I thought it might be fun to take a look back at some of my first (widely) published gag cartoons. This appeared in The Spectator in March 2008. It was my first cartoon for that magazine, and the first I'd had accepted by any well-known national mag.



It's strange to think this was less than two years ago - the time has flown by, but at the same time a lot has happened with my cartooning. I've drawn hundreds of the things, and my style has changed a fair bit as a result. I still really like the composition of this drawing, and the joke itself, but it feels a lot stiffer than my recent work. My materials have changed - I used fibretips and technical pens at this point, rather than a bottle of ink and a nib - but I also remember being far more conscious of what I was doing, far less spontaneous. I think that shows in the drawing a little bit. But I'll always have a soft spot for this one as it was the one that told me I could make money as a cartoonist. I also really like the overall look of the artist character here - so much so that he's appeared in several subsequent cartoons. Here's one of them (also from The Spectator):





Sometimes you have to play devil's advocate; I'm actually quite into modern art, although some installations make you wonder how much really went into the concept. I caught a bit of the 'School of Saatchi' reality show on the BBC a couple of weeks ago and the pieces made by the contestants could be easily divided into two categories - those with something to them, and those just made so the artist would have something to show.