FOGHORN
The best of British cartooning talent
Issue 43
NEWS
FOGHORN Issue 43
Published in Great Britain by the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation (FECO UK)
PCO Patrons Libby Purves Andrew Marr Bill Tidy Foghorn Editor Bill Stott tel: +44 (0) 160 646002 email: billstott@lineone.net Foghorn Sub-Editor Roger Penwill tel: +44 (0) 1584 711854 email: roger@penwill.com
FOGHORN The magazine of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation (FECO UK)
Whoa! It’s that time again, and here is your superbly designed Foghorn, with all the sticky-out bits protruding nicely. Quite apart from the wholly unreasonable weather presently shivering most timbers, there are other undoubted downers, too. Bill Ritchie’s passing is ineffably sad. Mind you, “passing” implies having gone away, but looking around my studio, Bill’s still very much here. And will remain so.
Those of you who love silliness [that’s everybody. Ed. Ass.] will be itching to get on the Trevelyan bandwagon [q.v.] whilst those of you who are just itching should really do something about it. Bill Stott, Foghorn Ed
Foghorn Layout/Design Tim Harries tel: + 44 (0) 1633 780293 email: foghorn@procartoonists.org PCO Press Office email: media@procartoonists.org Web info PCO (FECO UK) website: http://www.procartoonists.org BLOGHORN http://thebloghorn.org/
What is Foghorn? British cartoon art has a great, ignoble history and currently boasts a huge pool of talent. It deserves a higher media presence than it currently enjoys. Our aim is to make sure it gets it. We want to promote cartoon art domestically and internationally by encouraging high standards of artwork and service, looking after the interests of cartoonists and promoting their work in all kinds of media. Copyright All the images in this magazine are the intellectual property and copyright of their individual creators and must not be copied or reproduced, in any format, without their consent. Front Cover: John Jensen Back Cover: Colin Whittock Foghorn (Online) ISSN 1759-6440 Glossop Watch: 3
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“Full English, Sir, or a dead camel’s bladder as if you were actually out there filming your ‘Survival’ series?”
The UK Political Cartoon Gallery is to move from its premises on Store Street, near Tottenham Court Road in London. Owner and publisher Tim Benson told Bloghorn; I believe we have gone as far as I think we can [at the Store Street venue] without becoming stale and repetitive. Staying in London I believe is also no longer any great advantage. There is just too much competi-
tion for publicising what we do. Out of London we believe, we will get far more interest and far more local coverage. A change of direction will breath new life into the society and our new prospective venue will allow us to do far more in the way of exhibitions than we have done before. Tim would like to thank all those who have supported the gallery over the last five years – and confirms there are four new books planned for publication in the New Year. WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
FEATURE CLIVE COLLINS
Clive Collins The power of the olfactory senses and memory eh? For me, there are two that can’t be beaten: the smell of steam trains is Paddington station, and arriving from Weston-super-mare after the war, and the other, the heady mix of cigarette smoke, mingled with the aroma of proprietary brands of flea-killer, was any one of seven cinemas in the Hounslow area near my first childhood home in Isleworth, West London. They consisted of a Regal, a Gaumont, a Rex, an Empire, two Odeons, and one Classic, which showed foreign, or arthouse films, mainly bleak, post-war Italian ones set among ruins and featuring hollow-eyed actors and actresses whose names I still can’t remember to this day. All are now gone as cinemas, though one shell of an Odeon remains, whose art-deco exterior fronts a block of upmarket flats, and those buildings that weren’t demolished became the ubiquitous Bingo halls. I spent most of my school holidays and weekends watching 50s celluloid; classic films noir - which I am now watching again on DVD and trying to recapture that first-look excitement – some crap cheapo films with Z-list stars, and blessed Ealing Films - The Ladykillers, Kind Hearts & Coronets, Passport to Pimlico (actually filmed in Vauxhall) and more. The posters of those days were part of the appeal, and unlike present day movie advertising, were more than a mere narcissistic photo shoot of the stars, but were either paintings, or artfully crafted stills from the film(s). The comedy films even had credit sequences drawn by famous cartoonists – Larry, ffolkes, Searle, Emmett, Hirschfeld among others. Not for them those mere boring printed titles; then the credits were part of the film and they got you into the mood. You could also go into the cinema at any time during the performance, and it was quite usual to sit and watch the beginning again until you reached the part where you’d come in. I couldn’t believe it when years later I took my own kids to see a film and was told I had to wait until the WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
Fleapits in my life
next showing. Sorry? What? In Punch, Barry Took once wrote a nostalgia piece about 50s cinemas, when small kids would come up to you at the ticket office and ask ‘get me into the pictures mister?’ Imagine that now, was his refrain. It’d be police sirens, and a criminal record before you could grab your ticket. I was always very tall - despite having smoked from the age of 7- and had been accustomed to seeing ‘A’ films on my own from day one. I was thus able to regularly smuggle younger kids past the ticket office in my unofficial role as ‘a responsible adult’, from whence they would dash off into the gloom and sit with their braver mates who’d broken in via the emergency exits. I still love the cinema, though visits are rarer, thanks to spending almost every waking moment earning a living, and while I’m grateful that the world of cinema still survives - though the films are bigger and sassier - I find the multi-screens somewhat forbidding. I miss the individual movie-house, with its highly decorated walls and mock Greco-Roman carvings and, above all, space. New multiplexes are now being built with more and more screens until
they’ll no doubt end up with auditoria the size of a small living room, with a sofa and a plasma screen. The last big, single-screen cinema I visited was in York a few years back, where Lynne and I saw The Incredibles. It was on the main road coming out of the city on the route to the racecourse and was – yes – an Odeon. The man who served behind the confectionery counter also sold us our tickets, and overall it had a sad air of neglect. We wandered up the stairs past the huge photos of old-time stars, and reached our balcony seats. Before us on the landing was a pair of art-deco doors to the toilets, from which emanated a stench of cleaning fluid that would have put a 50s fleapit to shame. We learned later that the place was scheduled for demolition or, if they were lucky, conversion to a multi-screen. The fact that there was already a multi-screen Vue cinema in York seemed to us to put the mockers on that plan, and sure enough, at time of writing it is closed and facing an uncertain future. THE FOGHORN 3
BLOGHORN
Cartoon Classroom
Bloghorn interviews David Lloyd about his new project. Bloghorn is very pleased to be able to publish an interview with David Lloyd, artist of V for Vendetta and cofounder of Cartoon Classroom, a free resource to connect artists and people who would like to learn how to draw.
for young people, because it was specifically meant to help the young unemployed.
How do you think the Cartoon Classroom and its list of expert teachers in drawing can help young people who do think in images?
Cartoon Classroom is intended to be a resource that anyone can dip into for exactly what they want by having as many institutions and artists as possible register with it. We must get that spread of involvement in the site, otherwise it will fail in its task.
Well, we’re not just for young people and we don’t specify anywhere on the site that we are. Anyone can make use of cartoon workshops or teaching in that area of art if they want to, and they already have in the past. Are water-colour weekends just for young people? There’s a tendency to think ‘cartoons? ah, young people’. This is a misperception from a Disney/comics train of thought, I guess. The work I helped with at The London Cartoon Centre in the 80’s and 90’s was just
Bill Ritchie Foghorn was sad to learn that PCO member Bill Ritchie passed away on 25th Jan 2010. Bill was best known for his work at Dundee based comic publishers D.C. Thomson, spending the best part of 40 years creating such favourites as Baby Crockett and Smiffy for the Beezer and Dandy comics, leaving behind a huge legacy in the cartooning world. Even after his retirement, Bill carried on cartooning. Scottish newspaper ‘The Courier’ noted “He never laid down his pen, though, and continued to work for D. C. Thomson after his retirement. He also illustrated for various international magazines and exhibited in several European comic book exhibitions.” 4 THE FOGHORN
So, the classroom is a non-profit learning resource for everybody?
David, personally, what does drawing mean to you? A pleasure and a pain. I love being able to draw and create but it often hurts because I’m striving for the best and can’t always get there. Why do you think you feel that way about it? Indeed, Bill himself often commented on the enjoyment he got out of these international competitions even if, as his cartoon below shows, the destinations were occasionally hard to find! As he once told Foghorn “KnokkeHeist, Tabriz, Cataluya, Ploiests - where on earth are they? Bad enough trying to find Caerphilly or Friockheim for that matter!”
Because I’m cursed with ambition. Many creative people seem to spend a lot of energy trying to define why they do what they do. Do you? Did you? Never had the choice. This was all I could turn into a living when I left school. But I have answered a similar question in interviews by saying I loved to draw and loved to write stories, and loved movies and tv, so it was natural I worked in strip art because I could do the things I’m naturally good at and enjoy making things that are like movies and tv at the same time. www.cartoonclassroom.co.uk A keen sculptor and gardener, Bill also collaborated with Alison Mary Fitt, producing illustrations for the Clan McWee series of books in 2008. The respect in which Bill was held can be summed up by Iain McLaughlin, sub-editor of The Beano, who made this posting on the Comics UK Forum: “Bill’s enormous catalogue of work will be well known to every British comics fan. For those of us who worked with Bill, he was one of the folk you always looked forward to seeing. You knew you’d have a good laugh and an interesting chat with Bill. His knowledge of comics and artists was extraordinary. And he was just a really nice guy, always gracious and helpful. A genuinely nice man who will be missed greatly by all of us who worked with him.” WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
FEATURE LADY VIOLET
Random acts of humour
Relationship woes? Dodgy love-life? Irritating rash? Irritating love-life with a dodgy rash? Fear not! Foghorn’s very own ‘Agony Aunt’ Lady Violet Spume, is here to answer your nasty little personal problems.
“Your entire oeuvre stinks.”
Dear Lady Violet, Cartoon Festival season is almost upon us - as of last year for big board duty I shall be wearing heavy-duty rubber knee pads, fingerless gloves and, new this season, a cricketers protective box to guard against the “Shrewsbury handshake”. Is this Normal? P.D. Nottingham. Lady V: Dear P.D. I cannot say what is considered normal in Shrewsbury as I have never been to the dreadful little town. However, the attire you describe sounds singularly revolting and should be avoided at all costs. I am also unfamiliar with the term ‘big board duty’ which you fail to explain. How the public expect me to provide help and support based on such vague information I shall never know!
“I didn’t know the wildlife park did home visits.”
Dear Lady Violet, I am a great admirer of the very beautiful David Cameron. Recently I saw on the television, a most exciting film all about David’s early life, especially his time at Eton and later at University. I was especially taken with the way David and his hilarious chums dashed about the place wrecking others’ studies, forcing fellow students to do humiliating things and generally being, well, David. I wonder if the next Prime Minister still does this sort of thing, and if he does, can one book such a performance? Frankly, its lonely now that Denzil’s gone, and whilst he left me comfortably off, its been a long time since I was made to do bizarre things by a toff. Yours, in anticipation,
“Well, we’ve all got to make sacrifices these days.” WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
The Hon Muriel Criminy – Halstead.
Lady V: Hands off, you hussy! David is mine, all mine, I tell you! Don’t you understand? I’m a toff, he’s a toff - ergo! It is inconceivable that he would have any truck with the likes of you. You probably have to work for a living. How common. Yours etc. THE FOGHORN 5
FEATURE THE POTTING SHED
The Potting Shed with Cathy Simpson. The mighty Alan Goatrouser has just been hauled back indoors. It took an hour to defrost him, so welcome INTO the Foghorn Potting Shed! Now, we all like a spot of potting in here - so today’s postbag is dedicated to containers (especially with plants in). Gordon Honkmonster, Binkie Homebrew and Euphorbia Marmelade, radiant in their thermals, are all eagerly rubbing their hands! First out of the bag comes from Nissan McNightie of Peebles, who says he’s new to gardening but he’ll try anything once! He writes: “Dear Foghorn, My potted plant fell over; I mean the plant collapsed, leaving the pot standing. Then I noticed loads of ‘C’ shaped grubs in the compost. I find only having ‘C’ shapes really cuts down on the number of words I can make from them. What are these grubs, and how can I get more letters?” Euphorbia’s winced a bit, but Gordon’s ready and rarin’! “What you have here are vine weevil larvae (Noraholius leafius). These
dangerous little blighters will eat just about anything that grows in a pot – even your stew or risotto. All vine weevils are female, and as for virgin birth – they bring tears to the eyes of the Catholic Church! Although they’re ‘C’ shaped, put ‘em together carefully and you can make a little letter ‘A’, too. For other letters, including fancy stuff like ‘&’ and ‘@’ – you can’t do better than earthworms (genus Longthinslimius). They beat the so-called ‘Spelling Bee’ into a cocked hat! Or you could just buy a game of Scrabble.”
And while Euphorbia’s standing there with her mouth open, Binkie’s well away. Go for it, Binkie! “Unfortunately, witch hazels (Hubblebubble toilantrubble) never do very well in pots, even ones which aren’t being used as storage crates. They’re also very picky about their soil – that’s the dirty stuff plants grow in when they’re in the ground. However, your witch hazel is probably already dead and you might as well keep it where it is. You can always buy a can of car paint and spray it to match the Range Rover.” Great advice, and great colour coordination there, Laeticia! And sadly that’s it for today – but don’t forget to send us your gardening tales of woe and we’ll do our best not to laugh! (Can’t wait!)
Should give you hours of fun, Nissan! Onto our next, an email from Laeticia Sutherland-Wyndebagge from Thrubwell Parva. She’s very upset at the state of her witch hazel: “The leaves are all turning ever such a nasty brown colour. In the pot I’m also keeping some green wellingtons, a spare tyre for the Range Rover and the bit left of the Barbour jacket which the doggie didn’t eat. Should I put some compost in there, too? (I believe that’s what you gardening types term that dirty stuff that plants grow in).”
Random acts of humour
“Slik-kwik Signwriters? This is World of Books and I want to speak to your proof-reader!” 6 THE FOGHORN
WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
FEATURE PAUL HARDMAN
Letters to the Editor Snail Mail: The Editor, Foghorn Magazine, 7 Birch Grove, Lostock Green, Northwich. CW9 7SS E-mail: billstott@lineone.net
Help needed I really look forward to reading my brother’s copy of your jolly magazine. Sometimes though, I don’t understand some of the amusing sketches you publish, even though most are coloured in so carefully. It might help your cause if you printed brief explanations underneath each one. Yours sincerely Enid Bippy [Miss] ps except rude ones.
Jobs a good ‘un Dear sir, As good as your magazine is, I can’t help but think how much better an Apple iFog would be. Imagine this - a handy 21inch magazine tablet you simply slip into the 21inch iPocket of your iSuit. Sounds good? Let’s live the dream!
Yoos Didn’ Doo Dat! by Paul Hardman Many decades ago… early 70s to be precise, I was running a large secondary school art department in Bootle, Merseyside. It was a cold, lifeless Monday morning. I had a weekend hangover and 3X Remove for double Art first thing! Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen an ‘X Remove’ class? They’re an interesting bunch…..very much smaller than the rest of the year group. A mixture of potential jockeys and submariners but without the intelligence or motivation; a bi-product of maternal smoke and alcohol abuse during pregnancy with a dash of dubious in-breeding in there somewhere! They come in a set. There’s always the one with the wall eye, one with an abundance of freckles and several that sniff and dribble incessantly from under a protuberance of green teeth and all with that obligatory home-made haircut. Somewhat of a challenge for the most skilled of motivators even without the hangover! The challenge was not to educate (for we don’t do miracles!) but to retain within the walls of the school. The object of my lesson was that of screen printing. One of my rooms sported a gigantic print table with a cushioned plastic covering over which I started to place newspaper sheets from the Liverpool Echo and
Sun. The table was so large that I had to mount the beast on all fours, whilst I taped the sheets together. This also had the advantage of keeping me a safe distance from the several dubious odours emitting from my darling feral pack. Suddenly I opened a paper at the cartoon page where I espied one of my own creations proudly ‘staring’ back at me. “Oh, great!” I exclaimed. “Here’s one of my cartoons in the Sun.” The pack stopped daubing the walls and nicking the pencils as they clustered around me craning to see such wonderment. The odours began to interweave into an eye-watering cloud. “Wear Sear?” was the demand. “Look, here... one of the cartoons I drew is in the Sun!” Stony silence… and then… “Wah? Yew drew dat?” “Yes!” “No, yis never!” “I did. Look! There’s my signature.” “Ey up, Cum ‘ed Sir... Yoos never did dat doh!” “Why ever not?” “C O Z I T Z P R I N T I D!! My mind emptied in confusion. For the first time in a long time…I had no answers for my dear, cherubic flock.
Yours iSincerely
Steve Jobs CEO, Apple Inc.
PS, I’ve registered ‘iFog’, so don’t even think about it.
Space Invader Dear Editor, I can’t help feeling I’ve written this letter to simply fill a gap. Yours made-uppingly, Derek Pangolin-Glossop WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
“We’ve had to really update the curriculum.” THE FOGHORN 7
FEATURE BILL STOTT
Unplugged Bill Stott wonders where technology is taking us. Very occasionally, the memory of an art and design lecturer I once knew who ditched life as we know it Jim, and cleared off to live on a Scottish croft pops up. Even then, and it must be 30-odd years ago, I felt a mixture of admiration, envy and mystification about his decision to change his life; to reject modernity with its reliance on technology – and in 1970, technology meant Teflon,Trimphones, Loon jeans and rare sightings of video tape recorders the size of sheltered housing units – and fend for himself. That was half a lifetime ago. I don’t know what happened to him. He might still be there, self-sufficient, dependent only on a minimum of tools and what nature chooses to give him. On the other hand, quite apart from possibly having fled back to the nearest centrally heated city flat when the firewood ran out, he might be still be in place, but operating a SatNav sheep location system [Baafind] from a carbon fibre miners dream of home mini wind farm high up on Ben Doon… If Tony – for that was his name – felt the need to leap off the techno bandwagon in 1970, I wonder how far he’d
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jump in 2010? I mean, back then, technology had an understandable, fallible face. If you had a car, you probably also had long conversations about how good or bad a starter it was. Did it have a radio? Or a heater, much less air conditioning. Chances are, if it was a Vauxhall Viva, or a Maxi, or a Triumph Herald, it DID sport a heater, or as this downmarket facility is called today “climate control”. “Climate Control”!? Now there’s an excellent example of techno-pomposity. Climate Control! It’s a car, for heaven’s sake, not a rain forest. TVs still got a good thump to fine tune them back then, and what you saw was what you got. There wasn’t a wealth of unseen visual chewing gum hiding under an interactive red button. And radio news was pretty much take it or leave it, too. “This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the news, and this is Alva Liddell reading it. There has been an earthquake abroad. 52 million people are feared dead. Meanwhile, at the Oval, Australia are 987 for no wicket. The weather, sunny spells, and quite dark at night.” And I was drawing with a pencil, then a rubber, then black ink, applied with
a steel dip – in nib, on paper. On those rare occasions colour was required, then it was watercolour, applied with a brush. And Oh My God! It still is! What’s wrong with me? You are old, Father William might be one answer, but I suspect its not as simple as that. There are folk who can give me a year or two who welcome alleged technological advance. With open arms they embrace plasma screen tellies which interact (work with) with dvd recorders, cell phones, PCs, iPods and for all I know, laser powered toasters. Whilst watching one channel, they record another, then, unbelievably, watch the recording later! Maybe this is the classic reaction of the technophobe. Those in the know, the wired, all ducks in a row types who get excited about knowing what the ambient temperature in Adelaide is via their razor thin mobile, or can send photos (pix) of their own bottoms to similarly subtle friends are so far removed from me now, that they no longer call people like me Luddites. This might have something to do with history having been optional in school for quite some time for a generation which refers to things being “way back” in the nineties, but its also because there’s a massive assumption that if something’s possible and cheap, it is, by definition, necessary, and therefore, completely acceptable. Where was I? Oh yes – doing not very well making a case for ink, pen, paper and paint. Part of my problem is that I like it. I enjoy the resistance of the paper to the nib; the subtle changes in pressure which result in a very different line; the way watercolour works – how flexible it is – and how difficult that flexibility is to control… blah, blah… Oh, and whilst I’m at it, Nibnerd may note that the ones I prefer are the same pattern as those used by us war babies at school in the 50s WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
FEATURE BILL STOTT
– they’re still available, but all fancied up with a shiny gold finish and cost around 70 pence a throw… Anyway, I can hear all the CAD (computer aided design – is that the correct term?) buffs out there shouting things like; “But you don’t need paper to draw on and ink to make the lines!”, or, “There were folk like you around when paper superceded vellum!” But I like the mess. I like having to keep nibs clean. I like getting a whole new sheet of paper out. I suppose that as computer/digital/electronic development continues its breakneck pace of development, there may come a day when I’ll draw on a virtual piece of 220gsm cartridge with a virtual dip in nib, and actually feel the resistance of nib and paper. The Virpape© will come as one of the many communication miracles my home PC will be able to whip out of its electronic sleeve, and there’d be no scanning – I’d just send it whizzing off… shouts of, “We can do that now, you throwback !” Well, OK, maybe you can. Not the Virpape© quite yet, and the computer added colour still has a dead look to it. Its too infallible. But probably in the next ten years or less, I’ll be looking at little option boxes along the Virpape© top edge which offer “Flawless” “A Bit Flawed” and “Hand Done”, the latter featuring unerased pencil, blots and spelling errors. But as I say, I like the actual mess, as a non-optional part of what I do. Dread the day we have Replicators [Like on Jean-Luc Picard’s Enterprise, where if you suddenly fancy baked beans on toast, you tell a computer and it makes some in a little hole in the wall… instantly – no smell (optional), no mess...] There’s a programme on telly called “Animation Nation” , and in part, it answers that question about where all the young cartoonists are. They’re proWWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
ducing excellent animated films. I’ve seen some absolutely stunning stuff on it. Great drawing, wonderful use of colour, funny, dramatic etc., etc., and most of the work I’ve seen comes from people well under 30. Even in still form, it knocks the spots off most of the tired syndicated gear churned out in the national dailies. Why’s their stuff not in newspapers and magazines? Why’s it on a relatively obscure programme at 12.30am?
And yet, and yet… all may not be lost. A couple of years ago, Rolf Harris, that master of personal reinvention, and a good bloke besides, used a graphic dodge beloved of all art teachers since time began on national telly, and it didn’t involve Virpape©, or a computer deciding how messy a wash should be without getting wet. He divided up a well known painting into 200 squares, or whatever, then gave one square to 200 different folk all over the country, and they had to produce a 2 foot version of the little square Rolf gave them, with the paint and canvas provided. Can you see what it is yet? Then they sent him their efforts and hundreds of technicians put all the bits together in a posh venue. A huge version gradually appears. There’s music, dancers, fireworks. OOOOH, AAAAH! 60 minutes of prime time TV is filled. Rolf got a massive, engagingly flawed version of “The Haywain” (or was it “Flatford Mill”) under spotlights, with fireworks into Trafalgar Square.
Good for him. An actual, physical thing, created by humans using bits of wood and hair (OK, some of its probably nylon) and paint. Oddly, a computer generated, perfect version of say,The Laughing Cavalier, projected on to the underside of low-lying cloud would be regarded as almost hum-drum by generations of people who have grown used to doors opening automatically, voices emanating from dashboards advising a uturn, and night club light shows of sense-numbing electronic wizardry. Humans like - even need - to make physical, real marks. They like watching marks made. They know that a computer generated image is only as good (or bad) as the programmer, but they don’t respect the image. Even the annoying twerps who do bad grafitti on newly painted white walls prefer theirs, or their friends’ personal scrawlings to spraying through computer generated flawless templates. So, the forthcoming opportunity at Shrewsbury later this year for a few cartoonists and caricaturists to work live and large, with real pens, paint, brushes, whatever, on a real, physical surface in front of real people, is important, vital even. Computerised imagery is vital, too. It has its vital place – only last year, the first aircraft designed solely by computer – no wind tunnel testing, no scale model prototypes, flew. It did so predictably and safely. Infallibly, even. A distinct advantage for an aeroplane. But the making of flawed images by that essentially flawed creature - the human - is much more engaging. The ever increasing pace of computer development leaves our precious, defining fallibility behind. We accept. We don’t question it. We can’t really because it’s a machine. “To find out what the hell is going on, press 9...” THE FOGHORN 9
THE CRITIC The Gallery
Random acts of humour
“I’m looking for a tie that says ‘Cower before the architect of your destruction, pathetic earthling fools.”
Pirates - The early years.
The Critic Nice script – shame about the typeface!
Foghorn’s resident critic Pete Dredge watches telly so you don’t have to. Is it me or are the majority of comedians/ stand-ups/ comic actors etc all considerably lacking in the ‘Good Looks Dept’? Is a ‘lived-in’ face a pre-requisite for comedic delivery, or, looking at it from a different viewpoint, does being a finely-chiselled ‘beefcake’ or drop dead gorgeous ‘eye candy’ make you more unlikely to have the comedic gene coursing through your veins ? Hard as I try I can’t think of a single ‘good-looking’ comedian (did Roger Moore do standup in between stints of ‘Ivan Hoe’ and ‘The Saint’? I don’t think so.) I’m struggling to think of any conventionally ‘handsome’ contemporary comics in both the male and female department. Lee Evans, Jo Brand, Rich Hall, Harry Enfield, Paul Whitehouse, Victoria Wood, Al Murray, Michael McIntyre, Joan Rivers, Dara O’Briain, Rory McGrath, Frankie Boyle, Lucy Porter, and the list stretches back to the likes of George Formby, Arthur Askey, Frankie Howerd, Jimmy Clitheroe, Hilda Baker, Kenneth Williams et al. You would all, if you’re absolutely 10 THE FOGHORN
honest, give these individuals a wide berth on first inspection had their photos appeared on some internet dating or social networking site but if comic talent is measured as a counter-balance to unconventional beauty then Miranda Hart is destined for mega stardom in the comedy field. Not only that, and much more importantly, she is damned funny to
boot. After years learning her trade on the stand-up circuit and with several supporting roles in tv comedy (Hyperdrive, Not Going Out, Smack the Pony to name a few) she recently reached the televisual pinnacle of hosting BBC2’s Have I got News For You. This was quickly followed by her own BBC2 sitcom, modestly called Miranda. Her style is physical and self-deprecating (with witty, Shakespearesque asides to the viewer). Hard not to be given her physical presence – tall, large, lumpy hangdog - a possible love child of a bizarre one-off coupling between Frankie Howerd and Marilyn Manson. A certain product of the ‘ make ‘em laugh to stop ‘em bullying me at comp’ school of comedy, or the alternative ‘I have to be funny to be as popular as the pretty girl’ route, Miranda Hart has an infectiously likeable ‘let’s go down the pub for a laugh’ charm about her and her writing skills suggest she will be around for a long time to come. I don’t think we’ll be seeing “Cheryl Cole Live at the Apollo” just yet. WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
CURMUDGEON
Going Swimmingly I watched some professional swimmers on telly recently. Heavy – shouldered lads and lasses all, but with the toothy Americans [inevitably] thrashing the Rest of the Cosmos. I’ve heard lots of odd things about swimmers over the years – blokes shaving all their hair off or having their nipples flattened, but on this occasion my attention was grabbed by the current go – faster swim suit, a garment which enables already bald and bumpless swimmers to go even faster. Official opinion is divided. Some swimmers seek the moral high ground and won’t
wear them. Others, sick of the reek of Veet, find themselves actually winning events. Soon the suits will be banned, but records set by swimmers wearing them will stand. Which is stupid. Just look how long it took the rest of us to catch up with the Eastern Block pharmacists’ records of the 70s and 80s. [older readers will be interested to know that in middle age, Olga Korbut has at last attained her natural adult height of 7foot 2] By the time unsuited swimmers equal suited records, global warming will have kicked in and we’ll all have gills anyway. Why not make the suits compulsory? I wonder if the discovery of the wheel had a similar effect on the ancients’ chariot racing? Quite possibly. I’ll bet Ben Hur’s great granddad turned up one day with round things on his sledge and wiped the floor with everybody. So all hands got wheels. They should all wear slippy suits is wot I say. And while we’re at it, I’m fed up with Olympic drugs scandals too, which would vanish at a stroke if the running and jumping types were allowed to take whatever they liked. The intensely boring 9 million metres would be over in no time whilst javelin, hammer and shot – put events would become very very interesting indeed.
Random acts of humour
“Just the legs, is it...?”
“If he was a chimp he’d have written a book by now!” WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
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CARTOONS GERARD WHYMAN
“Darryl, haven’t you bought your homework off the internet yet?!” “What sort of work are you looking for?”
“My husband is under a lot of pressure at work.”
Cartoons by
“This week we’re going to try some regression therapy.” 12 THE FOGHORN
“Oh, darling, it’s the best present ever!”
“It’s the only way I can get people in on a Sunday.” WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
THE FOGHORN GUIDE TO
[Apostrophe junkies please note the absence of one in UFOs]
3] Are there really “creatures” in UFOs ?
Those of you who like the little quirky bits at the end of The News – “last night, Glossop resident Mrs Muriel Wrench coughed up a nearly – new DVD player. Said a surprised Mrs Wrench, blah, blah etc etc….”, You know the sort of thing… Anyway UFOs hit that slot recently because the official government agency responsible for logging all UFO sightings [OFUFO] has been wound up. Foghorn feels it only right that as an organ which reflects the views of some fairly strange, not-of-this-world people, it should print a brief guide to phenomena which are now deemed too boring to be bothered with.
Most definitely. But you can forget all that E.T. nonsense. The “creatures” conveyed in these galactic ferries are in fact humanoids! Furthermore, Foghorn research has shown that not only have UFOs been visiting us for ages, but that their presence in our skies will soon increase a hundred fold.
1] What ARE UFOs? [Still no apostrophe. Must be driving you mad]
4] Do these amongst us ?
“creatures”
live
Nail on the head! They most certainly do. We need only ask ourselves why official research into UFOs has so casually been terminated to see the awful truth. Before you cast your vote in the upcoming general election, look hard at our political leaders. Look
very hard. Lord Mandelson. Lord Adonis. Lord Vader. The Milibands. Its all there in their names alone. They are not of this world. Soon they will summon fleets of UFOs full of new MPs, from Alpha Centauri and certain parts of Glossop safe in the knowledge that our skies will be open. Therein lies only half the horrors awaiting us. Dave Cameron [real Martian name, XZARQ SMOOTHIE] and pudgy little Osborne are both of the red planet, but blue through and through have swarms of UFOs full of extra terrestrial Moat People hiding behind the moon, just itching to get their pale hands on the governance of our great country. [NB. Here are a few apostrophes to scatter around the place, for those who missed them. ‘’ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ]
Well, UFOs are what they say on the tin. Unidentified Flying Objects. At least, that’s the boring government name given to the many thousands of unexplained sightings of alien craft over our planet. 2] Should we believe people who say they’ve seen one ? Of course we should. Take just one example – a graphic description given by Mr Des Leapwell, 37, self employed of Billinge... “Oh, it were huge, an’ all like green with like lights in it an’it were flyin’ really really low an’ it stopped right close to me and like a door opened an’ this like creature got out.” Space does not allow Mr Leapwell’s full account, but the reality of his experience is underlined by his brave insistence on conducting an interview from his hospital bed shortly after being knocked down by a Mobile Library outside the Flange and Gasket public house. WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
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BUILDINGS IN THE FOG
Our humble abodes As a nation we are a conservative lot. Nothing shows this better than our houses; our own little boxes that tell the world how well-off we are and what we feel about gardening. Not long after getting married, we lived in New Ash Green in North Kent. This was three miles from Brands Hatch, which gave the place particular appeal to us both. By opening the windows when the Grand Prix was on telly we could hear it in stereo. The village was a new development by the architect Eric Lyons, who had just made his name with a cool, trendy, housing scheme in Blackheath in Sarf London. At New Ash Green he took his innovative housing concepts further in the form of a new village, with a series of neighbourhood communities focused around a small centre of village shops and a village green. Despite having Noel Edmunds as one of its early residents, the place appealed to young middleclass professionals. The houses were more interesting than the norm and there lay the problem. We still had real Building Societies back then, but they too were a conservative lot and thus anything out of the ordinary gave them the wobblies. They 14 THE FOGHORN
were very reluctant to grant mortgages on properties that weren’t the usual housey shape or type of construction. To their horror, some houses even had steel beams in them. Pass the smelling salts. They thought they would be difficult to resell and therefore not a good investment. Of course once word got round that mortgages were hard to get, the houses were indeed difficult to sell. Money lenders had no more brains then than they do now. Because of the mortgage problems Lyons’ company, Span, was forced to sell the development and Bovis Homes took over. They kept the village plan but changed the houses to conventional design. Mortgage money flowed for Bovis boxes and the Penwills moved in. That was back in the 1970s. In the same era the dreaded and hideously influential Essex Design Guide appeared. The fine upstanding members of Essex County Council were people who Knew What They Liked. They didn’t like the sort of housing schemes that developers were putting before them. Therefore the Essex planners in their infinite wisdom decided it would
be a good idea to produce a design guide to show the style and form of houses and housing development layouts that would sail through the planning process. This they did and the inevitable happened... developers didn’t take it as a guide but as a manual. All new Essex houses henceforth looked like the house designs in the Guide. And those designs were safe, twee and dull. Other Council planners saw this and in their equally infinite wisdom also thought it was a good idea that made their lives much easier. They used the Essex Design Guide for themselves. Result - all housing schemes in the land looked the same apart from the colour of the bricks or the occasional requirement for artificial stone. Unconventional, innovative housing design was squashed. It was financial madness even to suggest it. Some geezer in Essex has a lot to answer for. Then there is Poundbury, Prince Charles’ housing development in Dorset, Classical Twee on a grand scale. But that, I think, is for a future article. Roger Penwill
WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
THE LAST WORD
The Trevelyan Files Foghorn offers the tantalising first chapter. It’s up to you to keep it going... Mansard Trevelyan didn’t make mistakes, but now, chained to the buffer beam of the speeding goods engine – a Fowler 0-6-0 from the exhaust note, probably out – shedded from the Derby Works around ’05 or ’06 he thought, glancing down at the iron number plate just visible by his pinioned left ankle, he wasn’t so sure. Longitudinal riveting on the plate, and the clank of a worn bearing suggested a Gresley rebuild, but Trevelyan had no time to ponder further as the locomotive thundered on into the night. He thanked his lucky stars for heavy woollen socks, not to mention the stout thornproof Harris Tweed suit recently purchased from Ghastly’s of Bond Street which presently absorbed the pressure from the steel bonds which refused to yield, even to the increasingly urgent straining of Trevelyan’s athletic frame. Light glinted on the padlock securing him to the handrails which ran around the outer edges of the engine’s smokebox as the juggernaut sped past
WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG
Fittock’s String Works and for the first time since he’d been overpowered by Dr Demenzia’s hired thugs, Trevelyan knew where he was – on the up line out of Dimley Parva and heading for… Suddenly he was aware of the engine’s speed slackening, gradually slowing to no more than walking pace. “Great Hounds of Hell!” thought Trevelyan, straining with renewed urgency at the chains, “This must be Yeoman’s Bottom – and that’s the last stop before Bighampton Slurry Pits!” All became clear. Demenzia’s ruffians had obviously thought that if Trevelyan hadn’t succumbed to the terrifying journey chained to the boiler of a speeding loco,an ordeal which would have killed most men, he must certainly die in the slimy blackness of a slurry pit. The fiends were probably waiting there already, having careered through the night in a powerful black saloon. He imagined them now, their ugly criminal faces alight with expectation; Johnny No-Nose, Big ‘Arry and Red Angus, the worst of London’s criminal under-
class; men without pity… Suddenly, a blurred movement high and to his right! What’s this? A swaying figure lurched around the boiler’s end. A begrimed face smiled broadly, and the wiry figure of Bert Nubbins, fireman, stooped in front of Trevelyan. “Whoa! It’s you Mr Trevelyan! Chained to the front of our engine again, eh? He, he, Tommy said there was somefink not quite right with the old gel. Bert, ‘e says to me – when we slow for Yeoman’s Bottom, nip round the front and see if its that Mr Trevelyan’s got himself into another scrape. And here you are, proper trussed up – same chain as last time, eh ?” To be continued!...
... but only with your help! Here’s your chance to contribute to Foghorn! If you fancy your hand at writing a future chapter of The Trevelyan Files, let us know! email us at foghorn@procartoonists.org
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“So much for Google - there’s nothing about hiring contract killers!”
FOGHORN (ONLINE) ISSN 1759-6440