© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons for Tribunecartoons.com
My hat tipped to Simon Parker for good use of a metaphor after today’s Queen’s Speech announcing the last program of legislation to be carried through parliament before the general election.
The legacy of the global financial crash helped do for Gordon Brown (see above) and you can’t see it having done much for his successor either.
Brobdingnag? Doff your headgear to Jonathan Swift.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
I have some artwork in an upcoming London gallery exhibition on the arts of pastiche, parody and piracy. The show opening June 20th at The Cob Gallery in London will be packed with great art from the members of procartoonists.org with which I have been proud to have been associated for many years.
Above, is an image about non-creation that did not, sadly, make the cut for show. (And immediately apologises to the memory of Michelangelo who once painted the roof of a chapel.)
The cartoon was drawn back in 2005 as a part of an exchange to South Africa in which I was involved – my subject was prevention of the spread of HIV through use of condoms.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons after David Low
The elections for the European parliament are complete and they have been notable for the rise of non-mainstream parties, particularly from the right of the spectrum. In the UK this has delivered the United Kingdom Independence Party as the largest single party from the traditionally low national voter turnout.
The cartoon references ‘Very well alone’ by the New Zealand cartoonist David Low and which was drawn in 1940 at the fall of France to the Nazis.
I’ve chosen to reinterpret it with a more modern icon of Britain and a soundbite beloved of the Prime Minister who infamously took the UK into a political alliance with some openly neo-fascist parties back in 2009. James Clive-Matthews wrote about that and more here.
Edited: Jerry Hayes, the former Conservative MP for the marginal seat of Harlow in Essex, makes some good observations here about the general scene after the voting.
Jeremy Paxman listening to Nigel Farage on 19th May 2014. Paxman has recently announced his intent to leave the BBC late night current events show.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons for http://tribunecartoons.com
The other bit of the ‘housing boom plus’ plan for the pre-general election British economy has arrived.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
The arguably over-exposed leader of UKIP made another appearance on BBC Question Time last evening. I painted him while he repeated himself.
Back in 2009 I wrote a piece about the changes coming to the way we made satire and what I thought it would mean for political conversation. The effects are, unhappily, starting to become obvious with just a year to the UK’s general election after the Coalition government and its fixed-term parliament.
Labour have a go
The Lib Dems have a go back
Watch this space for news of the Tories and UKIP. There will be a lot more of it.
Updated: 29th July 2014
The Tories have indeed had a go as well.
And please do feel free to tell me whether any of it left a lasting impression.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
The OECD warns the UK’s housing market is in danger of ‘overheating’reports Inside Housing.
Photograph © Kasia Kowalska
Spotted at work on an instant art exhibition joke about the festival theme of music at this year’s Shrewsbury cartoon event. My hat tipped to the photographer.
© Matt Buck Hack Cartoons
One of the more active ’workers’ of the 8 foot by 6 foot Big Boards at this year’s Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival was Kate Charlesworth. She delivered some properly dynamic drawing. (And yes, that is just an excuse for the crazy construction lines left in the speedy pencil sketching I was doing while she worked).
© Matt Buck Hack Cartoons
My successor as Editor of the UK Procartoonists blog, Royston Robertson, deployed his very best concentration face as he nailed five jokes about HMV’s Nipper the Dog – appropriate to the festival theme of music.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
Dave Brown of The Independent delivered a great painting of the ‘Bum Note’ featuring Alex Salmond and David Cameron as well as delivering his traditional cartoonist as rock star stance. (He’s a drummer in his other life.)
© Matt Buck Hack Cartoons
I was rather meaner to the excellent caricaturist Jonathan Cusick who was deep in concentration as he caricatured the local MP, Daniel Kawczynski. This was a really interesting job for me and the intensity of Jonathan’s concentration as he looked reflected itself in the amount of lead I gave to my efforts.
Quite suitably, I was then properly shown up by the kind gift of a drawing made of me. It went to demonstrate some wisdom, it’s not what you put in, it’s what you leave out.
© Kasia Kowalska
My dubious hat tipped to Kasia Kowalska and everyone who contributed to the traditionally excellent event.
