Matt Buck's Hack Cartoons

I'm getting frighteningly close to the start of the Shrewsbury cartoon Festival and the big board drawing, I was describing here. There's a healthy degree of fear beginning to circulate now - especially as the good citizens of Shrewsbury and surrounding districts will be peering over my shoulders as I work.

As I explained last time, the theme is business and I've been thinking about which way to approach it - I'm going to outline a few approaches and some of their benefits and drawbacks, below

1) Gag - the most traditional or funny of the sort you might see in Sun Fun, Prospect or Private Eye in the UK. These are typically black and white lineart drawings with or without a caption. Really good practitioners of this art I know include Rod McKie, Royston Robertson and Tim Harries.

2) Illustration - a beautiful or striking image usually dependent on its context, or the things around it to help give it meaning. This is the most common form of cartoon in print. The Association of Illustrators have lots of members, but sometimes I'm not sure about their sense of humour.

3) Editorial - an image with a point. A column or opinion piece in pictures - this is my own particular specialisation. Colleagues like Alex Hughes, Morten Morland and Andy Davey make this a challenging environment.

Drawbacks with all of them - when considering an 8 by 6 foot board.

a) Fear!
b) Having a powerful enough joke or comment to translate over such a big space
c) Materials - a 2B isn't going to manage it alone ...

I'm veering towards approach 3) because it's what I know best - but what do I really think about business - time is running out, I'm supposed to start painting on Friday!

I shall be drawing at the Shrewsbury cartoon festival during the weekend of April 20-22.

This is a fantastic annual event organised by a group of Britain's very best cartoonists and very kindly supported by Shrewsbury and Atcham District Council.

This year, I have to draw in the town square on a very large board, 8 feet wide by 6 feet high - with lots of folk peering over my shoulders. The theme is trade and business.

Here's a small diagram giving you an idea about the relative proportions of this board and as you can see, it's going to be an interesting challenge. My colleague Royston Robertson is also on Big Board duty this year and you can almost see the fear in his recent blog entry about it.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes!