Matt Buck's Hack Cartoons

Weekly refuse collections are very popular - unnecessarily extended periods are not.

If the rumours are to be believed, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair will step down as Prime Minister on May 9th - about five days after his party suffers a very bad set of results in the local elections.

And I am going on holiday for a week, which means I shall miss a lot of the multitude of supplements and memoirs of Tone which are heading our way right now.

The editorial drawing above is from 2003 - and I still think it sums up his legacy pretty well.

But if you would like further evidence about Blair, the government of the United States and Iraq, I offer several stories fom the past week;

1. Former war 'heroine' Jessica Lynch testifies to Congress about what exactly happened to her when she was captured by Iraqis during the 2003 invasion. My colleague Andy Buncombe (of The Independent) reported on this back in 2003 - sadly, precious little of his excellent work was followed up at the time. Still, better late than never.

2. One of our big tanks is broken

3. Getting us ready to leave in a hurry

4. The cost (conservatively estimated.) Try comparing it to the size of your nearest local market town)

Sometimes news stories are just a gift to a cartoonist in search of a useful image for election coverage.

Here's a to-scale-shot-of-the-cartoonist and his Big Board with the fear I wrote about previously replaced by hope that my chosen image about trade was going to hold up over such a big space.
I started off by blocking in the shapes of the image I wanted to draw with a tin of Homebase's finest grey exterior paint. This was surprisingly effective and the rough surface of the hardboard meant that dry-brushing was very effective. This was very handy for the image I chose to paint.
After I had established the shapes and the layout I could then add black and white and further tone to help bring the image up and into a better and more powerful focus. The whole process took about eight hours and was hard work but great fun.

I survived my trial by 8 by 6 foot drawing board - and I'll post some more photos this evening.