Procartoonists.org, the Professional Cartoonists Organisation, expands PCO TV on YouTube

By John Freeman on January 11, 2022

You can now tune in to the PCO TV Channel over on YouTube, the work of Britain’s Procartoonists.org, the Professional Cartoonists Organisation – and there’s some great stuff to check out.

The latest review videocast offers PCO Chair Personage Clive Goddard’ “Review of 2021”, in cartoons.

“Everyone seems to be doing their review of the year,” he says, “so I thought I’d join in by sharing my favourite topical cartoons, quite a lot of which never made it into print.

“I also wanted to see whether 2021 was as crap as I remember it being. Spoiler alert – it was…”

The PCO also launched a series cartoonist Q&A videos last month, that have been stitched together for public display by Clive Goddard, starring PCO members Jeremy Banx, KJ Lamb, Tat Effby, Rebecca Hendin, Guy Venables, Chris Burke, Kipper Williams and Clive himself. Watch out for future instalments.

Topics covered includes cartoonists about the materials they use, and who there many clients are, apart from newspapers and magazines.

The award winners from the recent PCO sponsored Pocket Cartoon Awards, featuring Jeremy Banx and Matt ‘Matt’ Pritchett, also feature in a separate video. (You can see all the winners videos from of The Political Cartoon of The Year Awards 2021 on the site of sponsors Ellwood Anfield).

Procartoonists.org is the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation, formed in 2006 from the amalgamation of the Cartoonists’ Guild and the UK branch of the Federation of Cartoonists’ Organisations.

British cartoon art has a great history and boasts an impressive pool of talent that the organisation feels deserves a higher media presence. Its aim is to make sure it gets this by promoting members’ work, via portfolio pages, and by promoting cartooning news using their blog and other social-networking sites.

With rapidly evolving new-media formats, artists’ rights are under threat, so Procartoonists.org has joined forces with other creative media professionals in the Creators Rights Alliance and Pro-Action.

They also play a major part in the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival and the Festival of cartooning in Herne Bay, and contribute to the cartooning elements of The Big Draw, run by The Campaign for Drawing.

Procartoonists.org is affiliated with the Association of Illustrators, enabling members to join the AOI at their discounted “Affiliated Illustrator” rate.

• Subscribe to PCO TV here on YouTube

• Check out the Procartoonists web site at procartoonists.org | Find Procartoonists on Facebook | Twitter

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.