Austerity Trick or Treat

I'm the Mr Scrooge of Halloween.  I think I've never willingly given out candy to marauding bands of badly disguised children, our family tradition being to turn off the lights and pretend no-one else was home.

 I like sweets and dressing up but can't stand it's candy coated version of horror/evil.  Bah humbug Halloween I'm off to hde behind the curtains til All Saints Day.

disclaimer: do I need to point out we don't condone vandalism or insurance fraud its just a nearly funny cartoon

Fashion and the Fall

For this week's CCGB caption compedition.

++ Update ++
Hurray this was joint third in week 117 caption compedition.  You should have a look at some of the other entries they were very good.

The Self Checkout Who Cried Wolf

Self checkout machines may be good for supermarkets but they treat everyone like idiots by repeating their instructions over and over again with no regard for how many times you have already use them.  We already use ATM machines which have text and don't need to speak to us like toddlers so why do Self-Checkouts feel the need to constantly thank us for shopping after taking us step by painstaking step through a robotic shopping experience.

Tonight's cartoon deserves to be a modern fable about the dangers of overly sensitive sensors being ignored by monitoring staff.

Not so soft play

About a month ago there was a scandal about young kids taking part in a cage fighting event in England.  As scandalous as that was trying going to a soft play cafe on a rainy day and watch what the big kids get up to the 'safe' environment of soft play.

Happy First Birthday Cartoonsidrew

It's our first birthday!  It's exactly one year since my cartoon blog was launched as drewsdoodles with this hand drawn post called Not Very Astute.  131 posts and 355 days later we're still going strong.

Due to other commitments I don't have a new cartoon to share so I thought I would indulge myself in sharing my personal favourite top ten from the first year.  These don't quite correspond to the ten most popular but that tends to be skewed by Google image searches  - if you don't see your favourite her feel free to tell me what it is in the comments section.

So here they are, and don't worry they'll be plenty more in the next year

#1 Favourite Cartoon: Canute-0 (July 9th)

My favourite pun from the year and the artwork's not bad either - shame I couldn't spell Canute first time round.

2. Favorite Advent Cartoon: Three Wise Men vs Three Wise Women (Dec 1st 2010)
The most popular cartoon on the blog in the first year is a piece of observational humour mining the well worn cartoon seam of the difference between the sexes.

3. Favourite Childcare cartoon: Cinderella Happily Ever After (19 Nov 2010)
I drew several gags round beds and lack of sleep due to young children but I like this one the most.


4. Favorite Cartoon Strip: Reward Stickers and the fight for Democracy (23 Feb 2011)
;">
Strips take much longer than single panel gags to draw but they enable you to tell stories and more gags with more complex setup.  I've done quite a few and I also liked Shrove Tuesday, the Temptation of Crisps and more recently CSS Miami and Fawlty Tevez

5. Best Bible Gag: Solomon's Speed Date (8 Feb)
;">
There was a Bible speed dating cartoon in a recent Private Eye but it wasn't as good as mine.

6. Best Likeness: Einstein's Speed Limit (28 May 2011)

Have tried to draw a few famous people this year Hiliary Clinton, Barack Obama and Lord Sugar amoungst others but this is the most easily recognisable.

7. Best American Cartoon - Declaration of Independence (4th July 2011)

These days I get more traffic from across the pond than the UK which is why I'm pleased when I draw anything for another country that works.

8 Best Topical Gag: NASAs future (23 July)
The The same week NASA scrapped the shuttle program I had a caption compedition that just fitted beautifull.

9 Best Science Gag: Schrodingers Cat (16 April 2011)

Sometimes simple line drawings are just as good as colour if the gag works.

10. Best Star Wars Gag: Death Star and Kids don't mix (26 March 2011)



Hope you enjoyed this best-of-show.  More LOL cartoons soon.

Fast Food Idiom

Two Bit Town

There are 10 types of people in the world those who might get this cartoon and those who won't.  Actually I suspect most people won't but I share it with you because they aren't enough binary cartoons in the world.

Bailout Bank

After shelving my Binary Gag decided to enter this one into the Caption Compedition.

Similar to another caption entry World Monopoly which is topical again this week as the Bank of England decides to print more money and not give it to me.  Also I share a character Berlesconi between them (I prefer the previous version) and considered giving him some female company but decided it would distract from the gag.

For the record nobody knows the exact amount just the UK government bailed out the banks for but in December 2009 the Independent had it at roughly 850bn so 1 trillion UK pounds by now doesn't seem that far off.

Babies and iPhones

Some Apple execs who weren't Steve Jobs announced not the iPhone 5 that my previous cartoon had anticipated but an iPhone 4.5 or 4S.

Still there will be plenty of slightly disappointed Apple Fanbois who will buy it knowing full well that iPhone 5 is coming soon.

There has been alot of baby news in my neck of the woods so I thought I would combine both topics.

Transformers vs Traffic Wardens

Transformers vs Traffic Wardens for the CCGB caption compedition