Dream cartoons.

Sometimes it's hard to come up with a good idea for a cartoon. As easy as it maybe to draw excellent cartoons (as I do), coming up with unique original ideas can be difficult at times. Even I feel that sometimes.

One solution I have found is to just listen to your dreams. Last night for instance, I had a dream that some people were being chased by a run-a-way bus (it was a red double decker!). I thought this would make a very interesting cartoon, especially for anyone who has ever been chased by a run-a-way bus. For others, it may seem amusing to some degree. It's one of those special cartoons that everyone can take something away from, from reliving abject horror of a near death experience, to maniacal laughter at watching people running for their lives.

If you would like this cartoon, or another one like it (I can draw taxis as well) for your newsletter or school presentation then please get in touch.
During the month of June I have some very special offers on reproduction fees:

Buy one cartoon, get another cartoon FREE. Cartoons start from just £20. This includes FREE emailing of the cartoon to the address of your choosing - WORLD WIDE service.

* Cartoons in Photoshop format will incur an additional fee of £3.49+vat.

Community Relations.

Another popular cartoon from my archives. This one nearly appeared in a school newsletter about community relations between the authorities and young people, but the head of year thought it might corse offence. Oh well. Educations loss, is you're gain (as a reader of this blog!).


I don't hold back when I'm using my cartoons to make cutting comentary on current issues in today's multicultural society. Today a maverick, tommorrow an inspired genius that new what was going on all the time? Perhaps!

I've been experimenting with drawing shapes to help me make faces. This is my first attempt, which I'm thinking of offering as a fully fledged commercial service as soon as I've done at least another two! I started off with the nose shape, but of course it didn't start out as a nose at all, oh no it didn't.

Thinking the colour scheme would look very good as a series of childrens books? What do you think? Would you buy your children a book that looked like this, perhaps it would have some words in it as well. In a nice plain bold typeface like this?

I should think of a story for this childrens book. It could be the next Harry Potter or something like that.

Wonderful gifts.

Well it's that time of year again, when many people know someone who's going to have a birthday or maybe a divorce or something to celebrate, and nothing says a celebration better than a wonderful personalised gift.

These days there are many kinds of personalised gifts one can buy for money for a loved one, or special friend, or even a member of your own family relation. You could buy them a shopping bag, or a toaster with their name printed on it, but would that really make them happy, and make them get you an even more expensive gift when it's your turn to have something bought for your for your birthday or celebration?

Probably not. The thing is when buying personalised gifts for people that might buy you a more expensive gift in return, or even for your Birthday, is that the personalised gift must look tasteful and expensive, even if it was actually quite cheap.

Personalised cartoons can make wonderful gifts that people will treasure for years to come, probably display on their walls or office walls if they are the sort of person that works in an office, or maybe their bathroom wall if they are unemployed lay-a-bouts (you may not want to buy anything for an unemployed lay-a-bout as it's highly unlikely they will ever buy you a gift in return and that would be a waste of money! No one likes out of date Hula-Hoops bought from the pound shop).

Finding a cartoonist to make you a personalised cartoon gift used to be quite difficult, but since the invention of the internet it's now easier than ever. All you have to do is open Google, or some such like search engine and search for "Leonard Gubbins Cartoonist" or a (very) similar phrase and you will find a cartoonist that will create something very special for as little as £20.

Try it. You may be pleasently surprised when you get something worth having back from the person that you bought the personalised cartoon back.

It's health & safety gone mad.

The other day I was walking down the street when I noticed that there was some signs that I should cross the road and start walking on the other side of the road, pavement. The sign was an effing great big hole in the road that some jobs worth had dug up apparently. But this wasn't enough. Alongside this natural 'sign' was a red & white barrier a flashing light or two and some traffic cones. How insulted I felt. The local council or whoever it was who dug the hole had decided for me that I wasn't intelligent enough to avoid a huge hole in the ground, and decided to make it bloody obvious that there was a great hole in the footpath.

Clearly all this health and safety nonesense had also prevented the workmen from gaining access to the hole, as no work was taking place that Sunday afternoon. Anything could have happened to that hole the whole time it was just left there, inviting vandals to perhaps fill it in, or throw some elderly people into it that they had just mugged, and because of all the warning signs and health and safety  - everyone would have been walking on the other side of the street and wouldn't have noticed the mountain of dead pensioners inside the hole.

I take great pride in my civic pride, so I was compelled to make a small physical protest to all this crazy health and safety nonsense. I removed one of the flashing amber lights, and I now use it in my back garden to warn the postman not to stand on the gravel where the dog likes to do his business. If I have prevented just one pensioner from being left in a hole for a whole weekend then my effort will have been worth it.

How to spring clean.

I am often asked how I keep my wonderful home so clean and tidy. My secret is to clean it every spring. This is known as 'spring cleaning', or cleaning up the place before the landlord does his annual inspection. Out goes the muddy boots, and on goes the lid to the toilet cistern (don't ask me why, but I just like it propped up against the bathroom radiator). So how do I do it? Well I can tell you my spring cleaning secrets. It's not difficult, but it can take valuable time that could be spent drawing wonderful cartoons with my mouse for important, but dull business men.

Hoovering because I can't spell vacuum cartoon.

Of course spring cleaning can provide many highly amusing inspirations for brilliant cartoons, so all is not lost doing this, and it's handy if the landlord renews the tenancy for another year. He demands many many £20 notes to let me live here. There was the time that I couldn't find the regular duster in it's usual place, under the kitchen sink and was forced to use a J-Cloth instead. This disaster will not be repeated this year, as I've made a rather handy duster holder from the Blue Peter annual (page 34). I like to have my pad handy whenever I'm doing anything around the house, but this isn't always possible, if one is to keep the peace with the girlfriend/wife!


I start my spring clean by firstly taking down all the LULU portraits I've drawn over the years. Yes, some of them have faded, due to the poor quality of the felt tip pens I once used, but I simply can't bare to part with them, considering how long it took me to draw them! Once all of these marvellous masterpieces have been safely stored in the lovely plastic storage boxes I purchase from Lidl in 2002 (the post office will sell you a pack of chalk or some felt tip pens, but ask them to supply you with a decent storage box - forget it!). I then get out the hoover. Well it's not actually a Hoover, it's a....I don't know what it is, but it's blue. (£48.99 Argos). I then decide which plug socket I'm going to use. There's 2 in the lounge, so it can often take me some time to decide. Using electricity the 'hoover' sucks up all my man dust. I'm told that dust is almost 90% dead skin cells, so after a year there's quite a few of them to suck up!


And that's it. Tidy up your LULU portraits, and 'hoover' around a bit, using the plug socket of your choice.


Next Week: How to empty the ashtray on a 1989 Nissan Bluebird.

Lulu

I've always been a great fan of Lulu. The Shloop shloop song in particular is one of my all-time  favourites.

Here is a digitally enhanced portrait I did of her some time ago.

As you can see, it's instantly recognisable as being Lulu in her younger days, before she started messing about with Take That, and all that Benicol. I don't think I'm as much a fan of hers as I once was, but I have literally hundreds of portraits I did of her, so I might still post them for a while.

The Queen Mum

I was commissioned to do this excellent caricature of the Queen mother buy one of my neighbours. As you can see caricature is just one more of my many talents. If you would like me to draw you one of your most favourite royals then please email me, enclosing a £20 note and I'll send you within 30 minutes a masterpiece like this. You could use it for a birthday card, or just hang it on your wall. Sorry, but I can't print any of these pictures off at the moment, as my printer is playing up and will only print black and yellow. I can send a very high quality email direct to your email inbox.