Wednesday 1 December 2010

Snow Joke



A couple of stories in tomorrow’s Westmorland Gazette caught my beady, cartoonist’s eye. The first is the front page lead (you read it here first) and t’other is buried inside somewhere.
The problem with stories that appear inside the paper is I feel impelled to explain them in the caption. And I only have a tiddly space on the front of the new, compact (not tabloid) Gazette. The way to get over this is to encourage the clever, hard-working subs (hello Phil) to put a one-line link above the cartoon - see story page 47 or whatever. But it’s hardly ideal as the reader still sees the joke before having any idea what it is about. (With a few of my cartoons, it doesn’t help.)
However … given that there is another, country-wide story featured in the paper, I thought it a risk worth taking.
The main story is about South Lakeland District Council and it’s development plan for the area. It includes affordable housing for locals, not before time. The second story is about some rather special chilli, made locally. This is so hot that it is set to get into the Guiness Book of Records.
And the other story? It’s been snowing …
As ever, the final cartoon will be in Thursday’s Gazette and on my website tomorrow morning. 
And if you want to read more about drawing cartoons for newspapers, well, there is only one thing I can possibly recommend.





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