I mean, why not just do a cartoon of someone with a placard reading "THE GOVERNMENT ISN'T VERY GOOD", eh?

Even I could draw that.

What about Steve Bell and Martin Rowson? I know I'm exposing myself as a Guardian reader, but the latter is positively Hogarthian compared to the Mirror's piss-poor Tom Johnston. Have you seen his caricatures Tony Blair and William Hauge? They always have to carry briefcases with their names written on them.

Martin Rowson's OK.
Steve Bell. What the bloody hell's all that about then?

Private Eye (who are usually very quick to go 'poor cartoon by Mac page 12') can also be included in this. Particularly Corporation Street (Ken Pyne's woefully unfunny BBC er, 'satire'). I would add Hom Sap, except I don't think I've ever read it.

Ken Pyne I find occasionally smirksome, if not actually amusing in his BBC satire.

Viz did an excellent satire on tabloid journalism a few episodes back, with the cartoon artist having to resort to writing the name of the caricatured big-breasted-bimbo on her t shirt. Reminded me of Tom Johnstone (didn't he work for the Sun in days gone by? In my youth I actually used to admire The Mirror. Oh how times have changed)

I might have placed TJ with the wrong paper - I can't remember, so will have to wait until I next pick up a tabloid. But, trust me on this, he's worse than 'bear representing Russian aggression' Garland. Steve Bell is actually better, in my opinion, for the alomost incomprehensilbe targets of his anger.

>What about Steve Bell and Martin Rowson? I know I'm exposing myself as a Guardian reader, but the latter is positively Hogarthian compared to the Mirror's piss-poor Tom Johnston. Have you seen his caricatures Tony Blair and William Hauge? They always have to carry briefcases with their names written on them.

>>>>Agree totally with the above. As for TJ, he was connected with The Sun. It seems that when Piers Morgan moved across from Wapping, TJ came across with him. I can't believe that they got rid of Charles Griffin to make way for him - at least Griffin could do charicature which seems to be often lacking in a lot of the newspapaer cartoons these days - which is probaly why it seems so lame.

PS>I'd add to the list of poor cartoonists Blower in the London Evening Standard.

I like Gary who does the caricatures in The Sunday Times.

>
>Incidentally, does anyone agree with me that it is an admission of failure/talentlessness for a cartoonist to include in the picture a newspaper/billboard explaining the relevant story? If the idea is good enough it shouldn't need it, if the story isn't big enough then don't cover it. Sorry, but I've been meaning to get that off my chest for years.

>>Answer to billboard question: Yes.

A good cartoon needs little text, as the visual imagery should convey the message - that's the problem, several cartoonists are so bad, they can't attack their targets, or go for the easy way out.

Nope - I think Bell disappeared up his own arse many years ago. He's an alkie isn't he? (Alledgedly)

BTW Private Eye cartoons that should be in Punch (or fired in a small cannister into the heart of the sun): Hom Sap (shite), Yobs (incredibly unfunny and out of date), Heath's Private View (Would you like a stepladder, so you can look further down your nose at everyone?), Supermodels, Corporation Street.
It's Grim Up North London, and Young British Artists are just dull. And check pg. 24 of the new issue for the most supercilious, fogeyish, smug, self-satisfied arse-wipe of a cartoon ever.

"And check pg. 24 of the new issue for the most supercilious, fogeyish, smug, self-satisfied arse-wipe of a cartoon ever."

Thanks Al, I'll do that! As ever, you show me the way into Comedy Heaven!

BTW, "Brant of The Daily Telegraph" from 'The Day Today' is quite obviously a swipe at Garland of the DT - who suffered the ultimate indignity of being described as "totally unfunny" by *NED SHERRIN*. You can't go lower than that, can you?

I remember the hoo-haa when Tom Johnston joined the Mirror. Why? He'd always been crap, either with the main "topical" item, or his strip cartoon.
The main problem with him is that he's not funny or intelligently satirical in the vast majority of his cartoons.

Al, I've looked again at that one and I think you should know it's a parody of Hogarth's "Gin Lane" pictures.

No one has mentioned Gerald Scarfe yet, I see. Clearly he's had his day.

I quite like Scarfe's style, if not much else. Though maybe he has had his day as I can't say I've seen much of his work. Apart from that Disney collaboration thing...

To add to the list of Tom JOhnstone faults that personally irritate me, it's the way all his characters, satirical or strip based, seem to be sweating or salivating big drops of fluid when speaking. All the time.
And he's not funny.

Not an editorial cartoonist, so maybe out of the remit for this discussion, but Kipper Williams of the Radio Times is both the most unfunny cartoonist ever and quite obviously a twat.

I saw a copy of Socialist Worker the other day. Their cartoonist makes a decent stab at being the world's worst.

The "New Internationalist" is a leftie mag with cartoons so shite you have to wash your hands after putting it down. Not even attempting to be funny, just drawing attention to the tragic plight of one-legged landmine victims or 3rd world farmers in a matter-of-fact way.

Yes... but I think that's more in the style of Dore and [fill in names of famous 19th C. cartoonists] who were more social commentators than what we would call cartoonists nowadays, and therefore not up for the same criticism, I would imagine. But I've never seen it so you might be right.

Well, all the "Brant" brigade could presumeably give that excuse.

Gerald Scarfe - Ralph Steadman - both of them terrifying men on the stage, but apparently rather sweet in real life.

Anyway, tits to English editorial cartoonists (except Chris Riddell, who tends to be entertaining enough, and he's a good draftsman with it) - America's got a far better tradition. Anyone even vaguely interested in all this is strongly advised to biff off to the nearest comics emporium and get hold of an American magazine called "Comic Relief". Nothing to do with the English fundraiser of the same name, you'll be relieved to know; instead it's a round-up of the latest and best of American cartooning and syndicated humour columns. In their day it used to carry the latest "Far Side", "Bloom County" and "Calvin & Hobbes"; it's still carrying the mighty "Doonesbury"; it's got DAVE BARRY in it every month, for God's sake; and, most importantly for the sake of this thread, it carries an exhaustive round-up of the month's editorial cartoons from all the national US papers. Okay, so some of them are pap too, but taken as a whole they're infinitely more impressive than any of those jobbing tossers who scribble their two-euro'orth on the editorial pages of our tabloids every sodding day of the week. Best of all is the deceptively simplistic Tom Toles, for my money, but to be honest I think you'd be better off going out and spending your own on this excellent little mag.



Hmm, that posting was far too positive... er, someone somewhere's a cunt. So there.

Ooh, Doonesbury.

I live for that cartoon.

M'wai and Subbes - I second the Doonesbury recommendations. Wasn't too sure what to make of it at first, but bought the 'Flashbacks' compiliation and all became clear. Cracking stuff!

BTW Jon. The PE cartoon may well be a Hogarth parody but it still isn't very funny is it?

It doesn't have to be funny, it's satire!

Peter Brooke is all right (I can't remember what paper he's on, his stuff usually has lots of animals or plants anthropomorphised into politician caricatures). I agree about Steve Bell though, he's totally shit now.

Praise for Doonesbury? So it actually makes sense to someone, then? Maybe I am just dense but I cannot make head nor tail of it... explain, please?

The thing with Doonesbury is that it uses a long established cast of characters, dating back to the late 60s when the strip began. I mentioned a compilation book on an earlier posting ('Flashbacks') which is essential reading if you want to understand any of the strips that feature the regulars. (I certainly didn't before I read it.)

That said, his strips on US politicians are fantastic (Clinton as waffle, Bush as invisible man, Gingrich as bomb with lit fuse, Reagan as Max Headroom and so on) and need no 'homework'.

Re: On The Hour "You're Not Funny Anymore Charlie Brown!"

Was it ever funny, honestly?

It was never split-your-sides-and-spill-your-drink funny, but for almost a generation it was perfectly genial and, well, poignant. Then it just got weird. Around the time when Schulz decided to switch from four panels to three, it just lost any vestige of humour it might have had. Sheer momentum kept the strip going until the man was almost dead, but if he'd started his career by writing the kind of strips he ended it with, he wouldn't have had a career at all.

IMHO.

Just got to read this one. Nothing particular to add. I'm not a 'cartoonist' in the satirical sense -just an illustrator (and not overtly cop at that it would appear). No real interest either way in newspaper cartoons. Used to like the Daily Mirror stuff back in the days when it credited its readers with a bit of intelligence. Griffin was fantastic. He was back last week illustrating Victor Lewis Smith's 'Big Brother' piece.

With Mogwai on Bloom County. It rocked. 'The magic of velcro'.

Lee and Herring once did a competition on the radio series where people had to write in and guess what Tom Johnson's cartoon was going to be the following week: (LEE: Perhaps if a well loved comedian has died you could imagine that comedian arriving at the gates of heaven, saying his catchphrase and all the angels laughing. HERRING: Or if it's an evil person who's done a crime, why not imagine him arriving in hell and being rightly punished.)

The nadir of his work occurred recently when he drew a picture of Snoopy crying on the grave of Charles Shultz. Somebody actually wrote in to say how moving they found it. So they printed it again. I was almost physically sick. Has anybody ever visited his website?

Danny Wallace once did a 'Danny's Mad About' thing about Cartoons incidentally (without differentiating between newspaper/comics/anything other. I also remember Comedy Review being really snotty about people sending in comic strips for possible inclusion. No, I didn't.

"Scouse Mouse" in the Liverpool Daily Post takes some beating. It's one of the reasons I left Merseyside. Dire beyond belief.

Didn't "Who Dares Wins" have a sketch with Rory McGrath as a tabloid cartoonist back in the late 80s? One near-featureless stick-figure was carrying a card saying "Fergie"... "I've given it tits, so you can see it's the Duchess of York, not the Man Utd manager".

Aaaaaaaargh! Scouse Mouse! I'd managed to forget about it until now...

>Didn't "Who Dares Wins" have a sketch with Rory McGrath as a tabloid cartoonist back in the late 80s? One near-featureless stick-figure was carrying a card saying "Fergie"... "I've given it tits, so you can see it's the Duchess of York, not the Man Utd manager".

Spitting Image once did a very similar sketch about 'Crocker' the cartoonist for the Sun. He was depicted as a faceless figure with Xs for eyes. The puppet of Rupert Murdoch was annoyed with him. Can't remember why.