Matt Buck's Hack Cartoons

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

These images and ideas were originally drawn and published in November 2007. The assassinated former Prime Minister was a US idea of what a democratic Pakistani government should look like.
28th December 2007
UPDATED 31st December 2007
Channel 4 have footage of the assassination here

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

December 2007

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

’Tis the season to draw daft ecards...mind you, I did get to do kazoos...one of which could even be desribed as flirtatious.
19th December 2007

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

...coming soon...

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Quite a bit more of our money appears to be committed to bailing out the shareholders and important parliamentary seats in the North East of England.
18th December 2007

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Sometimes you just hear about something completely cheerful. In this case it's that a friend of mine, Gareth Negus, is now running the oldest, purpose-built and continually running cinema in the world. You can find out about the Curzon cinema in Clevedon, near Bristol, here. The history of the place and the battle to keep it alive is a fantastic story about what groups of people can do when they try. There's also a natty piece of simple and creative interactivity which allows the virtual visitor a sneak look at this marvellous old place of mass entertainment. Have a look! Long may it and Gareth thrive.
17th December 2007

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

For all those desperately seeking stocking fillers, I can heartily recommend Alan Pearce’s marvellous book for Christmas.*
* Caution - advert. I illustrated it and provided the silly drawing for the cover.
17th December 2007

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Back.
16th December 2007

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

I get a lot of letters from younger cartoonists and people who make pictures for a living, asking for advice. Once upon a time I used to write these letters myself. I try to answer them, but to be honest, there isn't a great deal of useful stuff you can say. If the author has desire to draw real-life it will come out anyway, with outside advice or not. We all have a talent for expressing ourselves in varying degrees. However, the one consistent thing I always say, is to learn the economic, legal and financial value of what is made with their skill. This is because, sadly, life and some people being what they are, you will undoubtedly find your work and ideas are, at some point, 'borrowed.' The trick at this point is in being to take the backhanded compliment. This last bit of this process is a bit like a finishing school for makers of creativity. It's happened to me several times in the past decade and will no doubt happen again. There's a good quotation by an Indian gentleman caled Ananda K.Coomaraswamy about it.

It's not a question of an artist being a special kind of person, but of every person, who is not an parasite or an idler, being a special kind of artist.

The cartoon awards season results can be found at my colleague Morten's blog - and congratulations are due him, Dave Brown, Steve Bell and Martin Rowson. The event speech was given by former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer Ken (Kenneth) Clarke. He made a good speech, as you might expect from a professional speech maker, but he also said at least one incredibly silly thing. I paraphrase him here, but the gist of it was, who'd want to look at cartoons on the internet?

Sketchbook caricature of Ken (Kenneth) Clarke - Conservative MP - and guest at the Political Cartoon Awards

I understand why he did this, to connect precisely with what he judged to be his audience, largely middle class, middle-aged, or, elderly and largely suspicious of technology. It worked for him, he got a laugh.

But this, to me, is a classic piece of ostrich-ism and is pointlessly damaging to those of us who have to go out and make a living as professional commercial artists, today, in the ugly here and now. One of my colleagues told me not to get cross about it, to which I can only say bollocks, if we can't be bothered about how we are going to make a living through our skill at drawing then we won't survive as a form of either art or journalism.

Clarke's joke smacks of 'if I don't look I won't have to see what is changing around me.' This is probably because he (and many others) do not understand the digital world and have no interest in learning about it. I thought this was a sad and silly attitude to perpetuate among other people who love cartoons and drawing as a useful form of human communication.

The digital world may not be easy to understand but it offers opportunity to commercial artists in a way that the old print world, and its surviving fans, would be daft to ignore.


Matt Buck’s animated drawings

’Tis the time of year for the annual political cartoon awards, at which I traditionally win nowt. The idea is to offer an image for the year (2007) and hope it catches the jury's eye as the best single image entered.*

My entry for this year's Political Cartoon of the Year award

There is also the highly desirable cartoonist of the year award. This invariably goes to one of the daily newspaper cartoonists. The event is an excuse for lots of professional cartoonists to get together, smoke, drink and bitch about the lucky winners. It is also, as a result, unmissable and one of the drawing years’ absolutely fixed points. It also, bizarrely, always clashes with other social events you cannot easily avoid. Kudos to Dr Tim Benson of the Political Cartoon Society who organises and promotes the event which this year is being held at The Guardian newspaper's Newsroom. You can see Dave Brown of The Independent and his winning one-off image for last year here - scroll down a bit.

* Cynics say, and there are a few about, the key to victory is to have one's entry stationed strategically close to the drinks.

5th December 2007

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

The dodgy home-grown political donation farce goes on ... and abroad, international observers condemn the legitimacy of the Russian elections. It all reminds me of Florida and the days of the hanging chads and mass disenfranchisement of sections of the population. Although happily, I couldn't find a way to shoe-horn all that into the cartoon. Published above and here

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

...coming soon...

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Absolutely lovely. A wonderful combination of pictures, music, production and design. This was made by somebody called Miralaum. A hat-tip to Wiley Miller for spotting it. the full list of featured commercial artists for 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art. is;
Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli , Boltraffio, Albrecht Durer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Messina, Perugino, Hans Memling, El Greco, Hans Holbein, Rokotov, Peter Paul Rubens, Gobert, Caspar Netscher, Pierre Mignard, Jean-Marc Nattier, Vigee-Le Brun, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Winterhalter, Tyranov, Borovikovsky, Venetsianov, Gros, Kiprensky, Amalie, Corot, Edouard Manet, Flatour, Ingres, Wontner, Bouguereau, Comerre, Leighton, Blaas, Renoir, Millias, Duveneck, Cassatt, Weir, Zorn, Mucha, Paul Gaugan, Henri Matisse, Picabia, Gustav Klimt, Hawkins, Magritte, Salvador Dali, Malevich, Merrild, Modigliani, and Pablo Picasso.
Not bad really.
2nd December 2007

Matt Buck’s animated drawings