Introducing My ALL new Childrens book.

I've always wanted to be a writer, but not having much time to devote to writing a proper book, I have come to the conclusion that it would be much easier to just knock out a Childrens book instead. 
This is an ideal project for me, for thus I can add some pictures to the book. This saves on words needed (children don't like books with too many words anyway, as everyone knows they are fundamentally lazy), and I possess unique skills in my drawing abilities of drawing 2 of the most difficult subjects in the world of cartoonists - FISH and BICYCLES!

So I introduce to you, loyal visitor - Geoffry the Bike Riding GOLDFISH ©.

Unfortunatly I haven't had time to actually write the story as of yet, but I thought I'd start with the front cover (for this is where I believe my potential readers will start anyway, and I can't see any sense in starting this book on, say, page 47)

I have spent most of the last 20 minutes thinking of some fun stories that Geoffry might get up to.

• Geoffry dodges his TV license fee, and hides from the dreded TV inspector
• Geoffry has his online shopping delievered by Asda or Tesco (needs more work to decide which works best for a GOLDFISH riding bicycalist).
• Geoffry gets into a nasty legal battle with his arch enemy, Sammy the Skateboarding Salmon.

I've based the stories I've yet to write down (but I have copyrighted them ©) on my own life, but I would like to state and not just for legal reasons, but for moral reasons as well, that I do possess a TV license. It's £145.50 per year and I pay by cheque.

Cartoons for your Business Special offer!

Hi, my name is Leonard, and I'm a very enthusiastic cartoonist and designer. I have experience of applying *very* special effects to my cartoons, which will give your business cartoons REAL impact that many other cartoonists won't offer. This month I have a special offer for window cleaners who are called Dave. Have this wonderful logo for your business (perhaps on your van, or if you don't have a van, you could have it made into a sticker for your bucket). As a special offer for this month only, I have added a special effect to this cartoon logo (normal price for such effects is £3.29).


You may have noticed that there's room for your phone number, which new customers who've seen your van/bucket will be able to phone to book you to clean their windows. Remember to ask about access to the back garden, and the situation with dogs etc.


** If you are called dave, and you do clean windows, but the hair is wrong then please get in touch. I could change the hair colour very easily, for a limited price of only £4.83.


Next week: I'm doing a business card for a plumber called Hank.

I've laid an egg!

Thinking about the cartoon SHARP I posted yesterday, I have been thinking about how I could create my own unique approach to cartooning that would be unique to me, and not give The Creative Genius credit for work that I have done, using his idea.

This got me thinking. What if instead of drawing a cartoon in a unique shape, such as a triangle, I drew a cartoon in an egg shape instead and called it an egg?


I could lay an egg, each and every day!

Shocking ignorance of other cartoonist.

This is my entry into the 113 (perhaps I should have known, such an unlucky number) and it scored precisely NOTHING! Now I understand that other cartoonist find my art work intimidating, and that some of them like to stick to the rules of the contest, but I entered this in enough time for at least one or two of them to vote for me. It was not my fault that my next door neighbour had an issue with their garden appliance, that as a good citizen, I felt obliged to assist with, therefore missing the "technical" closing time for entries.


 I even offered an explanation of the cartoon, for those less intelligence than myself, as it was a caption less contest.


I realize that some of the readers of this very website are not gifted in the brains department either, so here is the explanation of the cartoon, so you can find it as hilarious as I do.


This is a Robot that has scared the poor child. Hair is sticking up on end to emphasize that the child finds the Robot scary.


Well, let me tell you. That could be the last time I assist a neighbour with their garden appliances, OR the last time I enter the cartoon contest. I haven't decided yet. I'm still seething at the lack of respect shown to me!

Novelty Woman Inspirational Artwork Sketch.

I have been very busy this week, but I still managed to draw some wonderful artwork for your delight, and friendly to your wallet, while also solving your gift problems for months to come.


Fistly, I did this sketch:

I then decided that I could use my new found skills in Photoshop to create something magical with Photoshop. T-Shirts and Tea Towels.

You too could look like the cool guy at a summer BBQ, or even in B&Q!


































Or you could buy your auntie Ethel a lovely set of Tea Towels that she could use to dry the cats bowls with, or just to impress the vicar when he pops round for a crunch cream and a gossip!

Hilarious Valentine's day joke for those in love with a street cleaner/hygiene operative.

Happy Valentines Day to all my readers. Here's a cartoon that I did recently (for today) for a friend of mine who is in love with a street sweeper. The friend didn't want me to sign the card, just in case in caused confusion as to who it was from, so I didn't, but I did sign it on here so people could see that it's another original Leonard Cartoon and that it's copyrighted by me, Leonard Gubbins. I drew this in a Viz style as my friend thinks that he's the sort that might read the Viz Comic. I'll let you know if she gets anywhere, or indeed, if she is indeed sweeped off her feet (as she hopes). It would be nice if her daughter Kylie had a little sister, I think.

Hilarious Used car salesman Cartoon.

I have been very busy drawing cartoons in a viz style which I hope that private eye will accept for publication (as it's printed on the same sort of paper, I think it would look good in private eye, and it's in tune with their sort of off-beat humour that they like).


I'm sorry, but I may have to remove this cartoon at the end of the week, if Paul Merton (publisher of private eye) decides to take the cartoon. It would be wonderful if they did, although I'm not sure how much they pay for a cartoon in private eye. This one took me extra time as it's in full colour, so I think they should pay more for it. Why don't they publish how much they pay for cartoons? They'd get a lot more people sending them cartoons if they did. I think it could be as much as £50 per cartoon - but I will negoitate hard when they email back to tell me they want this, as it's in full colour.


The parish newsletter market has strunk somewhat since I last wrote about it. The editor of the local one, St Mary's Parish News, has told me that they have had problems with their usual printer, and that my cartoons are not required at the moment, as the Vicars wife has created some wonderful word searches which means theirs not enough room in the current issues for cartoons! Of course I think they are being very foolish, and the circulation of the parish news will decline, especially amongst the illiterate of this parish!

Chaos in the kitchen.

Those of you who have a kitchen in their house will be familiar with the problem of how to store a selection of fruit squashes, even if you don't enjoy a refreshing glass of fruit squash yourself, you may want to have some available if you have visitors and suchlike. Not everyone likes to drink tea or coffee (those are easy to organise into tea caddies and coffee jars anyway, so don't require an article here anyway).

The solution that I have developed after many years of fruit squash "oh I think I have some somewhere" situation, is to have the various bottles on display in my kitchen on the kitchen side. To avoid the chaos of not knowing which fruit squash is which, I have attached labels to the wall behind them. For instance, 1. is Londis Orange squash 2. is Lime Cordial 3. is Apple & Blackcurrent and 4. is orange squash from a posh supermarket without E numbers (unopened).

A great way to crate cartoons from photographs tutorial.

Here's a great tip to turn any photograph into a convincing and hilarious cartoon. Take a photo like this one of a boy holding a fish. Just an ordinary photo right? Wrong! It's also a cartoon!


Open the photo in photoshop or other such like photo manipulation program such as Windows Paint program.

Then you aplly one of the filters to it such as I thus did here (the fresco filter) - and hay presto you have a wonderful cartoon like image which is probably better than something a cartoonist could draw anyway.

Council housed Timeshare

I have noticed in the recent news lately that the new Government plans to prevent people who don't have a lot of money living in Council Houses for too long after they move in. I think this is an excellent idea. A bit like timeshare for homeless people. Why should they get a home for life and security of tenure for life when other people with more money don't have the same security with their own homes?

As you will have noticed, and I make no apologies for this, I am getting more political with my cartoons. I hope one day to become a political cartoonist. Perhaps I could be a political cartoonist for a decent newspaper, like The Daily Mail, or the Daily Telegraph, or if they won't have me - perhaps a working class newspaper like the Times of London (times cartoons anyone?).

Hilarious Computer Joke.

This is a recent joke cartoon that I did for a client to see that I could provide some jokey type cartoons for his Ye Olde Computer Shoppe business in the local high street. He wanted something that he could send out to all his customers via email or facebook (he's yet to decide). After he had given me his briefs, I set to work thinking of all the amusing things about computers that I could put into a jokey type cartoon for his computer business as previously discussed.


I did this on my computer with my Wancom Bamboo tablet. IT's a very expensive piece of professional equipment that only professional cartoonists are allowed to buy, but if you can afford one then I think you should. I have drawn this cartoon in just 7 hours, from the client brief to the finished article (no, not this article, I did it last week). I did this cartoon in the style of Bill Tidy or Larry. Check out the filing cabinet!


Next time: How to drawer cartoon filing cabinets.

I'm going to draw Penelope Cruze.

I've decided that it might be quite good fun to draw somthing cartoonists call a caricature. That is a picture (or drawing) of someone done in a cartooney style, but instead of just looking like a cartoon drawing that I've copied from another cartoonist (so many cartoons are all the same these days. Drawn with lines. Lettering for the caption etc) this one will look like I had the celebrity right there in front of my drawing pad when I did this.

My plan to do this drawing and make it look like the celebrity that I want it to look like is to draw the picture while quickly looking at my pad and then quickly looking at a photo of the celebrity back and forth as I go. I'm going to draw the celebrity just like they appear in the photo, and then exaggerate their features to add some fun and uniqueness to the drawing. If I didn't do this, then it would just be a drawing of the celebrity.

Remember I am not an artist, and I'm also a single mum.

I'm hoping Penelope Cruze will give me at least £20 for this drawing caricature of herself image.

Here we go.....

I think that worked out quite well. I'm sending it to Penelope Cruze today, but I have to send it by email, as I don't have a colour printer. If she wants it for her art collection, she'll just have to print it out herself.

A Friday the 13th Caricature.

This is a cartoon portrait of my next door neighbour. I can't tell you her name, as she wishes to remain anonymous, but agreed to me posting her caricature on the internet. She has been having trouble with her neck for several years now. Various doctors and other patients in various waiting rooms have not been able to diagnose her condition. All she knows is that she gets terrible pains in her neck, especially after line dancing.

To be honest, I think she's quite depressed about it now. It's been going on for so many years. The doctors don't want to know. Even other patients have stopped listening. I thought long and hard about how I could help cheer her up a bit. I could have trimmed her front hedge for her, but I didn't have time for this, as I needed to take a faulty tin opener back to Argos that day. So after a long hard think taking several hours, I decided that I could make her smile with my cartooning skills.

She's often said about how she wishes she just didn't have a neck any more, so I came up with this hilarious caricature of her (wearing the polo neck her nan knitted for her last year before she died. In fact THE last thing her nan ever knitted. Some have suggested she was catching a bus to the wool shop when the accident occurred, but that could just be an urban legend!)

Drawing done entirely on the computer. Black HP mouse, 19" monitor, but made to look like pencil crayon hand shaded.

* Her front hedge is still a state, but at least now she's smiling!

Mr Bright's Bloggage.

Wonderful news this week. The delightful Mr Bright (sometimes commentator on this very blog) has started his very own blog. He calls it Brightys Bloggage, which is very amusing. So far it's a little dissapointing, with only 2 posts in two days. Hopefully, as time goes on he'll decide to take his blogging a little more seriously.

Not that many pictures on the blog as yet, but some really interesting short stories about a cartoonist that used to work for DC Thompson, and the Publishers of The Beano. What an imagination that Mr Bright has!!!

He's a screen shot of the site:

You can find the site here:

http://brightys-bloggage.blogspot.com/

Caricature of son.

Caricature Of My Son, almost right.

I've been drawing cartoons for many months now, and one area of cartooning drawing that I have not really attempted so far is the world of caricature. This is my first attempt at drawing a caricature of my son. It doesn't really look like him at all very much. I don't know what happened. I set out with pen in hand and a peice of paper with the intention of drawing an accurate life-like cartoon portrait of him, but the end result is not quite what I hoped for.

My son isn't too impressed either. Yes, I know he's now 27, but I find his attitude of refusing to speak to me, quite frankly, childish! All I suggested was that he grow a beard and wear these glasses I have, to make making his likeness much easier!

Oh well. Next I'm going to attempt a cartoon of my wife/girlfriend as it's her birthday soon, and I'm sure she'd love a romantic souveneer of the occassion.

How to get ideas for cartoons when you don't have any ideas, but you do have a gel pen and a blank piece of paper.

I am often asked by the many dozens of people that follow this and the many other search engine optimised blogs and websites that I write and drawer for, how I think of all my brilliant ideas.


I have to be honest, sometimes it's not easy. Producing such high quality articles and mediocre cartoons all the bloody time is not easy. I am of course helped by my wonderful co-authors with some  excellent Talent Free articles, when they can be bothered, but most of the responsibility rests on me!

What I do when I'm struggling to come up  with a brilliant idea is to think of some interesting things that are happening around me. I use my eyes, and have a look around the room. If that fails, then I open the curtains and look outside. Watching people go about their normal business can be a great idea for inspiration. Only the other day, my good friend and legal expert, Burt was obviously unloading his daughter in laws car. By observing the carrier bags that all the shopping was in, I could see that they must have been to the Co-Op. This got me thinking about how these days it's so hard to buy anything in a shop without being asked in an accusational tone if you'd like a carrier bag. This made me think of a wonderful idea for a cartoon. Unfortunately it did not give me an idea for a brilliant article, so I'm just posting the cartoon.

Hilarious Topical Carrier Bag Cartoon

Digital Cartooning.

I have often been interested in the idea of producing brilliant cartoons using the very latest digital technology. These days it's possible to draw very good cartoons with no skills at all, and no paperI have often been interested in the idea of producing brilliant cartoons using the very latest digital technology. These days it's possible to draw very good cartoons with no skills at all, and no paper, or even without a gel pen (glitter or normal).


There's many different kinds of graphics tablets available these days, starting from just $34. It's probably a good idea to buy the cheapest graphics tablet you can find at first, and if you find it useful, to  gradually buy the next most expensive. So you'd start with the $34 one, and then perhaps buy a $55 one and then a £100 one and so on, until you have become such an accomplished digital cartoonist that you are able to spend several thousand pounds (or dollars if you live in the America).


Of course, it goes without saying that it's still very important to have some gel pens and cheap paper lying around, as no matter how expensive your graphics tablet is, none of them work in a power cut! (quite a major design flaw in my opinion!).

How to have an Easy Easter.

I am often asked how come I'm such a calm individual, that never lets things get me flustered. Well it's all to do with good planning. As that wise man, Michael Parkinson once said; "fail to plan and you plan to fail".


Soon it will be Easter, and if you're anything like me (used to be) then by the end of March you'll be having a fight with some old woman in the Co-Op over the last Smartie Easter Egg for sale. Sure, she had it in her basket first, but why should you let this workshy pensioner (who, lets face it has had infinitely more time to prepare for Easter then a hard working Article Writer and Blogger such as yourself). Now it's not pretty, fighting with pensioners in the Co-operative, no matter "good with food" they are.

Fighting with old people in the Co-Op is not what Easter is about!

So now is the time to be buying your Easter Eggs and ensuring that you don't have a fight with an Octogenarian. It's Easter, and the baby Jesus would not have wanted anyone fighting on his Birthday like this!

The Boiled Egg Mystery

Someone suggested that I include more boiled eggs on this website. Well yes. That is a very good idea. I have spent many hours working on this MR BOILED EGG cartoon strip. I don't know what that strange mark is on the bottom left. I did have some workmen in my loft the other week. They might have dislodged something which seeped onto my pad.

A comic strip featureing you!

I am now able to offer a unique service that is better than all the other services out there. That's right. A personalised comic strip featureing you. All you need to do is provide me with the story and I can draw it for you. Comic strips from only £80 (that's a 50% reduction on what I was thinking of charging!)

Send me your ideas and I'll turn it into a special gift for yourself or perhaps your mum.

* Remember I cannot print the comic strip for you, as my printer is broken, but I will send you a very high quality email.