Alex Hallett
Alex is based in New Zealand but was educated at the University of Kent where she obtained a degree in Biochemistry. She did clinical research for 9 years until she realized cartooning was her real calling. She is the creator of the comic strip Arctic Circle and started cartooning full-time in 1999. Arctic Circle centers on the relationship between three immigrant penguins and a polar bear and is syndicated by King Features in newspapers worldwide. Arctic Circle often explores themes of climate change, which is a subject close to Alex’s heart. She joined us at the festival in 2018.
Alex Hughes
Alex is a freelance cartoonist, caricaturist and illustrator who has been a professional cartoonist since 1995. He draws a regular political cartoon for the Tribune and has also worked for the BBC, the Big Issue and the Daily Telegraph. Alex also specialises in caricatures and regularly does ‘live caricaturing’ at weddings, conferences and other events. His cartoons cover a wide range of topics, including politics, news and caricature.
Alex has attended every festival since the start with his wife Maria. He is our regular caricaturist and many visitors come back each year to make sure they get one of his drawings.
Andrew Birch
A Microbiology graduate, Andrew started off as news cartoonist of Nature, the science journal. Since then he has worked for many British papers and magazines, plus the Spanish press. He divides his time between Malaga and Brighton. His first strip was The Designers in the newly-launched Design Week. Later strips included Media Tarts in The Guardian, Urban Fox in The Financial Times and The Hypochondriac in The Sunday Times. His popular Private Eye strip is Young British Artists. In 2016 it was announced that his Oldie strip The Rebel was being filmed as a 3 part series for UK television starring Simon Callow as Henry Palmer, the rebel of the title. The series was screened on UK Gold. Attended 2013-2019 inclusive with his partner Miguel Angel Blanco Trutolli.
Bill Stott
Bill is a founder member of the PCO and its former Chair. He was born in Preston, Lancashire and studied art in Liverpool, where he also taught for a number of years. His cartoons have appeared in Punch, Private Eye, Times Educational Supplement and many more places. His paintings have been exhibited internationally and in 2014 at a special exhibition titled Playing Hamlet at Beach Creative in Herne Bay.
Carol Isaacs aka ‘The Surreal McCoy‘
Using the pen name The Surreal McCoy, Carol’s work appears regularly in The Sunday Times, Independent, London Evening Standard and The New Yorker as well as many more publications. She held the post of Cartoonist-In-Residence on Sandi Toksvig’s daily radio show for LBC in London, drawing a topical cartoon live on air and posting to the station’s website. She has provided book illustrations for Alex Through The Looking Glass by Alex Bellos, (Bloomsbury, 2014) and Girls Are Best by Sandi Toksvig, (Random House UK, 2008). Her graphic novel The Wolf of Baghdad – a memoir of a lost homeland, was published by Myriad Editions in January 2020. Carol has attended every festival since 2013, run a series of workshops here and created our poster for Turning the Tide in 2018.
Cathy Simpson
Cathy is an artist and illustrator as well as a professional cartoonist, caricaturist and one of the few female members of the PCO. She studied at Leicester University and St Martin’s School of Art. Her work has appeared in publications from BBC, Methuen, Penguin, Blackie, Transworld and Mitchell Beazley. Cathy is a qualified art teacher and has run children’s workshops at the Herne Bay and Shrewsbury cartoon festivals.
Chris Burke
Kent based artist, cartoonist and caricaturist, Chris has worked regularly for Punch, the Financial Times, The Times, and almost every major British publication. His other varied work includes a series of murals at Green Park Tube Station, an Irish Tourist Board animated advertising campaign, and is on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the London Transport Museum. In 2017 Chris designed our festival poster, featuring Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn for the “End of the Pier Show”.
Chris Williams
Chris Williams goes by the pen name ‘Dink’. He is a freelance cartoonist based in Liverpool and has been published in the UK and abroad. Chris is a member of the PCO as well as a serving committee member of The Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain.
Clive Goddard
Clive is now Chair of the UK’s Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation (PCO) which represents and supports the country’s finest cartoon artists and is our delivery partner for the Herne Bay Cartoon Festival. His cartoons have appeared in Private Eye, The New Statesman, Prospect and Punch. He has been commissioned by the BBC, Oxford University Press and others. He is an illustrator of non-fiction children’s books for Scholastic including the ‘Horribly Famous’ series, ‘Bonkers Books’ and the Totally series. He is also a writer of children’s books including the award-winning ‘Finton Fedora the World’s Worst Explorer’ series.
Dave Brown
Dave is the political cartoonist for The Independent newspaper in London. In 1989 he won the Sunday Times Political Cartoon Competition, and decided that “I should start taking cartooning a bit more seriously”. His first cartoon appeared in the Sunday Times on 11 June 1989, and he has been a full-time cartoonist ever since. He has also been a contributor to Daily Express (sports cartoons), Guardian, Scotsman, New Statesman, Sunday Times, Prospect, Economist and Financial Times. He regards James Gillray as “an artist of truly outstanding visual inventiveness”, and sees himself as one of those British cartoonists who “still attempt to follow in his footsteps”. Dave’s bust of Gillray was unveiled at the Cartoon Museum in London in November 2021.
Des Buckley
Des moved to the Kent coast from London and now lives in Ramsgate. His work has appeared in numerous publications including Private Eye and Punch. In addition to being an illustrator he is also qualified occupational therapist and his varied work experience range from incarnations as a bank clerk, youth work overseas and four years in the Royal Air Force. Living locally means Des is an important member of our festival team and over the years has run cartooning workshops during the festival and helped us hang many exhibitions.
Gerard Whyman
Gerard has worked in the art world since he graduated in Graphics from the University of South Wales in 1989. His first cartoon was published in The Spectator in 1994 and since then he has been featured in a myriad of prestigious publications, including Punch, which published more than 50 of his cartoons between 1997 and 2001. Gerard also produces a weekly cartoon for ‘routeONE’ and has been featured in various cartoon books over the years.
Glenn Marshall
Glenn Marshall was born in Shropshire and studied at the Shrewsbury and Newport Schools of Art. While working as a creative director and designer in the broadcasting industry, including stints with ITN and TV-AM, he began to produce cartoons for publications including Private Eye, The Spectator, The Oldie and Punch. He has also worked as a writer for Spitting Image, has produced strip cartoons for the broadcasting and media trade press, and is developing as an animator. A regular attendee at the Herne Bay Cartoon Festival, Glenn’s ‘constructions’ have become more and more elaborate over the years. Memorable installations include his photobooth and moonscape. He is also responsible for initiating the Herne Bay Festival Fringe.
Guy Venables
Guy became a cartoonist when he sent a cartoon to Punch aged fifteen, although the phrase ‘child prodigy’ is used by him alone. Since then he has worked for Private Eye, The Spectator, Punch, The Daily Mail, London Lite, The Guardian, The Oldie, Loaded, The Times, Prospect and various newspapers and magazines here and abroad including a regular slot in Classic Boat. Nowadays when he’s not trying to catch lobsters off the coast of Chichester he helps write comedy for the telly. Guy attended the cartoon festival in 2019 and in 2021.
Helen Pointer
Helen Pointer is a celebrated caricature artist and motivational speaker. She has provided live caricaturing for a host of prestigious companies, including The Ritz, and a myriad of different cruise companies. Her infectious personality and wonderful caricatures make her events the perfect blend of fun and artistic skill. We welcomed her to Herne Bay Festival in 2018 and 2019.
James Mellor
James Mellor provides cartoons for clients in all sectors of business. His corporate work appears on websites, publications, social media feeds and presentations, allowing companies to present their own sector in a light-hearted way or providing a take on current affairs for their clients or members. Clients range from start ups to FTSE 100 companies to international agencies. His own cartoons can be found in regional and national publications including Private Eye, The Sunday Telegraph, OVL Magazine and more. He specialises in history cartoons and holds the honorary office of Historian to the Guild of Entrepreneurs, where he endeavours to employ cartoons wherever possible.
James attended the festival in 2019 and 2021.
Jeremy Banx
Born in London in 1959, Banx been working professionally since 1980 and was Pocket Cartoonist of the year 2008 and 2012. Since the late eighties he has been the daily pocket cartoonist for the Financial Times. His gag cartoons have been published in Punch, Private Eye, New Statesman, She, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard, Penthouse, Mayfair, Men Only, etc… and his strips have appeared in Daily Express, ‘Oink!’ and Toxic.
His work has been exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and he has published a number of books including Cubes’, ‘The Many Deaths of Norman Spittal’, ‘Big Fat Sleepy Cat’, ‘The Dewsburys’.
In 2013 he drew a mural on the back of the Herne Bay Bandstand which survived for a number of years.
Kathryn Lamb
Kathryn Lamb is a prolific, popular and edgily topical cartoonist for most issues of Private Eye, Spectator and the Oldie, and occasional bursts of activity on the Sunday Times. Kathryn started drawing cartoons for Private Eye in 1979 while reading English at St Hugh’s College Oxford. She drew a strip cartoon for Private Eye entitled ‘Lord Arthur and his Square Table’ for several years, and now illustrates ‘Pseuds Corner’ for the same magazine, as well as contributing many cartoons.
Kathryn’s work also appears in The Spectator. In 2012 she won the Cartoon Arts Trust Award for Cartoon Jokes of the Year.
Kathryn has illustrated many books, including a book of Spike Milligan poems for Puffin, and has written and illustrated her own books for Puffin and the Piccadilly Press. She is the illustrator of a successful series of Arab proverb books (and other languages), for Tom Stacey International. Kathryn grew up in the Middle East. She once had to draw a Get Well card for King Hussein of Jordan. She was asked to draw a line of blonde women queueing up to donate their kidneys (borne on velvet and gold cushions) to the ailing king! This was good preparation for the more bizarre Pseuds Corner illustrations which she has done.
Kathryn’s father was British Ambassador to Kuwait and then Norway.
Kathryn Lamb currently excites readers with a weekly strip cartoon in the Church Times.
Lou McKeever
Lou McKeever is a Northern Irish cartoonist, who is now based in Bristol. She publishes under the name Bluelou and got her break in cartooning after she won a place on the British Council Political Cartoon Exchange to South Africa. Since, then she has worked for a host of different publications, including the Guardian, the Tribune, the New Statesman and the Morning Star. Bluelou was the first woman to enter the Political Cartoon awards in 2012 and the first woman to appear in ‘The Best of Political Cartooning anthology of 2014’. We invited her to be part of our festival celebrating female cartoonists in 2018.
Martin Honeysett
Martin Honeysett is an iconic British cartoonist, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 71. He sold his first cartoon to the Daily Mirror in 1969 and contributed to a host of other publications such as the London Evening Standard, The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph, Radio Times and, The Oldie. He illustrated several books including Sue Townsend’s The Queen and worked with famous stars such as Michael Palin and Terry Jones on comedy books. Honeysett’s work was noted for its black humour and the exaggerated portrayal of his characters who personified the cruelty and greed of modern life. His works have been displayed at various public art galleries and illustrations by Honeysett are held in the collections of The Cartoon Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Martin joined us for the first two festivals and we held a retrospective of his work in 2015
Martin Rowson
Award winning cartoonist and writer whose work has appeared regularly in The Guardian, The Daily Mirror, The Independent on Sunday, The Morning Star, The Spectator, The Times, Index on Censorship, Tribune, New HUmanist and many other publications.
Books include graphic novelisations of T S Eliot’s The Waste Land and Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, plus an updated adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels, due to be published in March 2011. Other books include “The Limerickiad”, a novel “Snatches”, “Fuck: The Human Odyssey”, “The Dog Allusion: Gods, Pets and How to be Human” and “Stuff”, a memoir of his late parents which was long listed for the 2007 Samuel Johnson Prize.
Martin’s work was exhibited at a special exhibition in the Bay Art Gallery at the 2017 Festival, when he also gave a talk on cartooning at the Kings Hall. He has attended every festival since then.
Matt Buck
Matt published his first cartoon in the Hull Daily Mail, while he was studying US Politics and History at the University of Hull. Since then, he has been featured in numerous prestigious publications, including The Guardian, The Observer, The Times Educational Supplement, The Daily Express and The New Statesman. He won the 2001 Young Cartoonist of the Year and exhibited his work in ‘The Grin and Blair It’ exhibition of 2004. Matt also illustrated ‘Picking the Bones’ a 2004 book about abuses of history by politicians. His cartoons generally focus on politics, news and caricature.
Nathan Ariss
Nathan Ariss is an actor as well as a freelance cartoonist providing cartoons and illustrations for a variety of different publications, including Private Eye, the Spectator, Reader’s Digest, Prospect and the Oldie. He also provides cartoons for a variety of other mediums, including textbooks, greeting cards and theatre posters.
Nathan was very involved with the festival organisation and curation in its early years when he was living in Herne Bay.
Noel Ford
Noel Ford was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire on 22 December 1942 and died on 27 September 2019. He was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School in Nuneaton, before studying at Birmingham College of Arts and Crafts from 1959 to 1960. He became a full-time cartoonist in 1975, providing work for Punch regularly over the next 20 years. Noel became deputy cartoon editor at the Daily Star in 1979 and remained there until 1992. He has provided cartoons to a host of publications during his career, including Private Eye, the Morning Advertiser, Weekend and The Golfer. He has produced work for companies such as Thomas Cook, Mercedes-Benz and Guinness, and has published a number of his own books in addition to illustrating others. He was a regular attendee at the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival as well as a contributor to every Herne Bay Festival exhibition.
Pete Dredge
Pete has been a professional cartoonist since 1976 when he sold his first cartoon to Punch Magazine. Since then, he has regularly featured in Private Eye, the Spectator, the New Statesman, the Financial Times, the Guardian, the Sun and many others. He is a founder member of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation and a member of the British Cartoonists’ Association, the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain and The Cartoon Art Trust. Pete is also a life member of the NUJ. Pete also worked as a gag-writer for the BBC’s ground-breaking “Not the Nine O’Clock News” satire show and produces caricatures at live events, such as cartoon festivals and weddings.
Richard Skipworth
Richard has been a freelance cartoonist and illustrator for the past 25 years. He is based in Worcestershire and studied Physics at Manchester before he decided to go into cartooning. Richard specialises in greetings cards and has worked for companies such as Webb Ivory, Hallmark, Britannia, Paperhouse, Quitting Hollywood, Otter House, Carlton Cards, and Hanson White. He has also produced book illustrations for Penguin Books and Ladybird and designed a huge amount of giftware products for the Xpressions Card & Gift Company.
Rob Murray
Rob is a a regular cartoonist for Private Eye and he draws a large-scale colour cartoon for The Sunday Times every week. He has only missed one opportunity to be part of the Herne Bay festival and was very disappointed.
His work has also featured in The Spectator, Reader’s Digest (UK & US), The Oldie, The Critic, The Week, Prospect, Viz and History Today, among others. He was the regular pocket cartoonist for Scotland’s Press & Journal newspaper between 2012 and 2018, producing three topical cartoons a week to very tight deadlines.
His cartoons have been used by Saatchi & Saatchi, Penguin Random House, Cambridge University Press, The Open University, M&G Investments, Heathrow Airport, Timothy Taylor Ales and many others. He has illustrated bestselling books, worked with advertising agencies, and produced cartoons for major corporates. He has also written jokes for well-known greetings card brands.
Roger Penwill
Roger Penwill was born in Barking, Essex, in December 1947. He studied and practised as an architect before becoming a full-time cartoonist in 1999. His work has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The Times, the Financial Times Magazine, and Punch among many others. He worked as the editorial cartoonist for the Countryman between 2002 and 2012 and has also provided work for companies like Travis Perkins, Continental Tyres and Aston Martin. He has also published two cartoon collections – Assembled Cartoons and The Countryside Cartoon Joke Book. Roger is also a trailblazer in the promotion of cartoon artwork and has been the chairman of the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival since its inception in 2004.
Royston Robertson
Born in Catterick, North Yorkshire, in 1968, Royston Robertson has been drawing cartoons for about as long as he can remember. At the age of seven, he wrote to the TV show Jim’ll Fix It to ask if he could edit The Beano for a day. Jim never fixed it. Between school and university, instead of going to work on a kibbutz, Royston ran the comic DoodleBug with a group of friends. Part fanzine, part Viz, it built up a strong following in the North East. Royston started submitting regularly to magazines in 1997. He has since been published in Private Eye, Reader’s Digest, The Spectator, Prospect, New Statesman, The Oldie and many other publications throughout the world. He has also drawn cartoons for Oxford University Press, Children’s BBC and Scholastic Children’s Books. He has exhibited cartoons at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London and at the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival. He has also been a regular participant in the latter and at The Big Draw. Royston was part of a team of cartoonists that took on the house team on the BBC TV quiz show Eggheads and stormed to victory. One of the Eggheads described it as “the most comprehensive defeat we’ve ever had”.
Rupert Besley
Rupert has been a professional illustrator since the 1980s, providing over 400 postcard illustrations for J Arthur Dixon and John Hinde. He lives on the Isle of Wight, from where he also provides illustrations for a plethora of other organisations, including OUP, Country Life, The Oldie, The Isle of Wight Weekly Post and many, many more. Rupert has written and illustrated and a number of his own books, focussing on Scotland Ireland and Skye.
Sarah Boyce
Sarah joined us for the first time in 2018 and again in 2019. She is a member of the PCO and regularly contributes to their blog posts. She says ‘cartooning started as a bit of fun and became completely absorbing. Once upon a time I worked in advertising, but after having children I reverted to my first love, art and design, did a foundation course and took up printmaking. Now I combine my time printmaking, illustrating and drawing cartoons.’
Simon Elinas
Simon has been a cartoonist ever since he could hold a pencil. He attended Harrow School of Art but dropped out to chase his dream of being a professional cartoonist. He got his first break at the Australasian Express and has gone on to work with companies such as Santander, Pickford’s Travel, Rolls-Royce, Marathon Oil and many, more. Simon specialises in caricatures and regularly provides them for the Daily Mail and other publications.
Steve Way
Steve Way was born in Plymouth in 1959. He studied graphic design at Leeds Polytechnic and was first published in the National Student in 1980. In 1989, Way was named the Cartoon Editor of Punch, remaining at the helm until it closed in 1992. In 1993 he founded ‘The Cartoonist’ a fortnightly cartoon newspaper that featured a plethora of renowned cartoonists. In 1997 he again became Cartoon Editor of Punch in the magazine’s second incarnation. His drawings have appeared in Punch, Private Eye, the Spectator, Listener, the Independent, the Sunday Correspondent and the Observer.
He has never missed a festival.
Tim Harries
Based on Wales, Tim is a freelance professional cartoonist producing Cartoons, Comic Strips and Humorous Illustration for a variety of clients including Weird Fish, Calendar Club, Readers Digest UK and USA, Private Eye, Saga, The Oldie, Punch, Country Cards, Oxford University Press, Scania, Brittany Ferries and many more.
A regular attendee at the festival he has run a number of workshops for children and families showing them how to create their own comic strips and cartoon characters.
Tim Ruscoe
Tim Ruscoe caught the cartooning bug early and was inspired by the work of Carl Giles as a child. Today he is a designer, cartoonist, illustrator and photographer, who has worked for a wide range of international clients. He attended art college, before joining the Royal Army Educational Corps as an illustrator at the age of 20. He opened a studio in Covent Garden at the age of 24 and has gone on to work with clients from around the world, ranging from the Millennium Dome and the Olympic Park in London to the Falcon Centre in Dubai, to the Nokia HQ in Finland.
Tim Sanders
Tim Sanders was born in 1957 in Castle Donnington, Leicestershire. He studied at the Harrow School of Art from 1976 to 1979, specialising in illustration and leaving with “a perfect ability to draw fire extinguishers”. Tim became the official cartoonist of the Socialist Worker in 1995, before becoming the pocket cartoonist for the Independent. He specialises in pocket cartoons and political cartoons, which he has produced for publications such as the Independent and Independent on Sunday, The Guardian, Observer, Daily Telegraph, and many more. Tim is also a fluent Spanish speaker and a scholar of Hispanic art.
Zoom Rockman
Zoom Rockman [his real name], is a 21 year old award winning political cartoonist, illustrator, puppet animator and inventor of the ‘Zoomascope’ who has just graduated from Central Saint Martins in London.
Zoom became the youngest cartoonist in The Beano Comic history age 12 with his monthly comic strip, ‘Skanky Pigeon’ which ran for 4 years until he quit age 16 to become a regular contributor at Private Eye Magazine. His ‘Ascent of Ma’am’ cartoon recently featured on the cover of their Platinum Jubilee Special Issue.
London Evening Standard previously named him as one of the Most Influential Londoners under 25 and he was included on Instagram’s first ever ’21 Under 21’ list, within the Art category. Zoom was the Winner of the Mel Calman Award for Pocket Cartoon of The Year at the Political Cartoon Awards 2019 with his Private Eye cartoon about homelessness in Finsbury Park.