NEVILLE ASTLEY NICK NEWMAN NICOLA JENNINGS

NEVILLE ASTLEY

Neville Astley is an Animator and Filmmaker. He is the co-creator (with Mark Baker) of Peppa Pig, Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom and The Big Knights. Neville studied a BA (hons) in Graphics at Middlesex Polytechnic 1981–1985. He created the short animated films The Jump (1981, co-director Jeff Newitt), Living in a Mobile Home (1985) and Trainspotter (1989, co-director Jeff Newitt) and was a freelance TV commercial animator for various Soho animation studios 1983–1994. In 1994, Neville formed the animation studio Astley Baker with Mark Baker, and they created the BBC2 TV series The Big Knights. In 2002 they formed Astley Baker Davies with Phil Davies, and together created the TV series Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom. In 2021, Neville produced his cartoon lockdown diary “Now is not the time for Sossidges”. In 2022, Neville created the photographic exhibition and book “PUNK-YORK-77”.

I’ve been sporadically scribbling cartoons of daily life over the last 30 years, mainly in-jokes and events that would mean little to anyone who wasn’t there. Then came LOCKDOWN and we were all trapped in the same bubble, trying to make sense of the shifting guidelines and the daily nonsense spouted by Boris, Hat Mancock and their chums…At the time I had no intention of exhibiting the cartoons or making them into a book, it was just a way to keep sane and reach out to anyone beyond our front door.” – Neville Astley

NICOLA

JENNINGS

Nicola Jennings originally trained as a theatre designer and started her career designing for opera. She began caricaturing for the London Daily News in 1987, went on to work for the Daily Mirror and the Observer, and then has been cartooning for The Guardian since 1991. She has also produced animated cartoons for Channel 4’s A Week in Politics and drawn live on BBC2’s Midnight Hour. She became Chair of the British Cartoonists’ Association in August 2022.

Boris was revolting to draw; fat, deceitful and narcissistic. I am permanently psychologically damaged from having to spend so many hours looking at him. When I caricature someone I try to imagine what it is like to be in their head, I impersonate them in order to work out how they use their face and what expressions to capture and then I exaggerate them in order to ridicule them. Boris’ hair was his logo (and self caricature) which couldn’t be ignored.” – Nicola Jennings

NICK NEWMAN

Nick Newman has been a pocket cartoonist at the Sunday Times since 1989, contributes regularly to The Spectator and is one of Private Eye’s chief writers. He also writes for radio, TV and the stage - his latest play SPIKE is on tour until the end of November.

For all topical cartoonists, Boris Johnson was the gift that kept on giving. Easy to draw, mired in scandal and hopelessly incompetent - for which, thanks as a satirist, not so much as a citizen.” – Nick Newman