Matt Buck's Hack Cartoons

Editorial drawing about Britain's first supercasino - loans for peerages - overstocked jails - catholic adoption agencies - and the Labour deputy leadership. I wish the news didn't make you reach for so much sometimes. However, when you look at it, it does indicate a government that looks in terminal decline.

A personal project.

A story lightening the mood of the nation. I wonder where all those stories about dangerous chemicals (STAY AWAY!) went?

The PMs respect zones are being rolled out in many of our cities. This appears to be about targeting areas of low-level disorder, drunkenness and improving the behaviour of various social miscreants.

However, as my colleague Justin McKeating points out, there's a.nother agenda at work too

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Cross-reference this list of the 40 councils designated ‘Respect Zones‘ today with this list of 312 councils facing local elections in May 2007.
All but one ‘Respect Zone’ (Hastings Borough Council) are having local elections this year.
Just saying, is all.

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Justin @ Chicken Yogurt

I think we're back to something like normal. It was lovely having a lot of visitors, but boy, did it bring some sudden worries!

New and improved, we hope, site

That fine gentlemen Grant Bowskill at politicalopinions.co.uk, has kindly offered to host the BB image for me. Should be up there soon.

Thanks Grant.
Politicalopinions.co.uk

Still working on saving the web site from itself ....

Well, the Big Brother cartoon , which you now can't see below, seems to have hit a nerve. Demand to see it has been so high, my poor web host capacity has been completely overwhelmed - and won't be reappearing in a hurry.

Time for some hasty remedial action - I fear it may already be too late for Jade Goody ... but the vote tonight will tell.

We are shocked that people hold prejudices.

An editorial cartoon about what it means to be an aspiring prime minister when you are scottish.

The film reference is to the Last King of Scotland - a fine movie about the former leader of Tanzania, Idi Amin It's currently on release, and it's not easy watching.

The government is in a muddle about how to hold our personal data for the soon-to-arrive compulsory ID cards. This week, the Prime Minister's solution is to link all of our existing national records databases to provide a single unified one.

After all, sharing always makes things easier doesn't it? Well, tell that to the unicyling white elephants.

The link below, explains why Tony's latest brilliant idea for his legacy isn't either logical or safe for the rest of us.

Why not

I made myself rewatch the classic movie Oh, what a lovely War last night.

This is an ageing but brilliant representation of a stage musical about world war one. If you haven't seen it, I cannot recommend it too highly.

About it

Acquire it

Part of the reason for rewatching, apart from the sheer pleasure of it, was in comparing key parts of it to what George Bush said in his much-reported speech this week.

I quote the President here:

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It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time.
On one side are those who believe in freedom and moderation. On the other side are extremists who kill the innocent, and have declared their intention to destroy our way of life.
In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of the enemy - by advancing liberty across a troubled region.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

To me, this sort of level of self-delusion is similar to the 'it'll all be over by christmas' attitude with which our descendents entered world war one.

The full speech is here

Enjoy the film - and the lesssons it leaves.

Global reaction to the President's speech.
Feedback on the Bush speech

The monarchy have been issuing a hands-off warning to the press about prince William's squeeze. This was drawn for thelondonpaper on Jan 10th.

Rejoice. A young pillock has been convicted of inciting murder.

Home

Despair. An old pillock refuses to engage with the issue of murder at all.*

And away


* Although, just like me, he'll usually pontificate about other people until the cows come to slaughter.

Happy new year.

And for my 2007 prediction, this will be a major political theme all year. The advance of technology into our consumer lives is going to be mirrored by the efforts (no doubt well-intentioned) of government to get into our social and political background.

Read all about it here

no2id

You can see a festive animation I did for the good people there at their site too.

In between this year's festivities, I have been covering the editorial slot for Dave Brown at The Independent. Here's a drawing for the 27th, a generic, where are we at the turn-of-year-image.



I was drawing this at about 2pm on Boxing Day when the news broke about the refusal of Saddam Hussein's final appeal and his impending execution.

The breaking news meant drawing a quick response, which is shown below. It'll be interesting to see which, if either, makes the paper.

A marvellous blog entry by my enviably talented colleague, Morten Morland, who draws for The Times among others.

He writes about the future for cartooning in the fast changing media world, where the money and the customers are moving away from print.

American political cartoonists are getting the picture, and so it seems are increasingly the American newspapers too. As more and more of the focus is shifted towards the web, newspapers in Britain too will have to realize the full potential of the medium. That means, unfortunately some might say, that the trade will have to change too. Journalists will be working in different media to different deadlines. The traditional first, second and third editions will soon make way for continuous coverage.

Even for the less technologically challenging options though, there will be many issues facing cartoonists in this transitional period.Time for example. At the moment it’s very difficult to make a decent animated cartoon in the same time it takes to do a normal cartoon, yet the preassure to respond to events will only increase with time. Can you realistically do everything on your own without help?
Money. Because of the time you spend, and the equipment needed, animated cartoons will cost more to make, but will newspapers want to pay more?

Morten

And here's one of my own attempts to learn

Animation

And it goes on.

The government and the Saudi arms deal

THursday 14th December, talk about a good day to bury bad news.

Also vying for the headlines, the Ipswich murders, the Diana report and the closure of thousands and thousands of post offices.

PM and the cops

When miserable news events coincide.

PM lectures Iran (again)

Ipswich

I learned a new piece of jargon at one of my workplaces this week - multi-sourcing. It means outsourcing or offshoring jobs to more than just one supplier. This is because business has started to hear the customer noise about poor service from the huge long-term deals it has been signing in the past few years. It made for a nice reinterpretation joke.