Galway Cartoon Festival Interview: Martyn Turner

This month Galway Cartoon Festival talks to cartoonist Martyn Turner

Name: Martyn Turner

Where are you from? Born in Essex. Family cockney for generations except an outlier great grandfather who was an Irish traveller called Johnny Cash (I’m not making it up).

When did you become interested in drawing cartoons? when i was knee high to a grasshopper.

Who are your big influences? Trog, Emmwood, Ronald Searle.

Where were you first published? Primary school I wrote edited and illustrated a magazine. Ditto secondary school. Ditto university. Ditto post graduation.

What’s your favourite cartoon (single panel or strip)? Aongus Collins’ cartoon of Dick Spring at the “Lost’ desk: ”Excuse me, have you seen the run of myself?” I think it should be permanently stuck on every wall in the Dáil.

What materials do you use? Pentel fude brush pens, Bristol board, carpenters pencils and Clip Studio Paint on the computer for colouring.

On a scale from 1-10, where 1 is the thing you hang wet clothes on and 10 is the thing Gandalf rode in on, how are you at drawing horses? 2 and a half.

Did you scribble in the margins of your books in school? Yes and on everyone else’s too…

Do you have any advice for aspiring cartoonists? Don’t let the buggers wear you down.

Where can we find you online? Irish times opinion pages and twitter @turnercartoons

[You can see archived interviews here. We hope to host a monthly interview with cartoonists around the world, both established and up-and-coming. If you’d like to feature please get in touch.]

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

The Galway Cartoon Festival is 4 this year. Despite the pandemic we are still planning to host a physical exhibition.
Our ability to fund-raise has been severely curtailed.

If you’ve ever enjoyed an editorial cartoon please bung us a fiver.
https://fundit.ie/project/galway-cartoon-festival-2020