A Christmas Custom

Last week's super, soaraway Westmorland Gazette had two prime candidates for the cartoon desk. The first was a new story, the other was 2000 years old.

Immigration officers pounced to stop a sham marriage at Lancaster Registry Office. The groom was attempting to stay in the UK illegally and, ironically, achieved his aim by being sentenced to 10 months in prison.

In other news, it was Christmas.

Clearly there was the opportunity to combine these two stories in a tasteful fashion unlikely to offend anyone. Equally clearly, I didn't take that route. Below are the ideas I submitted with the one chosen shown in colour. I'm not convinced by that gag and would have gone for the angels (with or without the cigarette). What do you think?

Sleighed

Christmas comes but once a year and so does the seasonal opportunity for a colour cartoon on the front page of The Westmorland Gazette.

It’s become a tradition and it’s always easier to achieve when there are some seasonal stories to match. This year we managed ghosts and parking.

Levens Hall has a ghost, along with many other historic houses. This one is the spirit of a spurned traveller who issued a curse, claiming a male heir would only be born when the River Leven freezes over. (Hence the third cartoon - yes, technically inaccurate but you get the idea).

The festive parking story was South Lakeland’s bright idea to make residents pay for residential parking permits. You’d think they could generate enough income from their enterprising new drugs farm in the public loos. 

Here are the sketches I pitched to the editor. A scruffy bunch but drawn in 2B pencil with little eye for style; some of us have a dealine, you know. The final artwork was a composite in order to arrange all the elements into the 2cms square space I get these days. Just for a change, I’ve shown a couple of the sketches for the final artwork, along with the finished cartoon, as it appears in the Gazette. It also features over on my website.

“Ignore him, it’s just another tax reminder from the Inland Revenue.”

“Oh no, it’s the ghost of Christmas Future!”

“It’s freezing out. Do you fancy an early night?”

“Have you got a £25 resident’s permit for that?”

A couple of early sketches for the final artwork: