Adams

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Here's a cartoon that was unpublished (see previous blog here as to why) and is today topical – at least visually.

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What does this cartoon mean..?

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There was a little drama involved with this cartoon.

The big non-political news of the day was that a madman was going to skydive from 26 miles up and hope to break the sound barrier. Now some days there is an image that is god-given and so this had to be done. Luckily there was plenty of news around as well with the Conservative Conference.

Obviously there was a risk something could go fatally wrong with the skydiver so I checked the times and he was due to start at 1100BST. This would give me plenty of time to see it through and barring no mishaps, get a cartoon done way before deadline.

The stunt was delayed by a couple of hours. I started drawing up my idea which had been signed off by my Editor. I had… Read More

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I know next to nothing about Photoshop, but I do use it to colour in sometimes. Here, however, I needed to do the Rothko style painting separately from the graffiti. So the kind experts at Telegraph Colour Production told me how to, having drawn them apart, place one 'layer' on top of the other.

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Only a few lines needed here – the night effect produced mostly by implication:

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The burdens of being a cartoonist.

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Yes, before 'click' Copy and 'click' Paste there were actually scissors and glue. I always like doing it for real, even if in the end, the computer usually wins.

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I liked the idea of a bunker in the shape of Europe – I just had to find a gag to go with it… So I thought of two options, one Cameron unsure of what to do and two, him getting more and more stuck in it.  I did two sort of 3D origami versions for the Editor. He liked them both and left the decision of which one to use to me.

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Today's cartoon was tricky to get right. I really had to show that Abu Hamza has been at the airport for, literally, years. Initially (i) there were six panels, an attempt to show a long time. This ended up a strain on the eyes and unnecessary. Reduced to four (ii), there had to be a way to show time passing in a more succinct way.

I had dates at the top. But then was there an official extradition attempt once every year? No. So I cut that out, and all the unnecessary words at the top (iii). So, back to the time problem. One of my Editors suggested his beard growing. Good. I replaced the announcements with "Please board now…" And then finally added random seasons out the window. I'm still not 100% sure that it… Read More

As a cartoonist you only have one job – to get it right. Whether that means getting composition right, getting a line right or getting an idea right. Every day I look at my published cartoon and can always find a line movement or the thickness of lines, say, that is wrong. I rarely get colours right the way I think they should be. The readers may not notice this (or indeed, care) so the biggest crime is to not get the idea right. In the end the idea is the most important element.

I was really keen to do a cartoon on the subject of the topless Kate lawyers. Here are some of my notes and ideas, but in the end just couldn't get anything that was just right. (I ended up doing a politics idea.)

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