British cartoonist Bill Stott passed away on August 25. His career began as an art teacher in Liverpool. His cartooning career started at Punch magazine in the late 1970s. Bill described his early career as “teaching when it was light and drawing cartoons when it wasn’t.”
He was a founding member of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organization and a member of the organizing committee of the Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival – known best for it’s live cartooning sessions, where cartoonist create large-scale cartoons in the public square allowing visitors to watch cartoonists at work.
Members of PCO have posted remembrances on their website. Below from Rupert Besley:
Multi-talented, Bill could do everything. He could speak. With that deep, rich, gravelly voice, made for radio, he could hold any audience, all primed for the next punchline. And he was no mean crooner with it.
He could write. Boy, he could write. His flights of comic fantasy that found a home in the PCO’s publication Foghorn (that, happily, Cathy Simpson was able to keep going as Pangolin online) were humorous writing of the first order. Bill’s many emails on matters of PCO business were always so witty, you’d have thought him incapable of writing anything that did not have you spluttering into your coffee. But when it came to the serious stuff, of which there was plenty (the Charlie Hebdo murders, the detention of Eaten Fish and more), he had always exactly the right words.
From the an interview with Jane Mattimoe (of A Case for Pencils blog), we learn Bill used a heavy brass Rotring pencil, dip pens with Leonardt nibs, black acrylic ink, and Winsor and Newton watercolor. The cartoons below show the mastery of his pen & ink and water color skills.
Great tribute to the great man.
I was so sad to hear this news though had suspected he was poorly for a while. Whilst I was not part of his usual circle we were friends enough for him to jump out of hi “I’m a jobbing cartoonist’ and illustrate a book I had written to try and prevent harm to animals “Planet Caretakers” and one of the pictures no-one will have seen in his usual world is perfect for now. He also illustrated our Emotional Intelligence toolkit with nearly 100 extraordinary characters and 4 Landscapes (storylines) that made approaching difficult issues so much easier. I work in schools with children who need support…all of them and also specifically when things can be more difficult, also Parent Pack, pool of Life (pregnancy) things I will have forgotten, happy to share anything