Joking apart

From his home in Broadstairs, Royston Robertson comes up with satirical, topical and sometimes just plain silly cartoons

- Caroline Read

Meeting someone new, how do you describe what you do?

I tell them I’m a freelance cartoonist and then take it from there. There are usually followup questions as people do have lots of different ideas of what a cartoonist is.

The first thing most people assume is that I work in animation, drawing cartoons for children. But my cartoons are aimed at grown-ups and mostly appear in magazines. They definitely don’t move.

My cartoons have been published in Private Eye, The Spectator, Reader’s Digest and many other magazines. I also draw for trade publications and produce cartoons for greetings cards, books, and all kinds of companies.

I am a co-organiser of the Herne Bay Cartoon Festival too, which began in 2013.

Were you always arty at school?

I was always into drawing cartoons. I drew comics at home, I drew for the school magazine, then later the university mag. But I didn’t progress beyond A-level art. I didn’t go to art school. I don’t think I seriously thought of it as a career when I was younger; somehow drawing cartoons is something that you’re encouraged to think of as a hobby. Instead, I trained and worked as a journalist.

So how did you get into this line of work?

I got started professionally simply by sending cartoons to magazines. This was in 1997. I soon got a few printed, then I put a portfolio website together and eventually I began to get commissioned work. I gave up the day job in 2004, though I still do some journalism as a freelancer, and have managed to stick with it, getting cartoons published all over the world.

Do you have to be glued to the news?