Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting small exhibition at the Cartoon Museum looking at the work of Nigerian comic creator Oluwasegun Babatunde. The show explained how Babatunde developed the idea for a superhero universe set in Nigeria during lockdown after struggling to find any characters in comics which reflected his West African background. It showed some of the comics and books set among the Towncriers of Motherland and a fictitious land of Naijaland. It also discussed how he found an illustrator in lockdown, Daniel Egharevba and how they worked together in those circumstances.   Closes 21 January 2024

Disappointing small exhibition at the Cartoon Museum on the comic strips based on the animations of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson like Thunderbirds and Stingray. I say disappointing as a lot of the work on show were homages to the earlier comic. I would like to have seen more from the early work. Similarly there was one model from a tv show but the toys in a display case were modern ones. I think this was one for the geeks rather than a vaguely interested passer-by like me. Closes 4 June 2023  

Fascinating exhibition at the Foundling Museum looking at how and why characters in comics are often orphans or foundlings. Using great examples of old and new comic strips they took you through various themes of this phenomena. It was a much more nuanced show than I expected.   There were good modern pieces with commentaries by the artists. It started by looking at this archetypal tale which probably started with Moses and how taking parents away in a story means there is no one to say no. It then looked at superheroes who lost their parents violently who turn to protecting others like Batman and Spiderman, followed by heroes which help us explore difference and identify such as Captain Marvel Jnr who was an orphaned, disabled, newsboy. They talked about how reading a comic strip can fell like reading a diary and looked at the artists who have used it in that way such as Carlos Gimenez who used the form to explore growing up in Social Aid homes in Franco’s Spain. Finall...

Interesting exhibition at the Cartoon Museum looking at the evolution of the Judge Dredd character. OK I admit I come to this with zero knowledge but, you know me, I’ll give anything a go! Evidently the character has been going for 45 years and as artwork and technology has evolved so has how he has been shown. The display looked at how eight artists had depicted him. There was a rich variety of images and they were explained well. The one I show is by Tom Foster from 2016 for a film. The show included three steps in the developing the image, a photo of a friend posing, a digital recreation with added elements and this final finished image. I loved a funny video about a day in the life of the current artist, sorry I forgot to note their name, and I did laugh out loud at it’s dry humour. Closes 24 April 2022  

Fun exhibition at Somerset House looking at the history of the comic the Beano and its influence on British culture. This was a beautifully laid out show and had much more in it than I’d imagined. It started by outlining the origins in 1938 and the early editions then went on to look at some of the themes of the strips, food, discipline and punishment and rule breaking. It was all done using great graphics to guide you around. There was a good section on the different characters and the artists who had created them with lots of original drawings. This continued upstairs with some of the later characters often using the characters to examine social themes such as using Lord Snotty to look at class. Throughout the show there were art works, some commissioned for the exhibition, inspired by the comic and its ethos and themes. It included a room of art works by contemporary artists who break the rules which had a fun video game in which you could throw imaginary paint balls at famou...

Fascinating book talk at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival with Posy Simmonds talking about the process of writing her latest book “Cassandra Darke”.   Posy gave an illustrated talk on how the book evolved from early sketches saying how you started to give your characters clothes in in this case how Cassandra’s trappers hat isolates her from weather and the world. She told us how she draws the floorplans of characters and sketches their interiors so that she can see the characters in them.   Her sketches were art works in their own right regardless of how they are then used in the book. She talked about taking long bus rides to find locations for the book and how she uses those rides to look at people who she then sketches when she gets home.   She said she was taught to draw by looking. She told us how she works in crayon and paint and writes the story in long hand. Her husband then sets that text in speech bubbles. The event was cle...

Interesting exhibition at the British Library looking at the unique storytelling form of comics and graphic novels. The design of the space was clever. You entered through a misshapen door and there were lots strange angled lines which changed the shape of the space. There were also mannequins in the V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes masque which has been taken up by protest groups as a way of hiding individuals identity. I found these quite menacing. The earliest piece in the show was a biblia pauperum from 1470 which was a collection of hand coloured woodcut biblical narratives used for private devotion. I found a lot of the work quite gruesome but this seems to have been a feature from quite early on. An example of which was a contemporary version of Jack the Ripper story from the London Police News. There was also an interesting section on sex in comics and another on how protest groups have used comics to get their views across. I did find there was just too mu...