Young journalists from Children's Express tell us what they thought of Museums and Galleries Month events around the country.
| We probably won’t start reading the Daily Telegraph but we’ll take more notice of cartoons in newspapers. |
A talk by veteran newspaper cartoonist John Jensen
The Cartoon Museum, London
We’ve never read the Sunday Telegraph and we’d certainly never heard of John Jensen, a cartoonist who worked for that newspaper for 18 years. But we really like cartoons, which is why we were looking forward to “The Nightmares of Cartooning” – a talk given by Mr Jensen at the Cartoon Art Trust Museum.
It was obvious the talk was aimed at adults because we were the only two children there. The time of day (mid afternoon) couldn’t have helped. But we were still interested to hear what Mr Jensen had to say.
The whole point of the talk was to tell us about his 55 years as a cartoonist and the problems Mr Jenson had faced along he way.
He mentioned a lot of politicians and people we’d never heard of like Edward Heath and it was difficult to understand his cartoons about political events, which happened before we were born. It would have been better for us if he’d shown us a couple of drawings he’d done about a more recent event like the war in Iraq.
At the end we actually got to speak to Mr Jensen. We asked him whether he had any tips for young people who wanted to be cartoonists. He said it was a very difficult career in this day and age because there weren’t as many markets around compared to when he was younger. But he said if you were really into it you should just “go for it!”
Both of us really enjoyed the afternoon. We got to see loads of cartoons, not just by Mr Jensen, but others, which were on display in the gallery.
Although the talk highlighted the worst bits of cartoon drawing, we left the Cartoon Art Trust Museum feeling inspired. We probably won’t start reading the Daily Telegraph but we’ll take more notice of cartoons in newspapers from now on.
About the team
This story was produced by Jonathan Ijoyah, 12, and Conrad Landin, 9, members of the Children’s Express London Bureau. It was published in the Museums Journal. For more reviews, see column, left.
