Dr Strangelove

This week I only did one cartoon for an article about Dr Strangelove. I drew the bomb dropping on Cambridge of course :-)

I've just realised I should have drawn this guy as an academic waving a motar board. Oh well - might redraw it one day.

Loved Up

This week TCS asked me to produce an A3 colour illustration for their magazine section “The Bridge” for Valentine’s Day. They originally asked me to produce a Banksy-esque stencil drawing of a student kissing a lecturer, but I didn’t fancy copying somebody else’s style. Instead I suggested that I draw a scene featuring a selection of unlikely Cambridge couples who had just dropped whatever they were doing and kissing, which they liked. The final illustration took a long time to produce, and it perhaps is a little less colourful than I was hoping – especially in news print – but overall I’m pleased with it.

I was also asked to do a cartoon of somebody taking Valentine's Day too seriously (I think I know someone who would actually do this).

Finally I was asked to do a caricature of Nick Clegg to accompany an article about student tuition fees. Apparently somebody commented that he must be either stupid, mad or malicious to support the government’s policy. I’ve just realised this is my first attempt at a ‘political’ cartoon – I’ll leave it to you decide if I’ve been successful. They didn’t print it in the end which didn’t come as a great shock.

Useless Punts

Not a lot to show this week because I’ve been working on a paid commission. I submitted this punt cartoon to TCS but they printed my strict parent cartoon from last week instead. I hope they find room for it next week because I’m really pleased with it. I’m wondering if these ‘series’ cartoons are emerging as a bit of a theme in my work. I enjoy playing about with the composition of these drawings whilst making sure they read well.

Dental Dams and Haggis

This week I produced several illustrations for articles in The Cambridge Student. First up is cartoon for an article about a particularly strict Chinese form of parenting that apparently verges on bullying.

I was also asked if I would produce a series of drawings illustrating the stages of a typical Burns’ Night celebration. Fortunately the author of the article gave me a very good description of the stages so I didn’t need to do a great deal of research. Here then we have the piping in of the haggis, haggis being cut, some of its ‘entrails gushing’, a drop of whisky, a Toast to the Lassies and a cèilidh (Strip the Willow to be specific).

The final cartoon for TCS was to accompany an article about investors employed by the University awarding themselves huge bonuses whilst academics struggle to make ends meet. I'm proud to say this made the front page.

Another one of the cartoonists at TCS asked me if I would like to produce some drawing for Gender Agenda, the official CUSU Women's Campaign magazine. She pointed me towards an article describing a woman’s embarrassment at having to buy dental dams in a pharmacy for contraceptive reasons. I had no idea what a dental dam was so I had to read the Wikipedia article, but I’m still not 100% sure how it works as a contraceptive. I've tried to make the pharmacist look a little bit like Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind.

This week I also met with the company who sponsor the Young Cartoonist of the Year Award. They’re an insurance company who deal mostly with “high net worth” individuals, and they commission the winner to produce a cartoon for them each year to brighten up their marketing material. Most of the previous winners had set their cartoons in stately home settings or something similar, so I’m determined to try and get as far away from this as possible with my cartoon. I’ve had a few ideas already which I’ll probably rough out and send to them in the next week.