• Every month The Cartoonists Club of Great Britain interview a member in their magazine THE JESTER. I was honoured to be featured  in the October 20202 issue. With their permission, this is the text of that interview

• 2020 has been an exceptional year for all the wrong reasons. How’s it been for you so far?

In February I was looking forward to a big project that was going to see me through the year and, of course, it was put on hold when we went on lockdown. I’m in the shielding category so I was basically stuck in the house for twelve weeks with no work and relying on pensions and the SEISS grant to see me through. I spent much of my time revamping my website and redrawing old cartoons to put up on Cartoonstock. Happily things have picked up in August with the publication of my children’s book and I’m hoping the Big Project will pick up again. I’m also looking at setting up an internet shop and merchandising some of my old work,

• I notice you claim you began work back in BC times (before computers) and yet you’ve embraced them entirely. Can you recall your first experiences with cartoons on a computer? Was it a boon or a faff?

Heh… i describe myself as a “veteran”,… much better than “an old codger who remembers Cow Gum, Letraset, rubylith film and Frisket Fingers. I have composed type by hand and printed directly off a litho stone, casted off copy and  weilded a mean process camera. And then some idiot invented personal computers and most of what I’d learned became obsolete . It was a case of adapt or perish as everyone started buying a PC and CorelDraw and were suddenly “graphic designers” . So I bought a McIIsi, a scanner, Adobe illustrator and Quark Xpress on several dozen diskettes and joined in. At that point I was still doing my cartooning with good old pen, brush and ink and scanning them into photoshop. It’s only relatively recently I’ve gone more or less fully digital. Still miss the smell of Cow Gum.

• Did you start out as a graphic designer who also did cartoons, or as a cartoonist who dabbled in graphic design?

A graphic designer who did cartoons. My first job was as an advertising artist with my local newspaper where I was quite happy for  eight years before taking a voluntary redundancy to start my own graphic design business. I’d started doing cartoons at the paper and, being a big science fiction fan at the time also did cartoons (“fillos”) for science fiction fanzines. As time went on I found my work gradually went from 95% graphics/5% cartoons to 5% graphics/95% cartoons. I became known in networking circles as “The Cartoon Man”. I’m now a pensioner and semi-retired and I’ve fully embraced cartooning. I’ve gone from Jim Barker Design to Barker Illustration and Graphics to Jim Barker Cartoon Illustration

• What cartoonists, strips and comics did you enjoy growing up?

There was a progression of comics growing up - Jack and Jill to Playhour to Dandy and Beano to Victor to Hotspur to Valiant to Lion to TV21 about which point I discovered American comics and mostly forgot British comics until Warrior and 2000AD. In newspaper there were The Broons and Oor Wullie and I was big fan of Angus Og by Ewen Bain and The Big Yin by the legendary Malky Mccormick. Throughout that there were artists whose work I really liked but never knew their names. Now I know they were people like Frank Bellamy, Mike Noble, Ron Embleton, Ron Turner, Brian Lewis, Mike Western, Leo Baxendale, Ken Reid… the giants. And Dudley D. Watkins, of course. I recently bought David Roache’s MASTERS OF BRITISH COMIC ART and spent many happy nostalgic hours with it. Though my all time favourite artist in any medium is Chuck Jones.

• Has that changed compared to now?

My American comic reading is now sporadic via the graphic novels in my local library. Literally an hour before all the libraries were locked down I maxed out my library card with thirty graphic novels. They’re now read laying in a pile beside the computer waiting for the libraries to open up again and I can take them back.I will read anything by Gil Kane, Walt Simonson, Darwin Cooke or Bruce Timm. I’m a bit out of touch with the current UK scene but I love Phil Winslade’s LAWLESS. And many members of the CCGB,  - Rich Skipworth, Roger Kettle, and Brighty among many others

• You appear to be very comfortable with technology and unafraid to tackle social media. Do you find that effortless or is it a case of discipline, so something you make yourself do?

Appearances can be deceptive. I have my various bits of equipment trained to do what I need to produce my work, though I know there’s a whole lot more I could be doing with them. I’m self taught on everything and when I need to explore a new area I can usually find information on what I need somewhere on the net. Big fan of YouTube tutorials.  My main social media home is Facebook. I have Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram accounts but I don’t use them as nearly much as I probably should. I’m very comfortable on FB because the majority of my contacts there are longtime friends from my days In SF and mystery Fiction fandom or cartooning and business networking.  It’s like being in several permanent floating conversations. I haven’t embraced Zoom as much as most people seem to. If I’m in a meeting with ,say, fifteen people I’ll be the one in the bottom left hand corner nodding and not saying very much. I much prefer hiding behind my Jim FB persona.

• Are you PC or Mac based, and what is your go-to software? Has that changed much over the years?

I’m a Mac man. Always have been, always will be. I’ve occasionally had to use a PC and I just cannot get the hang of them. They seem overly complicated compared to the Mac. As I said, my first machine was a Mac IIsi  and I scanned my drawings into Photoshop. These days I have an iMac with a Cintiq and an iPad Pro for doing artwork on. I mainly use Procreate, with occasional forays into Photoshop and Krita. I use Explaindio for my animations.

• Do you ever find yourself drawing freehand or is it all digital?

I still do pencil “roughs” to work out ideas and then scan them in and finish them in Procreate. I haven’t used brush and ink for quite a while.

• What’s your creative space like?

Untidy. I used to have actual offices way back when I did more graphics  and Then I collapsed everything and brought it all back home to what was our dining room.

Describe what surrounds you when you work.

Clutter. An atmosphere of despair and utter chaos.

• Is gag cartooning something you fit in around other work, or do you set aside time to do that?

I don’t know if I’d call myself a “gag cartoonist”, since I’ve hardly ever gone the time honoured route of submitting cartoons on spec to magazines and newspaper. The one time I tried I was rejected by Ian Hislop at Private Eye. That’s when i knew I was a Real Cartoonist. When someone asks what I do I reply “I draw funny pictures”. Most of my work has been commissioned for books, advertising, web sites or presentations Or creating character mascots.

• How long has your cartoon strip The Bairns been running now? How do you find the weekly pressures of creating the strip? 

It’s not a strip… it’s a topical cartoon for my weekly local newspaper The Falkirk Herald, based on a story in that weeks paper. I used to work for the paper and started it when I was there and they let me continue it when I left to go freelance. I’ve been doing it now for (…gulp…) over forty years. They send me three or four subjects to choose from and they trust me to come up with something. I can usually find something to work with in the stories, though I do suffer the odd creative block like everyone. I’ll admit to occasionally recycling an old idea no-one remembers from years ago. I did about sixteen lockdown cartoons in a row April to August.

• You recently shared a selection of character pieces based on Scottish pipers. They really were excellent. Can you relate the story behind them?

Thank you. About 10 years ago, I was contacted by this chap who published a weekly Scottish themed newspaper, aimed at ex-pats in America. He wanted me to do cartoons of the top ten pipers in Scotland. I completed the first set of ten and we were moving on to Highland Game athletes when he went bankrupt and did a runner. At last I got paid for the first ten…

• You’ve produced a few animated pieces too. Was that a steep learning curve? Do you have any recommendations to other cartoonists of where they should start when it comes to animation?

I’d done a couple of those whiteboard videos the old fashioned way by having someone actually film over my shoulder as I drew. And then I discovered the Videoscribe software which produces the same effect from your vector drawings. That took bit of learning  but once you crack it, it produces great results. The really difficult bit is when you have to time them around voiceovers and background music, These days I use Explaindio which is great for producing “Captain Pugwash” style animations. It’s something I’d like to develop - I managed to incorporate a proper animated walking cycle character into one of my videos and I’ve been wanting to explore the animation capabilities of Procreate and Krita. I’ve also just started with something called Callipeg.

• How does that sort of work compare to your explainer videos? Are they produced in a similar way?

Yes, I use exactly the same software. All that changes is that as well as cartoons, i can incorporate photography, video clips and “serious” illustration.

• This year saw the release of Nettie In Cyberland. Can you tell us what it’s about and how you came to be involved?

About ten years ago I was contacted by a lady who lectures in computer cybersecurity. She was interested in having cartoons done that she could incorporate into her presentations, especially for those she did abroad to non-English speakers. The first batch were well received and she came back for more and over the years has become one of my best and favourite clients. She has written several books in which I wasn’t involved and a few years ago she asked if I would be interested in illustrating a children’s book she had in mind. The main character is a girl called Nettie who falls into her tablet into Cyberland where she meets her robot chum Webby. There are nasty creatures in dark woods and lots of bunnies. It’s targeted at three to five year olds and aims to teach children about the dangers on the internet. It was published earlier in 2020. I’m now working on the second in what’s intended to be a series of fiver.

• Of all the types of cartooning you do, is there one that your particularly enjoy over the others, and if so, why?

Not especially, though I wish I could develop a looser drawing style. I’ve tried to be versatile and developed different styles depending on the job but I can’t seem to crack the loose style of a Matt, or Nige. I’ll keep working on it though.

• What would be your most satisfying cartoon job, and, if there is one, the one you’d rather forget?

Probably the Nettie book. I created all the characters, Did all the drawings and had a hand in smoothing out some of the plot points. I would have laid out and designed the book as well, but the publisher wanted to use their own designer. I think it came out pretty well though. The second one will be better.  

I do cartoon portraits for presentations, but I work on these from photographs in my office and can take my time over them. I decided to have a go at live caricaturing at weddings and corporate events but I found myself getting so wound up and nervous for days before each event and the pressure to produce a recognisable drawing in five minutes got to me, I did a several hundred drawings over the years and had two people refuse them. Guess which are the ones I remember? My hat is off to all live caricaturists and those who do things like visual recordings, I’ll stick to being a backroom boy.

• Any hiccups along the way?”.

Four years ago  I was diagnosed with a liver disease called ascites. The main effect is fluid retention which meant that my stomach swelled up because I wasn’t peeing liquid away efficiently and I ended up having to go into hospital every two weeks to have a needle stuck my side to drain off the liquid. My personal best was 11 litres in one afternoon. The disease also affected my muscles and I was quite literally wasting away. This resulted in having to have a liver transplant two and a half years ago. I was told that if I didn’t have the transplant I wasn’t going to around much longer so you can understand why I’m a big NHS booster.As you might imagine, the days off work  draining and the recovery period after the transplant had a quite serious effect on earning and it’s only recently that we’ve started getting back on trac. Covid 19 hasn’t helped…. I’m about 90% recovered - I have to follow certain rules- no salt, no alcohol, no runny cheese or ice from ice making machines… stuff like that.  But it’s better than the alternative.

Likes/dislikes about the job?

I like it when you pull off just the right combination of drawing and caption or you produce just the right image from a clients verbal description. I like Happy Clients. Happy Clients meant payments.

I dislike the “cartoonophobic snobbery” some people have which means that they won’t even contemplate using a cartoon in a job when that job just screams out for it. Before Lockdown I used to do networking events and, when I introduced myself as a cartoonist, most wanted to hear more but there are other whose eyes suddenly glaze over and they’re immediately looking over your shoulder for someone more interesting to talk to. I also dislike how easy it is for people to pirate your work these days - the “if it’s online, it’s mine!” brigade. I’ve had several cartoons of mine pirated many times and I even discovered a complete web page in Russian featuring my cartoons. Happily I now use a service called PIXSY who chase up pirated works and, better still, get money for you from the pirates!

A favourite cartooning memory?

Forty years ago, as a young whippersnapper, I entered a cartoon in the CCGB “Cartoon of the Year” comp and somehow got into the finalists. I ended up coming down to London to a ceremony in The Savoy and was totally gobsmacked when I won. “Best Unpublished cartoon of the Year 1981” is probably one of the strangest titles ever, but it’s mine, all mine! I still have the award sitting on my desk. Mind you, it’s been all downhill since then…

• Do you have any other creative ambitions for the months and years ahead?

Complete the rest of the “Nettie” series, possibly do some more ambitious animating, On the other hand, next year I will have been involved in graphics in one form or another for fifty years and I keep thinking  it may be time to take things a bit easier. On the other other hand, I may be getting ancient outside, but internally I’m twelve. I hope I have a few years left yet.

Quick Questions

• Last book read

 A Song for the Dark Days by Ian Rankin

• When cartooning, what do you listen to?

  Radio 2 till Steve Wright comes on, then I switch to Scala Radio

• Favourite cartoonist

For funny stuff Bill Watterson or Jim Borgman (ZITZ). For comics Gil Kane and Phil Winslade

• Tea or coffee?

Coffee and lots of it

• Last TV series you enjoyed

Fort Salem

• Favourite movie

The Princess Bride

• Your signature dish

Cheese on toast

• If you were given £50 you had to spend straight away, what would you buy

Split between books, comics and DVDs