Zephro posted:

What are the little red dying things that look a bit like Morph?

quote:

‘Wonderful news. My boss has given me a reduction in pay.’

big scary monsters posted:

They're 'A's. As in AAA credit rating.

quote:

Zephro posted:

Ah, that makes sense! Thanks. Nice little touch.

Not getting the enormous spliff reference in this one though...

But yes, the best cartoonist!

Zegnar posted:

The FT's editorial cartoons - pretty good! No labels here.

Zegnar posted:

And 'Banx' their columnist cartoonist...

prefect posted:

I think those are pretty good. Do they always come out in sets of eight?

mfcrocker posted:

I hope you're being sarcastic, I can't really tell.

prefect posted:

I liked the Loch Ness, cop, Indian, and wheelchair cartoons.

mfcrocker posted:

I guess I just don't find them very clever? It's just "cops take bribes, Romney is rich, Murderball is a funny name"

Banx seems to be the cartooning equivalent of jokes about airline food. He also draws like known knob Matt

Fluo posted:

most minimum of labels.

quote:

Banx seems to be the cartooning equivalent of jokes about airline food. He also draws like known knob Matt

quote:

Stun-guns which are much more powerful than those used by the Police are openly on sale on-line.

quote:

“I know what you’re thinking.-Christmas is over, when is she going home? So okay,Punk. Make my day…Ask the question!”

Fluo posted:

Indy:

Fluo posted:

Steve Bell on the government's welfare policy.

big scary monsters posted:

Seems a bit lazy to copy Steve Bell's IDS as a vampire caricature here. I normally quite like Dave Brown, too.

Fluo posted:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:

No party in recent history has increased their share of the vote into their second term. Considering the conservatives didn't win the last election and now people have realised what they're like, it's not looking good for them. Thank gently caress.

quote:

The Government are considering making cuts to pensioners benefits.

quote:

“Outrageous! Disgraceful! The Bounders are thinking of stopping our bus passes……….er, whatever they are.”

Fluo posted:

karl fungus posted:

Why is it that David Cameron's caricature is typically some bizarre pinkish rubbery creature with big eyes? Is it referencing something I'm not aware of?

karl fungus posted:

Why is it that David Cameron's caricature is typically some bizarre pinkish rubbery creature with big eyes? Is it referencing something I'm not aware of?

quote:

What David Cameron said to Steve Bell
You can only push the condom joke so far, PM told Guardian cartoonist.

• Strange meeting with David Cameron during the Tory conference this week. I was at the Spectator party with Steve Bell, who, as you cannot have failed to notice, always draws the prime minister with a condom over his head. They have discussed this before, at a chance meeting during the election campaign, when Steve explained that it was because his skin appeared remarkably smooth and even taut, so it looked as if his head was encased in tight rubber.

The PM seemed very friendly. "Hello Steve, hello Simon!" he cried cheerily, but moved straight into the condom question. (One important issue is the teat on the end.) "You can only push the condom so far," Cameron said, which struck me as wise advice in life as well as political cartooning.

We were also struck by the way he would sit in the middle of the conference hall, just like an ordinary delegate. Steve said it was like a Where's Wally? drawing, a line I pinched for the sketch. If you have not yet recycled Tuesday's Guardian, and turn to Steve's cartoon, you can, if you squint, just make out the minuscule condom in the midst of hundreds of delegates' heads.

• There was for the second year a champagne ban at the conference, though this of course did not apply to the Spectator party, which was sponsored by Pol Roger. The prime minister himself drank water throughout, but some of his understrappers were cunningly pouring champagne from the flutes into regular white wine glasses. Under the lighting it was not always possible to detect the bubbles. But we learned that many Tory grandees were at a restaurant dinner, drinking Chateau Pétrus, which is much, much more expensive than champagne. The price was given in the papers as £1,800 a bottle, which is quite a bit of money if you're part of the squeezed middle – though remarkably cheap given that the 2000 Pétrus now sells for £33-£34,000 per case of a dozen, before tax and duty. In other words, they were giving the stuff away. It's not necessarily all that nice anyway. Pétrus at its peak is much older, and the price so stratospheric that only a Russian oligarch, a Chinese billionaire or a Tory donor could possibly afford it.

• Talking of things which cost more than they are worth, a group of us visited the Castle fine art gallery in the Birmingham conference centre. Their main attraction at the moment is a series of prints by Bob Dylan. That Bob Dylan. They weren't to my taste, though while I know nothing about art, I haven't a clue what I like. The scenes, an odd mix of landscapes, townscapes and people, were not especially beguiling, and the prints were in long editions – 295, for example.

Yet they sold for the same amount as a bottle of Pétrus. The woman in the gallery told me that they had had a bunch of Dylan's prints in 2008 which had sold for £5,000. They were now being resold at £18,000. I asked why. "Well," she said, "Bob Dylan has millions and millions of fans. It doesn't take many of them to push the price up."

Poor old Van Gogh. If only he had made hit albums he too would have been appreciated in his lifetime.

• The death of Tony Curtis reminds me of a favourite, and ancient, joke. Chap goes into a barber and asks for a Tony Curtis cut. The barber snips and shaves away until he is completely bald. "Hey, you've taken it all off! That's not a Tony Curtis cut! I don't believe you know what a Tony Curtis cut looks like!"

"I should do," says the barber. "I've seen The King And I three times!"

• A motherly lady in Marks & Spencer asked me if I had liked Birmingham. I said I had lived there for five years in the late 1960s. "It must look very different now," she said, and I said I agreed, though in truth it looks very much the same, being endless dual carriageways, barred against pedestrians, interspersed with small businesses, restaurants, greasy spoons, tobacconists and shops selling saris, all fitted in where they can, yet almost impossible to reach on foot.

It's as if someone had slotted umpteen concession stands around the Monte Carlo grand prix track. The canal section is pleasant enough, but much of the rest of the city makes you ponder that if it looks like that after 10 years of prosperity, what will it resemble after five years of recession?

The ICC, the conference centre, is the most bewildering structure I have ever been in, and I work in the Houses of Parliament. Everything is numbered, so you have to go, for instance, to floor 3, hall 3, door 3. Staircases seem to be scattered randomly, at dizzying angles, and to miss out whole storeys. There are bridges, escalators, dead ends and sudden vast empty spaces. The whole thing looks as if it were designed by MC Escher, the chap who did those trompe l'oeil drawings of castles in which people trudge up endless steps without ever actually rising. Even after four days I was permanently lost, rambling around until I reached my destination by the sheerest chance.

• The weirdest, yet one of the jolliest, parties was thrown by the government of Bermuda. It was in the trendy Ikon gallery, which happened to have an exhibition of 18th century Japanese prints, many erotic and some very rude indeed. (Though I gather the really filthy ones are still under guard at the British Museum.) So in close juxtaposition you had glossy Conservatives in suits, elegant Bermudan diplomats, rum punch and pictures of lecherous old Japanese men having their wicked way with fragile young women. It seemed all too much, so our group staggered off for a quick Chinese meal.

quote:

The Government have announced that they intend to close seven old prisons.

quote:

“Twenty five years I’ve spent on that tunnel!”

Fluo posted:

Kurtofan posted:

Urgh, being in the EU is just like being a slave, what?

Fluo posted:

Indy:

karl fungus posted:

Thanks for that incredibly in-depth explanation! I haven't been following UK politics that much, but now that I've been seeing some of the cartoons, some of which have horrifying pink condom creatures, this definitely seems to be something interesting to read up on. This whole thread has been pretty entertaining, too!

dimebag dinkman posted:

quote:

......The 30-page document detailed a number of findings, including:

Savile offended at 13 hospitals, including Great Ormond Street, with one offence recorded at Wheatfields Hospice in 1977
A total of 14 offences were recorded in relation to schools
Savile's youngest victim was an eight-year-old boy, and the oldest was a 47-year-old woman
The earliest allegation is from 1955 in Manchester and the last is from 2009
Offences were carried out at the BBC between 1965 and 2006, including at the last Top of the Pops recording
Peak offending took place between 1966 and 1976
A total of 450 people have made sexual abuse allegations against Savile since October - of whom 73% were under 18, with most aged 13 to 16
There is "no clear evidence" he operated in paedophile ring, although "whether he was part of an informal network" is still being investigated.....

Fluo posted:

Telegraph:

Puntification posted:

Is it just me or does this cartoon imply it's old news/crimes and therefore a waste of police time? I'm struggling to think of a non-terrible interpretation for this.

Geokinesis posted:

I think it is meant to be the police should have been breaking down his door years ago.