The Four Candles Guide to Brewing

This was a fun commission. Mike Beaumont, landlord of the Four Candles micropub here in Broadstairs, which is my local, asked me to come up with a large cartoon poster on the brewing process.

It was drawn to mark the fact that the pub recently started making its own beer on the premises and is now officially Britain's smallest brewpub.

The idea was to show how ale is made -- where and when the hops and barley are added, timings, temperatures etc -- in a humorous way, while including daft comments from many of the regulars. I am a regular in the pub, so I know you get a lot of daft comments in there!

Here's some detail from the board:

Once finished, we had it printed on a 107cm by 193cm Foamex board and laminated, because it has been placed by the stillage, where all the casks go, so it's sure to get splashed a lot.

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Greetings card cartoon: Honest approach

Here'a greetings card design I did recently, which is published by Country Cards. The colours are a lot brighter than I would usually use, as card cartoons are more about being colourful and eye-catching than magazine gags.

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Saga magazine cartoon: Another onesie

"Grandad must have sneaked down to the pub again – there's nobody in this onesie."

This was drawn for the letters page of Saga magazine, to accompany a reader's enthusiastic missive about the onesie as a good alternative to putting on the central heating!

It's not the first onesie cartoon I've done and probably won't be the last, at least until everyone stops dressing like oversized babies.

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Cartoon advent calendar:Day 12. Snow and alcohol

"Fancy a swift one?"

Is this really a Christmas cartoon, you may ask. Look, it's got snow and alcohol in it, what more do you want?

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Skiing cartoon: Downhill from here

"Fancy a swift one?"

While we're on the subject of alcohol-themed jokes, anyone fancy another? This is a "what happens next" visual joke, not something I do a lot of, and took a while to get right.

I have never been skiing, and have no plans to take it up. I'm more interested in the other leisure pursuit shown here, so I also spent quite a bit of time making the pub look cosy, like the kind of place I like to be in on a cold winter's day.

This cartoon is one of two of mine in the Christmas issue of Reader's Digest. It was taken in the early part of this year but they saved it until the weather got cold again. It's appropriate now as much of the UK is covered in snow, though not here on the Kent coast, as usual, to the disappointment of my kids.

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Cartoons in 'Ink and the Bottle' exhibition

I've got a couple of cartoons in the above exhibition at the Cartoon Museum in London. Neither are quite as colourful as the Donald McGill cartoon above, because they're the original ink drawings that were later scanned and coloured, using Photoshop, for Reader's Digest.

Here's one of them, a spin on a well-worn theme ...

"Bloody students."

As you've probably gathered, all the cartoons in the show are on a drinking theme. I saw it last night and it's very well put together, covering the good and bad points of Britain's favourite leisure activity.

The exhibition is not chronological, instead cartoons are linked by different aspects of the theme. It's fun to see how many similarities there are, despite the different times, between Ally Sloper, Andy Capp, and Viz. Go see.

UPDATE: The Radio 4 discussion on the Ink and the Bottle exhibition is online: Listen here

More HMV dog cartoons (scroll down).

Football cartoons: Bluffing it

The World Cup is here, time to dig out my one and only football cartoon! ...

"I must admit, your explanation of the offside rule was spot on."

OK, this old Reader's Digest cartoon is not quite my only football cartoon, but I haven't done many. Largely because I'm a bit like the guys in this cartoon:

"You know nothing about football either? So we've both spent TWO HOURS bluffing?"

Here's a recently published football cartoon, drawn to accompany an article about a new World Cup beer called 4-4-2. Now, beer is a subject I have done lots of cartoons about. Write about what you know, I say.

Footnote: Footnote! See what I did there? While on the subject, I recently posted an article about a cartoonist's World Cup song over at The Bloghorn.

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Not Yet Sold: Drinking cartoon

"I don't think We Are the Ovaltineys counts as a drinking song."

Here's another rejected cartoon for you. The editor of The Jester, the Cartoonists' Club newsletter, liked this one. He put it on the cover when the cartoon theme was Beer (and no, I'm not talking about my period as editor!) But paying markets? Not a sniff.

More Not Yet Sold cartoons.