ISSN: 2977-6368
PENS DOWN
Each issue TNC highlights a new book to review. Helping cartoonists fill the gaps between deadlines...
IT’S JUST GREAT WILLAMS
A COCKTAIL OF THE BEST WORKS OF MIKE WILLIAMS
(WITH A SLICE OF FAMOUS QUOTES AS WELL
What an absolute joy it was to receive this new book by the great Mike Williams. A beautiful collection of the best works of this legend of cartooning, I challenge anyone not to be filled with joy at the artistry and comedy within these charming drawings. Mike gave TNC an insight into his life, his thinking behind putting this delightful book together, and what he thinks about cartooning today . In the beginning I was born in the district of Allerton in the south of Liverpool in the month of February 1940 - a younger brother to Peter who was taller and cleverer, and actually began a successful career at least ten years earlier. Having avoided Hitler’s wrath, I attended Quarry Bank Grammar School and from there began a career as a junior in a commercial art studio. Two more studios followed, ending in completing a six year apprenticeship as a qualified commercial illustrator. The career of cartooning began in about 1963 when “Albert” Rusling and I, both working in the same studio, decided to throw responsibility to the wind and embark on new careers of humour, insecurity and fear… our wives must have been so thrilled. And now although we are geographically many miles apart, we still keep in touch; and we both still have no regrets about our chosen pavements. Most of my cartooning has been in magazines like Punch, The Spectator and Private Eye, and the rest has been internationally in advertising and TV animation. The arty and illustration part of my life has been mostly pleasure and experimentation and is thank goodness still in progress as we speak. Having lost my beautiful wife to cancer 13 years ago I now live a different kind of life – fortunately we were blessed with 2 delightful daughters and a great family. I appreciate all of it. PS I walk for miles daily (of-road) for fun. (PPS I also work undercover for MI7,9 and 12 mainly in the evening and at weekends). Who’s the book for? It’s a Christmas present for the one that it’s impossible to buy for ! The target – the parent, the grandparent, the elderly in-law, and the members of the family who have always been a nightmare to pick for either in price range or in content. The two still most popular cartoon books in my view contain fairly lame lifestyle gags on domestic and sporting subjects, or endless categories of quotations from Plato to Gary Lineker. The reason for this book is that I feel that the fusion of the two forms of amusement would make a more formidable cocktail. What do I think about today’s cartooning ? I’m sure there are just as many, if not more people, who enjoy the cartoon in its straightforward way as we did in the “palmy days”. I feel the quality of Cartoon Editorship is not exactly in harmony with the general public’s sophistication. When I think of who we had to look up to: “Folkes, Tidy, Glashan, Francios, Ross, Scarfe, Steadman, Searle, Ungener, Larry, Anton, Heath, Giles, Blake and so very many more, we were very spoilt. These stars of “ink pushing” were the icons we held in high regard, and unfortunately “our period” was only a shadow of what had gone before. Basically, I believe magazines and newspapers decide whether the art of cartooning exists or evaporates. I’m sure that there must be just as many embryo Scarfes and Larrys who will never get the opportunity or the invitation to express their talent the way we have. However fashions do change...as we do…unfortunately not always for the better. PS I have just noticed on my kitchen wall a piece I must have attached over 10 years ago, and it expresses exactly my feelings... “…that the public is more intelligent, has a keener sense of humour and likes better pictures and drawings than most journalists, publishers and politicians believe.” Sydney Jacobson What are your methods? The re-draws for this book have been done with a mixture of old Post Office pen nibs and hand cut seagull or goose feathers on a quality cartridge; and for the water colour the gentle and forgiving Dutch Ecoline Ink, a combination I have found to be most harmonious. Summing up...well to be truthful I see very little of today’s work. Strangely enough, I always found it quite hard to be a proper cartoonist because I could never find a recognisable style or recognisable “Williams” characters to people the gags. I suppose it’s a bit late now. However in my next life (as a woodlouse) who knows?!
A DECADE FOR THE PLANET
A NEW COLLECTION OF CARTOONS FROM MULTIMEDIA ARTIST DAWN MOCKLER
The poignant cartoon on the cover of this book says “Swipe Left”, and if you were that alien you probably would give the Earth a big swerve right now. The harm we do to our planet is something some of us will never see the conclusion of. That delight will be for the very young and the new generations yet to be born, and they’ll be perfectly entitled to ask “what were you thinking?”. What Mockler does brilliantly in this collection of her work over the past decade is to highlight that plight in illustrative form. When you move through the pages of this book you’ll be left with a sense of regret and an urge to do more!.
DRAWING A CLASS WAR
UK HISTORY THROUGH A CARTOON LENS, CAPTURING A LOOK AT THE 1984-85 MINERS STRIKE
A new book shines a Davy lamp on political cartoons during the bitter miners’ strike in the mid eighties. It includes around 130 cartoons. It’s by Nicholas Jones who was the BBC industrial and senior political correspondent for over 20 years. He’s also written many books on UK politics and industrial relations. The miners’ strike was one of the most monumental stories during his long career. Nick kept an impressive archive of newspaper cuttings and magazines as well as his BBC scripts on the strike, all of which included a large amount of the daily cartoons from the print media. He has since donated this collection to Sheffield University. The book includes a foreword by former Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell. Steve has also been recording his reflections 40 years on from the miners’ strike on his personal blog. THE STRIKES This fascinating book looks at how cartoonists covered the miners’ strike. One interesting aspect is how much prominence political cartoons had in a very different media landscape well before the diversification of how people encounter news. There was no internet or 24 hour news channels and newspapers had huge readerships. On the whole the mainstream news outlets, even the ones considered centre left, took a position against the strike: it remained for smaller, harder left publications to give an alternative voice. This was also reflected in the cartoons. NUM President Arthur Scargill was portrayed as the pantomime villain and Labour opposition leader Neil Kinnock depicted as his puppet. This amplified the feeling of ‘us versus them’ and the siege mentality of the striking mine workers. All the newspapers were still black and white which really suited the cartoons on this often bleak story of pit closures, divided unions, picket lines, aggressive Margaret Thatcher government and brutal confrontations with accusations of ‘over zealous’ policing. REVIEW BY 'MARSHALL NOT FUNNY'
ROWSON AS YOU PLEASE
38 YEARS OF WRITINGS WITH MIND BOGGLING ARTWORK ALL CAPTURED IN ONE PLACE
To understand talent, sometimes you need to look beyond the obvious; to go deeper and have a good rummage beneath the bonnet. With a book on the scale of Martin Rowson’s As I Please, with 470 odd pages of his writings and drawings over the past 38 years, this could feel like a daunting task, and you could take one look and think that you’ll have that rummage another day. Don’t! Admittedly, due to it’s length, this is not a book you just pick up and read over a weekend. This chunk of a bible is a place you dip into, drawing you in to that moment in time. Whether you agree or disagree with the opinions or passion on display at that time isn’t relevant. The writing grabs you instantly, and you can happily abandon whatever else you’re supposed to be doing and let it carry you off. Spanning two decades, Rowson ponders everything—the ideological battles inside Labour, the psychopathology of the Tory Party, London Zoo, the British class system, Doctor Who, terrorism—and anything else that comes to mind a day or so before the deadline. This book is a collection of these columns alongside Rowson’s other textual journalism, from tiny underground magazines in the US to contributions to the Guardian, the Independent, and many other mainstream publications, on a range of subjects ranging from the Charlie Hebdo massacre to Karl Marx. It’s not all heavyweight themes however, and much of the writing feels deeply personal and accessible. I loved the very moving Waitemata, written in the wake of Rowson’s father’s death, and Let’s kill Uncle, where the 11 year old Rowson begins to understand that horror “can, and often should be, played for laughs”, through the book by June Skinner he picks up at a secondhand bookstall. That he connects with the elderly writer, who’s daughter loved the piece, in 2024, and receives a personalized book from her, calling him her ‘perfect reader’, made me cry. You’ll also enjoy the incredible complexities of the fantastic artwork. An opening tale of the ‘Elephant in the Room’ takes you on a quite wonderful journey before you even get to the foreword by Kevin Maguire. It’s simply wonderful.
THE BELL TOLLS FOR US ALL
A LOOK BACK AT THE PAST SIX YEARS THROUGH THE PRISIM OF THE UK’S GREATEST CARTOONIST
Some books can be easily categorised, their genre readily outlined and labelled on a shelf with others in the same ilk. There are some however that are far away from the norm and are simply ‘stand alone’. If you take a moment and just think back over the last six years, there’s a lot to remember. There’s the mayhem of Brexit, Trump, and Tory leadership battles. Royals moving on to other realms, wars aplenty and new Labour Party leaders. We had the Covid pandemic, with clapping for nurses and masks, and let’s not forget a bunch of marauding goats in Llandudno. Now throw in the mind of Steve Bell with Ack Ack from Mars attacks, grizzly lord penguins, bum-faced Boris and baked bean factions, and you have a piece of work which is impossible to explain or review. Bell also explains in detail the end of his ‘If” strip, and his own unseemly departure from the Guardian comment pages. A story of the wrong people getting upset over a cartoon that never was anti-semitic, and of uncommunicative editors. The fact that the Israeli Cartoonists Association deemed the cartoon not anti-semitic says it all. As a cartoonist it’s something you just have to have. BUY IT.
A LIFE LIVED IN CARTOONS
A CARTOON ANTHOLOGY FOLLOWING THE LIFE OF THE UK’S FAMOUS
WAR-TIME LEADER
A fascinating new book edited by Tim Benson, highlighting the 60 year career of the most caricatured politician in history through the prism of cartoons, has just been released. Churchill’s A life in Cartoons spans his career from entering Parliament in 1900 through to his retirement in 1954. The Anthology primarily focuses on his exploits during the second world war and the years preceding it. Often lampooned in his early years for misjudgements and follies, Winston Churchill spent most of the 1920’s in a political wilderness due to his support of Edward VIII during the Abdication crisis and his views on India. He went on to have a pivotal role in our response to World War II. This fascinating book is packed with over 240 pages of striking political cartoons with detailed explanations to add context. It charts Churchill’s illustrious and tumultuous political career through the work of leading cartoonists from around the world. Through these cartoons there developed very contrary views of Churchill; the glorious cigar-chomping wartime leader, but also the flawed politician. In America he was adored by cartoonists, while in Nazi Germany and in the post-war Soviet Union he was, unsurprisingly, painted as a bumbling buffoon. Featuring the work of the some of the greatest cartoonists of all time including the great David Low Churchill, A life in Cartoons includes the very best and wittiest portrayals of Churchill. Here he is the glorious wartime leader, controversial politician, and emblematic British statesman who will be remembered always. If you are a fan of historical cartoons than this book is a must and well worth an online trip to Amazon! Churchill - A life in Cartoons Hutchinson Heinemann £14.99
