Herne Bay Cartoon Festival 2019

In 2019 we decided to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first moon landing and the theme of the festival was Fly Me to the Moon.

Our poster was designed for us by Martha Richler.

At Beach Creative our exhibition featured great work by the PCO including many cartoons which had been published in Private Eye and other national press.

At the Bay Art Gallery we presented Book Marks, a touring exhibition of cartoons celebrating libraries and all things literary.

And at the Seaside Museum we curated a show of work from the British Cartoon Archive featuring cartoons from the 1950s, 60s and 70s inspired by space travel, moon landings and the moon in general. We included artwork by Trog, Langdon, Giles, Garland, Rowson, Emmwood and Dave Brown amongst others.

Our live Cartooning Event was held once more on the pier and included an elaborate moonscape installation created by the ever more ingenious Glenn Marshall. We estimate visitor numbers throughout the day was almost 6000.

The PCO’s youngest member, Zoom Rockmann, ran a workshop at Beach Creative. Herne Bay youngsters were able to hear how Zoom started his award winning comic The Zoom! when he was just eight years old, how he got a job working for The Beano age twelve and how he became the youngest cartoonist in Private Eye’s history. Zoom showed participants how to draw his Beano characer Skanky Pigeon and how to create their own comic strip characters.

At the Seaside Museum we celebrated local talents Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate with a workshop inspired by their television show The Clangers. Children were invitedto contribute to the moonscape and make their own Froglet to take home. Oliver Postgate’s son Simon gave an illustrated talk about his father and the company Smallfilms.