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The Future Was Then exhibition opens at London’s Cartoon Museum

By downthetubes Guests on October 11, 2025 • ( 0 )

Dean Simons reports on the opening of The Future Was Then, running at London’s Cartoon Museum until next March…

The Future Was Then Exhibition - The Cartoon Museum, 63 Wells St, London, W1A 3AE until 21st March 2026

9th October 2025 saw the ‘official’ opening of the Cartoon Museum’s latest exhibition – The Future Was Then. A bittersweet evening which was also the farewell for the museum’s director Joe Sullivan after six years. The latest exhibition – which looks at how comics of the past predicted our future – was overseen by Joe, alongside Hannah Whyte and Steve Marchant.

*Outgoing Cartoon Museum director Joe Sullivan speaking at the opening of “The Future Was Then” exhibition at the Cartoon Museum, London. Photo: Dean Simons*

Interestingly, The Future Was Then was originally planned to be an entirely different piece altogether, focusing on superstar British artist Jamie Hewlett. Unfortunately, a Gorillaz exhibition (which ran at the House of Kong, 8th August – 3rd September at London’s Copper Box) led to a revision of plans.

Hastily produced over the span of five months, the end result does an admirable job at a coherent exhibition with interesting works adorning the space. Despite veering away from an entirely Hewlett-centric show, there is still some evidence of it present with significant space given to two productions – Tank Girl and Phoo Action.

Wakeham was on hand at the opening to discuss the labour of love that was the Phoo Action Deluxe Edition (released by Titan in December 2024) – and that time of his life working alongside Hewlett on the series in the 1990s. Phoo Action was the sequel to Hewlett’s solo authored serial “Get the Freebies”, published in The Face between 1996 and 1997. Wakeham joined Hewlett to help write the sequel, but the story was left incomplete as other aspects of Hewlett’s career took off.

*Mat Wakeham talks through the “Phoo Action” corner of the exhibition. Photo: Dean Simons*

Wakeham has remained with the property ever since, working on the 2008 TV pilot and, during the Covid lockdown, authoring a prose piece to help tie up the unfinished comic for the Deluxe Edition. A planned, yet to be announced, new standard edition hardcover, featuring additional material is coming down the pipe, and Wakeham has intimated that a comics iteration of Phoo Action may return too.

The work on display is a mix of published material, scripts, and – particularly in the case of Phoo, original pages, designs and process work by Hewlett loaned from Phoo writer Mat Wakeham and Hewlett’s own collections.

*Left to right: Richard Hayes, Jessica S Kemp, Jo Kent, James Harvey, Mark Stafford and Krent Able. Photo: Dean Simons*

The final exhibition doesn’t start or end with Jamie Hewlett, however. The Future Was Then opens with some early visions of the future from the late 19th century – fin de siecle postcards featuring artist renderings of how they imagined the 20th century to turn out (aw, bless).

“Undiscovered Country”. “The Future Was Then” exhibition at the Cartoon Museum, London. Photo: Dean Simons — “Undiscovered Country” art. Photo: Dean Simons

Complementing those images are some glimpses of art from more recent work, Undiscovered Country, on one wall; and some Buck Rogers newspaper strip pages on the other.

In other parts of the exhibition are pieces from past to present. Carlos Ezquerra and Simon Harrison “Strontium Dog” pages from 2000AD, “The Trigan Empire” pieces by Don Lawrence and a Ron Embleton artwork, a Cam Kennedy “Rogue Trooper”, a David Lloyd “V for Vendetta”, a Frank Bellamy “Thunderbirds”, and oh so much more.

Phoo Action art
Jamie Hewlett process pages for Phoo Action
Tank Girl art
19th century fin de siecle postcards
“Thunderbirds” by Frank Bellamy
Art by Ron Embleton
“V for Vendetta” art by David Lloyd
“Undiscovered Country”. “The Future Was Then” exhibition at the Cartoon Museum, London. Photo: Dean Simons

Besides Undiscovered Country there is another more recent work on display, Kenny Diack’s pages from the Black Mirror: San Junipero graphic novel published by Neil Gibson’s Twisted Comics.

Comics past and present looking forward – and, as mentioned in Mat Wakeham’s own opening speech – using stories about the future to depict their authors’ present.

Dean Simons

• The Future Was Then is at The Cartoon Museum, 63 Wells St, London, W1A 3AE until 21st March 2026 | Web: cartoonmuseum.org

It features over 80 pages of original comic art alongside other items that tell stories about the future of the human race from 1990 to 4000AD

• Phoo Action Deluxe Edition (ukbookshop.org Affiliate Link) | AmazonUK Affiliate Link

Celebrate 25 years of the Phoo Action universe created by the creative polymath Jamie Hewlett and long-time collaborator Mat Wakeham, with this definitive Silver Jubilee compilation of comics, scripts, and an assortment of behind-the-scenes material of the franchise.

For fans of the cult-classic Tank Girl, The Face magazine, the BRIT and Grammy-winning virtual band Gorillaz, and Phoo Action the collector’s crown jewel of subversive, satirical and surreal crime-fighting.

Dean Simons is a freelance comics journalist and researcher, whose interests include global comics histories and cultures. He is a regular contributor to Comics Beat, Publishers Weekly, and Comics Journal