Steve Bell's Cartoon Archive

Three kinds of cartoons make up this archive. The Leaders are the larger cartoons drawn regularly for the editorial or leader pages of The Guardian from the end of 1990 to the present. The 'If...'s are the strip cartoons that have appeared more or less daily in The Guardian since November 1981. Other cartoons are simply cartoons that have been drawn for other publications, though there are some drawn for the Guardian that don't fall into the first two categories.

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There are nearly three thousand Leaders and they are all viewable here, in chronological order. They were drawn in ink on card or heavyweight watercolour paper, and transmitted to the paper via fax machine from 1990 exclusively in black and white line, then using more varied shading techniques, texturing the heavyweight watercolour paper with an etching roulette or mezzotint rocker and producing a self-screening grey tone with dense black crayon. This technique developed between 1993 and 1996, when email took over. After that it became possible to transmit grey wash and, after 1997 colour, with no mediation, other than the scanning process. Since September 2005 the cartoons are nearly always in colour. I generally draw same size as published in the newspaper. The artwork area is currently 212mm wide by 162mm deep.

There are nearly six and a half thousand 'If...'s strips and upwards of half of that number are viewable here. (The intention is to scan them all, but this takes time.) From November 1981 until 1995 the strip appeared six times a week (Monday to Saturday), from 1995 until the beginning of 2006 there were five (Monday to Friday), and since 2006 four (Monday to Thursday). The principal reason for this is that colour work simply takes longer, and these days everything is drawn in pen, ink and watercolour.

Between 1981 and 1991 the strips were drawn half as large again as they would be printed in the paper. They were drawn in weekly batches and the artwork was despatched to the paper in London via British Rail's Red Star service. From there they were sent to Manchester for processing. Eventually the artwork came back to me in Brighton.

From 1981 until 1985 they were drawn on cartridge paper with an Edding 55 felt tips which was not lightfast, having an innate tendency to fade to grey on prolonged exposure to daylight. I have very little of this early artwork still in my possession and what little there is is not for sale. Most of it is either lodged at the British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent at Canterbury, or in the possession of the People's History Museum in Manchester. A huge amount was sold to raise money for the striking Mineworkers during 1984 and 1985. If you happen to have any artwork from this period in your possession, please get in touch, and whatever you do, don't hang it on your wall!

After 1985 the strip was drawn in indian ink on either cartridge paper or Bristol board and, from the middle of 1991 to the present at the same size as it appears in the newspaper.