Insights

Medieval banter should feel like it belongs to a strange, dangerous world without making the reader reach for a dictionary. The trick is to preserve period…

Turning a folder of cartoons, photographs, writing and television pitches into a portfolio website can feel easier than learning a programming language. A…

Carrotty Kid learns to swim in a dragon-proof pond after deciding that avoiding deep water alone will not solve his problem. His fear of dragons has always…

The Dandy has always treated timing as part of the joke. A punchline that arrives late can miss its audience, while a panel drawn with indecision loses the…

Reviving a legacy comic character is not simply a matter of putting old artwork online and calling the result a reboot. The character must retain enough of…

Some stories arrive with a bang; Boo arrives with a polite wave. In Andy Fanton’s comic strip Boo!, the friendly spectre decides he is staying, and everyone…

Dragons have occupied a curious place in British comics. They are ancient monsters, medieval symbols and dependable sources of slapstick, yet the funniest…

A strong punchline needs room to breathe, but comic pages rarely offer much of it. A strip may contain several characters, speech balloons, sound effects,…

Bad Grandad goes to the fair: designing carnival chaos begins with a simple comic promise: give one badly behaved old bloke access to rides, prizes, snacks,…

Hands are small, expressive, and surprisingly difficult to draw. A cartoon character can have a wonderfully wonky nose or an impossible pair of ears, yet a…