks they've got what it takes should take along a selection of their work for an honest appraisal.

V for Vendetta artist David Lloyd and Cartoon Classroom guru Steve Marchant will also be in attendance.

Sessions are 12.30-2pm, 3-5.30pm, and 6-7pm. People will be seen on a first come first served basis. Entry is open to everyone at regular museum admission prices : £5.50 ( £3.00 for students.

The Cartoon Classroom, a non-profit making venture, aims provide information for all officially recognised organisations who seek professional cartoonists to lecture and teach. It was also established to provide basic advice and information to any member of the public wanting to study cartoon art, graphic novels, strip illustration and/or the specialised writing skills linked to such work.


"This event is the first physical manifestation of Cartoon Classroom's existence since its launch," David Lloyd told downthetubes, "and, because of that, it's of as much value to us as it is to those who might benefit from the event.

"This event is obviously a plus for folks who won't have a chance to see CB at Kapow," he continues, "and they can get help from me and Steve if they want it, too."

The event came about after David suggested it to CB in his role as Cartoon Classroom ambassador, to do as a one-off standalone for anyone within reach of London, which was planned for long before Kapow.

• The Cartoon Museum is at 35, Little Russell St, London, WC1.  Call them on 0207 580 8155 for any other details.

• To confirm attendance mail infoATcartoonmuseum.org or contact cartoonclassroomATyahoo.co.uk 

• More about Cartoon Classroom at www.cartoonclassroom.co.uk

• More about the Kapow Con at www.kapowcomiccon.com

Royal Weddings celebrated at London's Cartoon Museum

We don't always get the goods we bargain for in this sham old world! Arnold Taylor @ Bamforth Cards Ltd.

‘Marriage,’ as Elizabeth Taylor commented, ‘is a great institution’ - and she had more experience than most! As Prince William and Kate Middeleton prepare to tie the knot, London's Cartoon Museum is presenting a bouquet of barbed wit on the state of matrimony today and yesterday, with a new exhibition - Marriage à la Mode: Royals and Commoners in and out of Love.

Mel Calman, Marriage, © S & C Calman

The highs and - more often - the lows of marriage have provided a wealth of material for cartoonists over the last 250 years. The exhibition, which opens next week (Wednesday 23rd March) includes over 100 cartoons on many familiar themes: the hen-pecked husband, the all powerful mother-in-law, the irritating personal habits and the battles of the bedroom.

Since the 1960s, the divorce rate has climbed steadily and remarriage and ‘blended’ families have become more common. Royal marriages of the past have ranged from George, the Prince of Wales’s ‘illegal’ marriage to Mrs Fitzherbert in 1785 to Victoria’s idyllically happy marriage to Prince Albert. For almost 150 years cartoonists shied away from any hint of scandal and it was really only with the marriage of Charles and Diana in 1981 that the private lives of the royals became public once again. The ‘fairytale wedding’ excited unprecedented media interest, which lasted throughout the marriage, its intrigues and its dramatic demise.

Kate and William: A Very Public Love Story by
Rich Johnston, Mike Collins, Gary Erskine, 
 Owen Jollands. © Markosia

When Kate Middleton weds their son William on 29 April 2011, she will become the first ‘commoner’ to marry a royal close to the throne since 1660. Their relationship has inspired a number of cartoons, including Markosia's forthcoming book Kate and William: A Very Public Love Story, a graphic telling of the couple’s modern-day romance (see our news story), which is also featured in the exhibition.

The show also includes Posy Simmonds’ telling observations on the complexities of marriages both modern and historical; Andy Capp and Flo’s ups and downs; comic postcards by Donald McGill and Arnold Taylor; William Hogarth’s revealing commentary Marriage A la Mode (1745), as well as cartoons by Steve Bell, Grizelda, Mel Calman, James Gillray, and over thirty other artists.

• Marriage à la Mode: Royals and Commoners in and out of Love Wednesday 23 March – 22 May 2011 

The Cartoon Museum is open Tue – Sat, 10.30 – 17.30; Sun 12.00 – 17.30 Tel: 020 7580 8155 

Web: www.cartoonmuseum.org

Panorama © Peter Schrank Independent on Sunday, 19th November 1995

• Kate And William: A Very Public Love Story will be sold in bookshops, select comic stores, supermarkets and all good outlets from 2nd April.



• Order Kate & William - A Very Public Love Story from amazon.co.uk


Order Kate & William - A Very Public Love Story from amazon.com

• Markosia Enterprises: www.markosia.com

• Mike Collins Official Site


• Gary Erskine Official Site and Blog

Ronald Searle Exhibition celebrates a Graphic Master

London's Cartoon Museum will host a major exhibition celebrating the life and work of graphic master Ronald Searle from 3rd March 2010, marking the talented artist's 90th birthday on the same day with a more than well deserved bang.

Regarded as ‘The Master’ by cartoonists not only in Britain but around the world Searle is still drawing and continues to inspire cartoonists, illustrators, animators, film makers and artists in many fields.

"To say he is an artist is no more than the truth, but he is more than that," notes Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell. "He is our greatest living cartoonist with a lifelong dedication to his craft... his work is truly international, yet absolutely grounded in the English comic tradition."

"He had a huge effect on me," says Gerald Scarfe. "I wanted to draw like him. His pen was always searching, exploring every nook and cranny of his subject. His exciting, electric style fascinated me."

Perhaps best known in Britain for his St. Trinians and Nigel Molesworth cartoons, caricaturing life in both girls and boys public schools, this exhibition shows 140 works from across Searle's 75-year career, from his early cartoons for the Cambridge Daily News in the 1930s to political cartoons for Le Monde in the 2000s. Many of the pictures have been lent by Searle himself.

The focus is particularly on his reportage drawings which show Searle’s skill for capturing the essence of an event, character or situation.

Above: Searle's illustration for White Coolie by Ronald Hastain. Via the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre

From 1942 to 1945 Searle endured three and a half years as a prisoner of war of the Japanese working on the infamous Thai-Burma Railway. His 400 secret drawings, some of which he hid under the mattresses of prisoners dying of cholera, recorded life and death in the camps and some of these fragile drawings are included in the exhibition. His experience as a POW transformed his life and formed the basis of his later reportage work.

In the 1950s Searle captured life on the London streets, drawing sewer men and street sweepers, horse auctions and the funeral of George VI for the News Chronicle. In the 1950s and 60s he travelled the world for American magazines such as Life and Holiday. In 1961 alone, he drew the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and the newly built Berlin Wall.

As an observer of life Searle is unparalleled: his unerring eye for the surreal and the comic can be seen in his drawings - both entertaining and revealing - from America, Canada, Germany, France, Ireland and Casablanca. In Britain he is still best known for his St Trinian’s and Molesworth drawings, but these are but one tiny chapter in his career. This exhibition shows the quality and diversity of the work he has produced over his long life.

Throughout his career Searle has studied and collected the masters of the past – Carracci, Hogarth, Gillray, Rowlandson and Cruikshank – some of whose works are included in the exhibition, as are Searle’s medals dedicated to the ‘Fathers of Caricature’, which he designed for the French Mint.

In 1995 at the age of 75 when most people are enjoying retirement, Searle took on a new challenge when he was asked by the French newspaper Le Monde to draw a weekly political cartoon. He continued to do so until 2007 when cutbacks at the paper brought the association to an end.

As a mark of the great esteem in which he is held, a number of the world’s leading cartoonists and filmmakers have produced artworks in homage to Searle and written pieces for the exhibition catalogue: Steve Bell, Roger Law, Mike Leigh, Uli Meyer, Arnold Roth, Martin Rowson, Gerald Scarfe, Posy Simmonds and Ralph Steadman.

Ronald Searle has been closely involved in the mounting of the exhibition, lending artwork and drawing materials and assisting with research through an in-depth interview.

• Ronald Searle - Graphic Master: A 90th birthday celebration runs from 3rd March until 4th July 2010.

• The exhibition is accompanied by a 160-page catalogue, price £14.99 plus P & P: UK - £3.70; Europe - £7.50; Rest of World – Airmail £13.50 or £7.50 surface mail.
To order phone 020 7580 8155, send a cheque or credit card details by fax to 020 7631 0793 or by post to The Cartoon Museum, 35 Little Russell Street, London WC1A 2HH


• The Cartoon Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10.30 - 5.30 and Sunday, 12 - 5.30

• Ronald Searle Official web site: www.ronaldsearle.com


• Ronald Searle artwork for sale: www.ronaldsearle.co.uk


• Ronald Searle Tribute Blog


• The Timse (20th February 2010): Ronald Searle recalls the bad girls of St. Trinians
The great cartoonist reveals that champagne is the secret to a long life and that he has no regrets about leaving his wife and children

Tube Surfing: Awards, Thought Bubble Signings and Hi-Ex

• Leonie O'Moore, Tony Hitchman and WJC from the "New British Comics" anthology will be present at Thought Bubble convention (Saturday, November 21st) and they will be happy to sign your NBC copies. Signing will be available throughout pretty much whole day - you can leave a book on Leonie's Moore stall and pick it up later when it will be signed for you. Also, both issues of NBC should be available for purchase at Smallzone stall during the convention.

• Talking of Thought Bubble, 'Possibilities and Perspectives: A Conference on Comics', an academic event, is also coming up in Leeds this weekend. Tickets are £8 and include entry to the conference and the Thought Bubble Festival's one day comic convention. The conference will take place at the Alea Casino in Leeds, near the Royal Armouries (a 30 second walk from the Thought Bubble Convention venue, Saviles Hall). For a map and directions, visit: www.aleacasinos.com/alea/leeds/location.php. The event includes a Keynote Speech from Bryan Talbot on "The Use of Style and Storytelling Techniques in The Tale of One Bad Rat".

• The 15th Cartoon Trust Awards will be presented at an entertaining fundraising dinner at The Mall Galleries, The Mall, London SW1 tonight (18th November 2009). The dinner, whose guests and award presentes include Barry Cryer and Steve Bell, celebrates and coincides with the 21^st birthday of the Cartoon Art Trust, the charity behind the Cartoon Museum. The winners will be announced on the Trust's web site at: www.cartoonmuseum.org

• Eden Court Theatre in Inverness will play host to the third HiEx International Comic Convention on the 27th-28th March 2010.

“The first two years where such a success that we really had no choice but to do it again," explained organiser Vicky Stonebridge.

Co-organiser Richmond Clements adds: "We have some very exciting guests already confirmed- among them the incredible John Higgins, Gary Erskine, Colin MacNeil, Asia Alfasi, Alan Grant. Many more artists and writers will be coming along, as well as the popular stormtroopers from the 501st UK garrison. Keep checking the HiEx website, (www.hi-ex.co.uk) as we’re adding all the time." Over the course of the weekend, visitors can expect a range of events. “Our children’s workshops have proved to be very popular, and we’re planning to run even more of them this time around," Vicky said. "There will also be workshops for both art and writing, for adults.

Tickets go on sale soon, with a special discount for early booking through the HiEx website.

• After 18 months, many conventions and quite a few web sales UK indi publisher CD24 is finally down to the last few issues of Last of the Chickenheads issues 1 and 2, and Crowman issue 1. As in the future they're going to be concentrating on publishing graphic novels, they’ve decided to host a quick fire sale and are offering them for £1 an issue. So this is your final chance to get your hands on these titles in the single issue format as once the only way you'll be able to get them is in a graphic novel format (at some point in the future).

• Anyone wanting to purchase these issues, or Jack in the Box, can get them at www.c2d4.com.

30 Years of Viz Exhibition

In November 1979, DHSS clerk Chris Donald, his 15-year old brother Simon and old school friend Jim Brownlow put together a 12-page comic fanzine in a bedroom of the Donald family home in Jesmond, Newcastle. The initial 150 copies of Viz Comic – ‘rude, wacky, music, sick’ - sold to punters at local pubs, discos and music shops.

Within a decade, Viz had become a publishing and cultural phenomenon selling over a million copies and spawning a host of imitators.

30 Years of Viz - a new exhibition at London's Cartoon Museum which starts on 4th November - celebrates the art, irreverence and brilliant bad taste of Viz Comic. The exhibition of over 80 original drawings features all the key characters, many of whom have become ‘icons’ in their own right: Roger Mellie - The Man on the Telly, Sid the Sexist, The Bottom Inspectors, The Fat Slags, Finbarr Saunders and his Double Entendres, Johnny Fartpants, Spoilt Bastard, Suicidal Syd, Mrs Brady – Old Lady and The Modern Parents. Some characters such as Drunken Bakers and Billy the Fish - the goalkeeping half-man, half-fish – are both loved and hated by readers in equal measure.

Also on show will be a selection of classic Viz ‘tat’ including The Queen Mother’s Teeth, The Life of Christ in Cats Plate and The Elvis Presley Dambusters Clock Plate of Tutankhamen.

Viz remains one of Newcastle’s most famous exports. Many of the characters are obviously Geordie as revealed in the way they speak, sometimes requiring readers to write in for translations. Much of the comic’s humour involves lampooning earnest features from classic British comics – strips with obligatory rhyming titles (Roger Mellie - The Man on the Telly), spoof photo-romance stories, surreal send-ups and bogus advertisements.

And, of course, there is nothing Viz enjoys more than taking a tilt at the ‘sacred cows’ of British culture like the Royal Family and celebrities such as Sting and Bono, and this talent for mockery has always delighted its fans and outraged its critics.

Since the time of Hogarth, satirists have been drawn to the human capacity for squalor, self-destruction and self-delusion. Unlike Hogarth, the Viz artists profess no higher moral purpose: their aim is to entertain not educate. As Graham Dury, one of the longstanding artist/editors admits,"We pride ourselves on the fact that you're no cleverer when you've read Viz. You might have had a few laughs, but you've not learnt anything".

• 30 Years of Viz: An exhibition of original artwork, 4th November – 24th January 2010

The Cartoon Museum, 35 Little Russell Street, London WC1A 2HH Tel: 020 7580 8155 E-mail: info@cartoonmuseum.org Web: www.cartoonmuseum.org

Images from top of item: the cover of Viz Issue 116, featuring the Fat Slags by Simon Thorp; the Pathetic Sharks - Cover 126 - by Simon Thorp; and Gilbert Ratchett, 2005 by Davey Jones. Art © Fulchester Industries

The Oldie Book Launch, Exhibition

British cartoonist site Bloghorn reports a book of cartoons from The Oldie is to be published later this month, and an exhibition to go with it will be held at London's Cartoon Museum.

The Oldie Book of Cartoons 1992 - 2009 will be published on 25th September and feature more than 400 of the best cartoons from the magazine.

After editing Private Eye for over 20 years, Richard Ingrams created The Oldie back in 1992, along with a group of friends (Auberon Waugh, Alexander Chancellor and Stephen Glover). "The aim was to produce an antidote to youth culture but, more importantly, a magazine with emphasis on good writing, humour and quality illustration," he explains. "Years later, The Oldie can well claim to be a success story, attracting some of our best writers, illustrators and cartoonists."

The Cartoon Museum will hold an exhibition entitled Cartoons from The Oldie in its Blue Room from 30th September until 24th December.

• The Oldie Official Web Site

Engines of Enchantment at Cartoon Museum

London's Cartoon Museum is to host an exhibition dedicated to the work of eccentric genius Rowland Emett this summer.

Described in TIME Magazine as "a nostalgic-romantic artist-humorist social commentator-engineer," this exhibition brings together, for the first time in Britain, the eccentric genius of Rowland Emett both as a cartoonist and as a maker of ‘Gothick Kinetic Things!’

The show includes five fantastic whirring, winking machines including three created for the classic children’s film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1968 as well as originals of many of his best cartoons, some on show for the first time.

The world created by Emett is uniquely British but with international appeal - his cartoons have been admired by many including Saul Steinberg and Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, who chose ‘The Cartoons of Rowland Emett’ as one of his top 100 things in the world.

In 1939 Emett first submitted a drawing to Punch. It was rejected but with the note: "Not quite... Very ingenious though. Try again." Try again he did and five of his drawings were accepted.

During the war he worked as a draughtsman at the air ministry but continued to supply drawings to Punch increasingly of romantic gothic trains, trams and boats which, together with their crew, appeared to be humorous relics of a bygone era.

In 1951, someone had the idea of turning Emett’s spidery railway cartoons into reality and he was invited by the Festival of Britain committee to construct three child-sized engines for the working Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Railway. He did. The railway was a huge success carried millions of visitors in the Festival’s Pleasure gardens and he and his machines never looked back. The exhibition includes the original model train, complete with driver, which he presented to the Festival committee.

The exhibition at the Cartoon Museum also includes the Exploratory Moon-Probe Lunacycle MAUD, (Manually Assisted Universal, Deviator), the Fairway-Birdie Mk. 1 - fully automated airborne self-golfing golf machine. Also on display will be the Little Dragon Carpet Cleaner and Visivision Machine all of which were created for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Emett constructed the machines out of antique doorknobs, umbrellas, lamp shades and any other bits and pieces he found around the house – much to the irritation of his wife! The result were cartoons come to life - working machines which whiz, whirr and whistle.

The cartoons are surreal confections filled with playful details. Amongst them is a drawing of a Rolls Royce fitted with roulette wheels and staircase created for the wedding of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace in 1956 which he actually attended.

• Engines of Enchantment: The Machines and Cartoons of Rowland Emett opens on 29 July and runs until 1 November. More info: www.cartoonmuseum.org

• Rowland Emmett: Art and Images


• More about the Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Railway

• More about the 1951 Festival of Britain

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie...

-- Out, Out, Out! What's that? She turned into a man and re-named herself Tony Blair? The cunning minx...

30 years ago today (4th May) Margaret Thatcher walked through the doors of 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister, quoting St. Francis of Assisi. As far as I'm concerned, she totally failed to bring harmony where there was discord, and any hope where there was despair was ruthlessly crushed for anyone who was not a Fat Cat business tycoons or bank manager. But of course, opinions differ about Maggie, scourge of miners, students, pensioners... oh, all right, I'll come quietly, officer...

Noting the divisions she fostered, London's Cartoon Museum has asked two veterans of the ideological battles of the Thatcher years – Kenneth Baker, who served in her cabinet from 1985 until 1990 and is vice-chairman of Museum and Steve Bell, the Guardian’s chief cartoonist – to select some of their favourite cartoons of Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, her colleagues, her critics and her adversaries. (The opposing views she generarated are perfectly captured in the featured cartoon above caricatured by Charles Griffin, via Bloghorn)

The London-based Museum's latest exhibition shows how she has been both loved and loathed by politicians, the press and the public, featuring a selection of nearly 100 cartoons by 35 cartoonists from across the political spectrum. Steve Bell, Michael Cummings, Stanley Franklin, Nicholas Garland, Les Gibbard, Charles Griffin, Jak, Peter Kennard, Gerald Scarfe, Posy Simmonds and Ralph Steadman all feature in an exhibition that chronicles her rise to power, the Falklands war, the miners’ strike, privatisation, the poll tax, Europe, her eventual downfall and her long term impact on both the Conservative and Labour parties.

While Thatcher ws the butt of many a cartoon (although, off the tope of our heads, she was never drawn to look like one), the British Journalism Review noted back in 2007 that she did not care how she was depicted – she rarely looked at cartoons and never bothered to watch Spitting Image. "She appeared to be a gift for cartoonists, but the more the left-wing artists attacked her, it seemed, the stronger she became," the site states. Indeed.

The exhibition is accompanied by a gorgeous, fully illustrated 100-page catalogue, including contributions by Kenneth Baker, Steve Bell, Lord Carrington, Michael Foot, Les Gibbard, Charles Griffin, Geoffrey Howe, Ken Loach, David Owen, David Steel, Norman Tebbit and Admiral Sir John ‘Sandy’ Woodward.

• Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! Margaret Thatcher – Mother of the Nation or Monster from the Blue Lagoon opnes on 6 may and runs until 26th July. The Cartoon Museum is at 35 Little Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London and open: Tuesday – Saturday, 10.30 – 17.30 and Sun 12 – 17.30. Web: www.cartoonmuseum.org

• BBC News: Maggie's Cartoon Legacy Item

Cartoon Art Trust Award Winners Announced

The 14th Cartoon Art Trust Awards were presented at an entertaining fundraising dinner at The Mall Galleries in London yesterday, an event which celebrates and coincides with the opening of Giles – One of the Family exhibition at The Cartoon Museum. Here are the winners...

Martin Rowson, Chairman of the British Cartoonists Association introduced the winners of the Young Cartoonist of the Year Awards and presented the Under 18 award to Emilia Franklin and the Under 30 award to James Hood, who was British Cartoonists’ Association ‘Young Cartoonist of the Year’ in 2007.

• Giles' Grandma (aka Libby Purves) presented The Joke Award, sponsored by The Daily Telegraph to Hove-based cartoonist Grizelda, whose cartoons and strips have featured in publications such as The Sunday Times, Private Eye, The Big Issue and The Oldie.

• Simon Hoggart presented the Strip Cartoon Ward, sponsored by Private Eye, to London-based cartoonist Stephen Collins, whose work appears in titles such as the The Times (which regularly features his caricatures), The Guardian, The Independent, The Wall Street Journal and NME. Stephen specialises in contemporary caricature, general editorial illustration and cartoons. He is currently working on a longer comic, "more a graphic novel really", he reveals on his blog, "though I'm just dipping my toe in the water by contributing a five-page tester-section of it to an anthology of artists under the loose title of 'Landscapes'."

• Kenneth Baker presented the Pocket Award, sponsored by The Daily Mail, to Jeremy 'Banx' Banks of the Financial Times. Banx, who has been the FT's daily cartoonist since 1989, will perhaps best known to regular downthtubes readers for his contributions to the 1980s humour comic Oink, but his strips have also appeared in Private Eye, She, the Mail on Sunday, the News Statesman and numerous other newspapers. His books include The Dewsburys: Scenes from a Suburban Marriage... and The Many Deaths of Norman Spittal.

• Peter Brookes presented the Caricature Award, sponsored by The Times, to Nicola Jennings of The Guardian. Nicola originally trained as a theatre designer and started her professional life working backstage and designing for opera. Her caricature work began with The London Daily News in 1987 and she has since worked for The Daily Mirror, The Observer and The Guardian, which publishes her work on its web site here.

• Kenneth Clarke MP presented the Saatchi Political Award to Nicholas Garland of The Daily Telegraph. The Telegraph’s first political cartoonist in 1966, he has produced work for them ever since and his cartoons have also appeared in The Independent, The New Statesman and The Spectator. His long-running comic strip Barry McKenzie, co-created with Barry Humphries, ran in Private Eye from 1964 to 1974.
In 2005 he illustrated The Coma, written by his son Alex. "One of the phrases that cropped up often when we were talking was 'Too much information – you don't need all that.'" he told the Telegraph on its release, "and there’s always this question of taking it out. And eventually, I get right down to what I think is the thing, and I show it to Alex, and he says 'You can take that out too'."
His work is just part of the massive additions being planned for the online version of the British Carton Archive at the Univeristy of Kent, announced earlier this month (see news story).

• Anita O’Brien, Curator of The Cartoon Museum, presented The Pont Prize for drawing the British Character to Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor of the Daily Telegraph for Alex. Recently 'Alex Masterly' and Clive's adventures have ranged from Narnia to that pest of modern City life - the Blackberry. The strip has run since 1987 - an outstanding achievement. Alex was 25 then (he is now presumably 46!).
Peattie, who studied painting at St Martin's School of Art, worked as a portrait painter in the 1980s, then as a freelance cartoonist and designer of greetings cards. He also produced (with Mark Warren) the legendary Dick cartoon in Melody Maker. As well as Alex, he's currently developing comedy scripts for a number of TV projects. Russell met Charles at a Christmas party in 1986. who had a commission for a strip for the financial pages of the incipient London Daily News. The result was Alex.
The Pont Award for drawing the British Character was set up five years ago in memory of Graham Laidler, whose brilliant series ‘ The British Character’ in the 1930s and 40s are still as wonderfully funny as when he drew them seventy years ago. He died tragically young aged 32 in 1940.

• Finally, Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell presented The Lifetime Achievement Award to Raymond Briggs, who is widely admired as a cartoonist, illustrator and teacher.
The creator of the acclaimed books The Snowman, Father Christmas and When the Wind Blows, like Bryan Talbot he has been responsible for some of the earliest British ‘graphic novels’, long before the term or the form was generally known. He has been praised by Posy Simmonds for producing work which is ‘not only passionate but also tender and funny.’
Previous winners of the award have included, Ronald Searle, Gerald Scarfe, Fluck and Law and ‘Trog’.

• The Giles - One of the Family exhibition at the Museum, which runs until 15th February 2009, showcases the work of Carl Giles (1916-1995), the most famous cartoonist of his generation and creator of the much-loved ‘Giles Family’. Born during the First World War in Islington, he was the son of a tobacconist and grandson of a jockey who had ridden for Edward VII. He joined the Daily Express in 1943 where he would create his quintessentially British ‘Giles Family’ headed by the redoubtable Grandma. For many people his cartoons capture British life in microcosm, and perhaps for this reason Giles was voted Britain’s Favourite Cartoonist of the 20th century in a 2000 poll.

The exhibition of over 80 works includes wonderful colour covers as well as drawings never reproduced in the annuals. His studio is recreated complete with desk, drawing board, reference material and many of the dozens of toys given to him, some made by his fans. Also revealed are less familiar aspects of his career including his time as an animator, his propaganda work for the Ministry of Information and his work as cartooning war correspondent for the Express.

• More information about the exhibition at: www.cartoonmuseum.org

Celebrate 70 years of Comic Mayhem!

Ken Harrison has provided this great illustration for the forthcoming Beano and Dandy exhibition at the Cartoon Muesum in London.

While some of the characters featured will be familar to today's readers of The Beano and Dandy Ken has also included a few that may have faded from memory. Test yourself! See how many you can identify.

The exhibition runs from 30th July until 2nd November 2008. Opening times are 10:30-17:30 (Tue-Sat) and 12:00-17:30 (Sun). Closed Mondays.

Entrance prices are £4 adults, £3 for concessons and free to Under-18s and students.

The Cartoon Musuem can be found at 35 Little Russell Street, WC1A 2HH