What's this about then?
But maybe it’ll be a
bit more than this…
I wanted to launch
Subversive Inappropriate Cartoons (SIC for short) mainly because there’s a lot
going on out there to get grumpy about, and on which I want to comment:
- this government (which I think has become quite the most pernicious of my life-time and that takes some doing)
- the creative brilliance of the tax avoidance industry
- the shenanigans of our absurd royal family (the highest paid and least effective public servants in the country)
- the mendacity of the climate change deniers…
- (oh and Jeremy Clarkson, Piers Moron, Nigel Farrago – and I could go on and probably will.)
The usual suspects I
hear you say: OK I know it’s all been said but not everyone’s said it. And Steve Bell shows no sign of vacating his
slots at the Guardian anytime soon.
So I’ll be posting
my own take on current events (and some not so current. I’ve thought of some
great ideas recently for cartoons about Cameron mislaying his daughter, or
Lance Armstrong’s cheating or even the invasion of Iraq – but I realise the
moment for biting satirical comment on any of these is probably past.)
But all this won’t
just be based on my opinion. I’ve spent
much of the last 25 years of my professional life producing summaries of the
evidence that’s available on social and economic policy. Governments have always been pretty selective
about the evidence they choose – even in the early days of the Blair government
when the mantra was ‘what works’. But
this government’s approach to ‘evidence’ is more selective – and often simply
mendacious – than any other I can recall.
So I’ll be trawling through and summarising evidence so you don’t have
to.
But I’m not just
keen on producing my own cartoons. I’ve
always been fascinated by (and highly jealous of) the work of other cartoonists
– mainly but not exclusively in the political sphere. So I plan to produce the occasional piece on
the cartoonists who I have enjoyed and have maybe influenced me: the old masters like Gillray and more
recently David Low, as well as the contemporary masters – Rowson, Dave Brown
and of course Bell. I’m a great fan
of the vulgar music hall tradition as well so there will be room for something on
Donald McGill: after all the site’s supposed to be Inappropriate as well as
Subversive. And from time to time I plan
to write about my experience of trying to develop a cartooning style a little
laet in life.
Oh – and did I not
mention this? I’ll be trying to sell a
few as well. (A boy’s got to live…) I’ll
be offering some of the cartoons as greetings cards, and some as prints.
We’re sending alerts
to anyone whose email address we’ve got, or who is part of our LinkedIn network
or is a Facebook friend. And I’ve even
staggered reluctantly into the dark world that is Twitter.
If you know of anyone
who might be interested in any of this, you probably need to get out more. Or you could share our website address with
them.
