I just came across on the web this delightful blast from the past.

This was a televison commercial I worked on in 1987 with Richard Williams, one of the all time great legends of animation.

It was great experience. I had been hired to be the cartoonist at a brand new UK newspaper called TODAY.The goal of the commercial was to use my cartoons to promote the newspaper.

I worked closely with Richard on the early part of the project. I created character drawings of the major players along with the opening sequence plus a few key drawings. Richard and his animators then took the project and ran with it.

There are some funny little tidbits in the film. In the opening art (it is very difficult to see in this low quality video)… in the audience at Parliament, there are sheep and Mickey mouse sitting in the balcony. Also, among the backbenchers are caricatures of me and a couple of the creatives from the Ad agency that managed the project.

A part that Richard particularly enjoyed was the transition of Neil Kinnock (the then leader of the Labour Party on the right) from a devil to an angel. Look carefully, you will notice he disappears up his own rear end.

As I recall, It took us three months to complete the project with hundreds of drawings used to create the animation. By the time the commercial was ready, the Today newspaper was low on cash and could not afford to give it a nationwide release in the UK. Instead it was aired on local stations (not in London). Still when I visited Richard on a later occasion, he told me it had won two animation awards ( I don’t know which… any info here would be welcome)….

The only catch was… they needed to translate my text from the original English version to French. This is not a major problem except there were some English idioms in the Economist version that I am not sure translated well to French (Thatcher’s Iron Fist, for example). For any of you French speakers out there, I would be interested in hearing how well you think the artwork translated!

I am pleased to announce that I am currently featured in this month’s edition of Malibu Magazine.

The magazine has a regular column called “10 x 10″ where they ask a guest 10 eclectic questions about his-or-herself ( my favorite: What tunes would be on the five-song playlist to your life?).

As part of my interview, I was asked to supply a photo. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to embellish it a little  so I created the art below.

You can check out the magazine article here

Sorry to be so lacklustre at posting this summer… been bogged down with the new 2012 Economist wall calendar ( which looks awesome!).

Here are some recent favorites from The Economist.

Over my 33 year career I have drawn many nasty oppressive rulers.

Rarely, however, have I had the dubious distinction of drawing two generations of sadistic murderers in one picture. For this week’s edition of The Economist I chose to cover the sad events unfolding in Syria. I have drawn the nation’s past ruler, Hafez Assad many times over the years (see sample below). He was the demon responsible for the quashing of a citizen revolt in 1982 where he killed an estimated 10-30,000 of his own countrymen. Unfortunately, it appears, his sons plan to follow in in boot-steps.

I will be interviewed on Florida’s WGCU public radio on Wednesday January 27, 12-1pm EST. You can listen in live through their website. This is in conjunction with my visit to Florida to address the Southwest Florida Speakers Assembly on Thursday, January 28.

I will be on the road addressing other groups in the weeks ahead. On February 12, I will one of the featured guests at the Generations Forum, an interesting conference sponsored by The Economist in Geneva, Switzerland. If you ever wanted to see behind the scenes about how The Economist is put together, this may be of interest to you.

On February 19, Kal will be a featured speaker at the Warwick Economic Summit at Warwick University, UK

Recently in Washington DC, The Economist held a fabulous event titled The World in 2010 Festival. It featured a diverse and exhilarating group of speakers speculating on the events and trends for the upcoming year.

Among the guest’s was John Oliver, correspondent for The Daily Show. He delivered a terrific performance  which included a stand up routine and a “Tonight Show” style interview session with Oliver acting as host (See video below). I had the assignment of capturing the day’s events in a cartoon sketchbook. You can see some of the sketches below.

Included in the program was a short talk by me chatting about caricature and Obama in 2010. (see video above)

The Festival also included a trip to the recording of “Meet The Press” where we saw the physically imposing David Gregory interview NYT columnist Tom Friedman.

I was asked by the festival to create drawings of the three heads (with foreheads) to use as promotion materials and auction items. The drawings (see above) were used in several capacities throughout the evening. An enlarged print of the artwork was signed by the three guests and myself then auctioned off.

My favorite use was a special edition of M&M candies that were made with the images of each of the 3 filmakers embossed of the candy shell.  Clearly the smallest reproduction of my cartoons to date!

Above is John Waters signing his caricature and below is me (on the right) with old chum, fellow Baltimore Sun alumni and creator of HBO’s “The Wire”, David Simon.

I was asked by the festival to create drawings of the three heads (with foreheads) to use as promotion materials and auction items. The drawings (see above) were used in several capacities throughout the evening. An enlarged print of the artwork was signed by the three guests and myself then auctioned off.

My favorite use was a special edition of M&M candies that were made with the images of each of the 3 filmakers embossed of the candy shell.  Clearly the smallest reproduction of my cartoons to date!

Above is John Waters signing his caricature and below is me (on the right) with old chum, fellow Baltimore Sun alumni and creator of HBO’s “The Wire”, David Simon.