Matt Buck's Hack Cartoons

When bread gets expensive, any leader will find themselves in a fight.

Hack cartoons

Regrettably, my Hack cartoons Northern Rocky animated political cartoon for Channel 4 has run into some legal issues. Click the picture to see more.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Here is a clip of writer Barry Cryer talking about the late Humphrey Littleton. If you hadn't noticed previously, Mr Littleton was a cartoonist among his many other talents. He also used to work and play in a band with Wally Fawkes (Trog) who, to those in the know, is one of the country's finest artists since the last world war. Clip from Channel 4.


Matt Buck’s animated drawings

I heard the phrase 'summer of discontent' on the radio this morning...

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) logo has made it to the pages of the Daily Telegraph. So far, so what? I admired the spinning skills of the unnamed spokesperson who sought to justify the unfortunate cock up.

A spokesman for OGC said: “It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC - and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.”

There's talent in there somewhere. And a hat-tip to Mark Crail.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Click the picture for the Playing with money animated political cartoon or, just go straight to Channel 4 News.
UPDATED: There is a thorough Channel 4 Factcheck on the ins and outs of the debate here and what Mr Brown may, or may not, have done and then claimed.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Marvellous stuff from the Office of Government Commerce (via the observant Bloggerheads.) The original stuff comes from The Register; read the full gory story of design gone bad here.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Hack Cartoons sketchbook caricature of the Senator from Illinois and candidate for the Democratic party nomination as President of the USA, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.
UPDATE: He's also finding it is hard work being a front runner in any contest.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

In this picture, I am precisely three-quarters of the way through the large drawing about drawing at the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival. I should stress at this point, no hat was used in the manufacture of this cartoon (see blogs previous), but several pairs of Y fronts did make an unwilling debut.)

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

In this photograph I am precisely halfway through a large drawing about drawing at the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Hack cartoons is performing in public this weekend at the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is on a visit to America. Click the picture to watch an animated political cartoon about this, or go here to Channel 4 News.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Hack cartoons cartoon caricature of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the occasion of his visit to the United States.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

A cartoonist tries to think.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Via Charles Arthur and the BBC
All together now, we’re doomed, doomed they tell you. Anyone want to take odds on a sudden conversion to joining the eurozone?

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

What cartoonist Dave Brown says here. There's also a short clip of one of mine for Channel 4 from last October at the time of the royal visit of King Abdullah to the UK.


Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Animated political cartoon published at Channel 4 News, or click the picture. The news site has a handy short guide about why the fact that banks no longer trust one another enough to lend money to each other matters. And what this may mean for the rest of us.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Why blog when you can draw?

At first I did the writing thing - in words - because it was somewhere I got to control how what I said was displayed. As a creative person who tends to think in pictures rather than in words - this was important because I don't feel completely confident with letters and words. Letters in code and combination are pesky and elusive things which explains I think why politicians and lawyers love them so.

The blog also has the fringe benefit of being a nice way to advertise my wares without having to use a middleman.


Hack Cartoons Vitruvian Pig - or, the proportions of the artist
This seems to have become more important because of some real world changes to the business world in which I work. This is, or was, print journalism. This industry is going through a period of massive change, or steep decline and death (depending upon who you speak to:-/ Anyone living through one of these periods will tell you how challenging these times can be. Just ask journalists at one of my old papers - The Daily Express.

The economy of Britain supports under a 1,000 professional cartoonists at my best guesstimate. These are resourceful creatures who manage to feed and clothe themselves and their families entirely through their skill at drawing and writing. This number will, in all probability, decline in line with the print industry, if decline it is to be.

The difficulties of the task facing contemporary British-based print cartoonists can be contrasted by the story of Ronald Searle, arguably one of the greatest artists this country has ever produced. A man so pestered in our culture for his advertising work and the successful characters he invented at St Trinians school, that he eventually felt the need to move to France permanently, where he still lives and works aged 88. Nowadays he has a non-pigeonholed freedom to draw about what he pleases, mainly for Le Monde newspaper.

No one can stop economic changes I am noting when they are driven by financial forces far beyond the resistance of any one individual. All we can do as professional image makers is to adapt and make sure we are as visible as we can be.

Some of my colleagues and I have been busy setting up something called The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation - which is, in advert-speak, exactly what it says on the tin. I like to daydream that Searle might approve.

At present, I edit its diary called the Bloghorn along with Royston Robertson who is busy making a name for himself as a gag cartoonist of note. Our members include many of Britain's finest cartoon talents, (here follows name-droppping) we can boast Ken Pyne, Pete Dredge and Martin Honeysett (all regulars from Private Eye), sages like John Jensen (who's forgotten more about how to communicate in words and pictures than most of us will ever know) and top editorial names like Martin Rowson, Morten Morland, Andy Davey and Dave Gaskill. There are many more cartoonists and artists (too many to list here) and I advise a visit if you have the leisure time, or are in need of a good professional piece of visual communication and the distinct and unusual skills which allows them to be made.

The Bloghorn

Many of us will be performing our tricks at the forthcoming Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival (April 18-20th) - much has been written about it on Bloghorn, if you can get there, come down and see what all this fuss is about.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

The Lords issued a report on the economic effect of immigration into the UK this week. Click the picture for the animated cartoon or go here to Channel 4 News.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

The Devil's Kitchen: Some opinionated bloggers like to boast about the size of their web statistics. And Devil's Kitchen has been hosting a marvellously profane and foul row between some big name Brit bloggers all about this. It's really quite entertaining in between all the jargon. To me, the stupidity of statporn and the endless human mania for measuring absolutely everything conjure up so many compelling images. Obviously, I ought to add here that I watch statporn too. The trick is not feeling one has to publish it to justify a place in any conversation. But in turn, this nice theory has a problem because when you are attempting to make a profit-generating business out of it, people will ask you difficult questions about your statporn.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

£100,000 of damages for defamation and libel as reported by The Guardian.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

A nice joke from Jonathan Calder about the new'ish leader of the Lib Dems.

Note the brilliance of our party's press operation: they arrange for news of Nick's embarrassing GQ interview to leak out on 1 April so that everyone will assume it is a spoof.

Coming soon.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Who is our latest despot exactly? Some basic research reveals in the course of his 84 years,he has been; the child of a single parent, a scholar, a teacher, an activist, a political prisoner, a terrorist (or a freedom fighter) let's compromise and call him a warrior at all events, a widower, a peacemaker (at times) and finally, a successful politician and president of his country. His story is in very large part, the story of his country; he has been its one and only elected president. Modern Zimbabwe, or Southern Rhodesia as it used to be called, was stapled together as a nation from two largely unrelated halves, or ethnic groups, (Ndebele and Shona) by Britain way back at the end of the 19th century. It has endured wars, revolts and uprisings an a period of white dominated minority rule (and an insurgency) under the government of Ian Smith. Mugabe has lived all of this - and it has helped make him, good and bad. It is certainly a tragedy that Mugabe seems to have become a despot but the stories you see now won't make sense unless you look backwards too and search for the context which gives he and his actions, meaning. And let's face it, show me a Democrat who hasn't fiddled an election. Starving a country is a much more serious charge - link to Channel 4 News.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

I am not usually one to over-praise the thinking of government, or at least, those bits of it which are passed down to us, the great unwashed. However, MP Tom Watson has researched, written and spoken something about the way conversational communication may come to work in the digital world, which is worth a read of anyone's time.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Kudos to Jusin McKeating at Chicken Yogurt

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

A report on the digital information revolution of the past decade. My own miniscule part in it can be seen courtesy of the amazing Wayback machine.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Dith Pran, journalist and survivor of Cambodia's Khmer Rough government, has died. There is a memorial video from the New York Times to watch here.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

As April arrives, more or less, thoughts turn once more to the annual celebration of all things cartoon at the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival. I shall be big boarding again, which ought to be more of a treat this time than it felt last year. Look at the dimensions on the graphic again - I was just scared about how much space there was! There is a terrific lineup of drawing talent going up this year and it should, touch wood, be a great event for spectators and cartoonists alike. There is lots more about the event at the official site. If you can possibly find a way to go and get there, you should. Top line highlights include a big show called - But is it art - in which cartoonists take the piss out of the idea that drawing jokes isn't an art form. There is also a one-man show by Dave Brown of The Independent and Steve Bell of the Guardian is speaking. There will be so many top line gag cartoon merchants around you'll be falling over them. :-)

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

A French for beginners animated cartoon caricature of President Sarkosy, Carla Bruni and Gordon Brown is available here or, just click the picture.

UPDATED: Blue-Lou McKeever has a fine Sarkozy joke here too.


Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Prime Minister Gordon Brown launches the Labour party campaign for May's local elections.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

A hat-tip to Whitehouse Animation and Paul Sorene.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Prime Minister Gordon Brown announces a plan for national security. Drawn for Computing.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Two stills from the full animation which you can see here. Or just click the picture.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Click the picture for the animation on five years since the invasion of Iraq - or click here.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

There is detailed coverage of the five years since the invasion of Iraq at the Channel 4 News site. There is new content being added all week and an animated cartoon will be coming along as a part of that.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

I shall resist the urge to draw the financial system trying to skate - but let us all hope it actually can.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

One hesitates to offer any thought other than yuck to this. Hat-tip to the Huffington Post.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

The three major party political leaders in the UK, David Cameron for the Conservatives, Gordon Brown for Labour and Nick Clegg for the Liberal Democrats.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Click the picture to see the animation, or click the link to the Channel 4 News website.
UPDATED: There is a Factcheck on some of the the chancellor's budget's claims available now on the C4 News website.


Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Of course, it also distracts attention from a rather difficult budget coming up on Wednesday. Roy Greenslade is pithily rude about this particular government kite right here. Justin McKeating is funnier about it here.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

The government has announced one of its periodic relaunches of the National Identity card scheme. I would urge anyone who is interested in this debate to visit NO2ID's website to learn more about what this scheme actually involves for you. The drawing above is a take-off of John Tenniel’s original image. Tenniel famously illustrated Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland books. (Every cartoonist has to have a go at this image, it's in the rules somewhere...)

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

The dead heat between Clinton and Obama is becominga real problem for the Democratic party in its efforts to win the presidency. Click the picture or see it published here.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Well, Hillary Clinton appears to have off staved the doomsayers* for another day - and now it's Barak Obama's turn to be unhappy. I can't help feeling the real problem the Democratic party has is that it does not know who is most likely to beat John McCain in the autumn. Anyone got a clue about that?
*including me

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

One very large story at the moment is the state of Britain's existing power infrastructure and how well it is coping with the new digital demands that are being placed on it. This cartoon was a pocket illustration for a small foray in that direction by one of my clients.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Another post for anyone who loves the art of drawing and trying to say something with the effort made in each one. Ronald Searle, born Cambridge, on this day in 1920.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

One for those of you who are interested in the niche world of editorial cartooning. We have an 'anonymous' in the United States who is using his anonymity to offer some trenchant criticism of what it is fellow professionals are saying in their work. He calls himself the Bad cartoonist. Needless to say, it is kicking up a lovely stink which Alan Gardner is reporting on at his Daily Cartoonist blog.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Joseph Stiglitz - former chief economist at the world bank has co-written a book in which he attempts to measure the cost of the war on terror and the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. There's a good article about it in the Guardian today.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Click the picture or see it published here.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

The book Flat earth news on the struggle for the soul of newspaper reporting has been getting a lot of media attention in the last month. This is unsurprising in itself as there is absolutely nothing media professionals like better than discussing themselves. The author Nick Davies raises some very smelly issues about what has happened to newspapers during the time I have worked in them. And his line about PR providing a 'solution' to the problem of volume news provision while journalists have been fighting chronic underfunding of editorial teams, certainly rings true to me. There's a review of the book from the London Review of Books here.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Preparations for the Labour party spring conference in Birmingham this weekend.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Hack cartoons living caricature of singer Amy Winehouse.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Please click the picture for the Fidel Castro animated cartoon. Or click here.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Found by Alex Hilton at Recess Monkey and circulated by Liberal Conspiracy - among others.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Please click the picture for the latest Hack at Channel 4 News Northern Rock cartoon.
The inevitable nationalisation has been announced after the temptation of private enterprise with oodles of taxpayers cash was found to have failed. There's some typically pithy analysis from Paul Linford here, although it was written pre-the Rock nationalisation announcement. Today's Channel 4 News cartoon published here.
UPDATED: There is also an FACTCHECK analysis from Channel 4 here about the shifting position on nationalisation over the past five months.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

A summation of where we are with the copyright of content creators from Shane Richmond at the Telegraph.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Coming soon...

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

It's beginning to look like the end of the Clinton affairs isn't it? I thought Hillary would get the Democratic nomination and perhaps she still might, but it does seem to be a perhaps now. Obama has a clear momentum and if she can't win large numbers of delegates in Texas and Ohio on March 4th - and win well, I'd say we are looking at a Obama-McCain race in the autumn. I fear, if that happens the head-to-head will end up being a referendum on race and age, but it will make a change from gender issues. I wonder sometimes whether all female political candidates in America would fare better if they all automatically looked and behaved like the Neo-Con eccentric Ann Coulter - blonde, leggy and without an obviously coherent thought or opinion in their heads.

Published by Channel 4 News.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Six detainees from the Guantanamo Bay prison are to face military tribunals for involvement in the 11th September, 2001, attack on New York. Image drawn for Tribune.

And on another subject entirely, Garry Smith at Big Sticks, small carrots has an entertaining tale available here.


Matt Buck’s animated drawings

New drawing for No2ID. There is an link to a leaked document from the government here. It is interesting to track the way in which the non-compulsory ID cards will become compulsory for the younger members of our society. Link from Anorak. The BBC pen profile of No2ID is here. No2id themselves live here and there is a handy guide to directions to your local interview centre for your very own card here.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Archbishop Rowan's argument that bits of religious law ought to be above the civil law was lost sometime back in the age of reason.
As can often occur, Chicken Yogurt puts it elegantly in words.
at my harshest I regard all this little more than the captain of one set counter-Enlightenment values speaking out on another set of counter-Enlightenment values.
UPDATED: 14 Feb 2008
If you have the energy, there is a good and thorugh piece of detective work about the speech, the interview and its aftermath by Matt Wardman. It points a finger in an interesting direction...

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Blogs and digital publications are starting to experience some growing pains about who owns what imagery and how each publication can use other people's digital content. The particular case I want to talk about concerns I and my colleague at Channel 4, Beau Bo D'Or, but there have been lots of other recent cases*. In ours, some of our work has been hotlinked on very popular blogs, notably Paul Staines’s Guido Fawkes’s Diary. There's a clip of one of the front pages of my animations here.

I want to make clear at this point that as far as I know, no one has complained, legally, about what he did, although I know Beau Bo D'Or (Neil Hepburn) exchanged several emails with Paul about it. The screen grab above of Guido Fawkes is interesting here (double click the image and look at the orange circle bottom left). There is also plenty of technical evidence he was hotlinking to Channel 4's servers, which is using** their bandwidth instead of his own. I was slightly surprised at this behaviour as Paul is reputed to be wealthy, or to have, access to the sort of funds which would allow him to pay for his own bandwidth. Bandwidth is the telecoms capacity which supplies us the pages we see on the web.

Tim 'Bloggerheads' Ireland has done a thorough job on explaining what has happened. Unfortunately, his initial investigation has got mixed up with the personal emnity which he and Paul Staines share. Paul responded by sending a threatening solicitors letter to Tim. This was a shame as it obscured the more important matter and this may, of course, been why he did it.

Paul and I, and other people like us, who are successful publishers and who are actively promoting our work for commercial gain have a responsibility to think about both what we are publishing - and how we are publishing it. I'd expect better behaviour from a man who chooses to associate himself with someone who wanted to reconfigure parliament.

Follow-up links: Technical
What is hotlinking? from Wikipedia

* Previous cases
Famous theft of images from digital to print from The Great Architect

** UPDATED: I have edited out the previous reference to stealing bandwidth after a comment from blogger John B who made comment 5 for this piece. Thanks for pointing that innacurate use of language out John.

UPDATED UPDATE
Why do all this writing about something so small? Perceptively skewered here

Personal:
Bloggerheads Tim Ireland
Guido Fawkes Paul Staines
Beau Bo D’Or Neil Hepburn

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Well after all that, nothing is decided at all. It looks to have been a costly night for the Billaries for despite confident and widely publicised expectations, they have not knocked Obama out of the race for the Democratic nomination. They can't be happy about that, and if the stories about the amount of telephone polling Hillary's campaign used in the last few days are true, she must have used a lot of money to try and fight the momentum Obama had clearly developed. For Obama's part, he must be disappointed he didn't do better yet. The Republican race looks clearer and has clarified the split in their ranks, Mike Huckabee, the former preacher did well in the south, where I used to live, and this seems to have hurt the wealthy Mitt Romney's chances. So, John McCain it looks to be. (I wonder how Ming Campbell feels about the apparent attitudes to John McCain's age?) There is an updated Channel 4 News animation here.
UPDATED:
Wonkette has a great description of the night as a pretty much a grim $100-million stalemate.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Published on America's Super Tuesday. Or, click the picture.
UPDATED: All about Hillary and all about Barack.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

From Nick Davies via Lloyd Shepherd and the UKPG. I am indulging in pure churnalism here, but this bit is worth it because the original source, is original.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings

Published here.

Matt Buck’s animated drawings