- Steve Bell (cartoonist)
Infobox Person
name = Steve Bell
image_size = 200px
caption = At Dundee University
birth_date = birth date and age|df=yes|1951|02|26
birth_place =Walthamstow ,London ,UK
occupation = Political cartoonist, artistSteve Bell (born 26 February 1951) is an English political
cartoonist , whose work appears in "The Guardian " and other publications. He is known for hisleft-wing views and distinctivecaricature s.Early life
Born in
Walthamstow ,London and raised inSlough , Bell moved toNorth Yorkshire with his family in 1968, where he trained as an artist at theTeesside College of Art . He graduated in film-making and art at theUniversity of Leeds in 1974 and trained as an art teacher at [http://www.education.ex.ac.uk/ St Luke's College, Exeter] , (nowadaysUniversity of Exeter -St. Luke's Campus ) in 1975. He taught art for one year inBirmingham before becoming a freelance cartoonist in 1977. Hiscomic strip "Maggie's Farm" appeared in the Londonlistings magazine s "Time Out " from 1979 and later in "City Limits", and "Lord God Almighty" appeared in "The Leveller" in the 1970s. In 1980, he contributed a cartoon interpretation of the lyrics to "Ivan Meets G.I. Joe" to the inner lyric bag ofThe Clash 's triple album "Sandinista! ".Cartoonist
Steve Bell is probably best known for the daily strip called "If...", which has appeared in "The Guardian" newspaper since 1981, and since the mid-1990s he has also been that newspaper's principal editorial cartoonist. One of Bell's most traditional caricatures is of
John Major as a dire superhero wearing hisY-fronts on the outside of his clothes. The Y-front caricature first appeared in a special 2 page cartoon in the Saturday "Guardian Weekend" supplement in early December 1990, a couple of weeks afterJohn Major became Prime Minister. It was clearly inspired by the "Superman" comic, wherein Superman wears sleek red briefs over a blue body stocking. John Major, in the form of a SuperUselessman, bursts out of a telephone kiosk wearing aertex Y-fronts over the top of a grey suit. A number of journalists subsequently claim to have seen John Major's shirt tucked into his underpants, includingAlastair Campbell , the former "Daily Mirror " political editor who becameTony Blair 's chief spin doctor. He claims that he gave Steve Bell the idea. This is entirely untrue as the cartoon appeared before the first rumours about shirts being tucked into underpants ever surfaced. Major has never confirmed or denied that he tucks his shirt into his underpants and naturally refuses to answer questions on the subject. Of the whole question of underpants he is reported as saying, in theAnthony Seldon biography of Major, that: "It is designed to destabilise me so I ignore it." Bell also claims to be the first cartoonist to have spottedMargaret Thatcher 's mad left eye, as well as the fact that Tony Blair shares this unusual feature.Steve Bell has won many awards for his work, including both the political and strip cartoon categories at the
Cartoon Arts Trust awards at least eight times since 1997. Many collections of hiscartoon s have been published, and he has also illustrated original books in collaboration with several authors. He has made short animated films withBob Godfrey , including a short series of animated cartoons forChannel 4 television in 1999 to mark the 20th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's rise to power, entitled "Margaret Thatcher - Where Am I Now?". He has appeared in a radio programme about the life of 18th century caricaturistJames Gillray . Earlier in his career he wrote and drew the "Gremlins" comic strip for the British comic "Jackpot".In 2003, he was listed in "
The Observer " as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. When he received the UK "Press Gazette " award in 2004 for Best Cartoonist, in his speech he thanked "George Bush - for looking like a monkey, walking like a monkey and talking like a monkey".Opinions are divided about the merits of Steve Bell's work. Like most cartoonists he uses running gags, and therefore seems funnier to regular than to occasional readers. But even among "Guardian" aficionados, there was an ongoing Bell vs
Garry Trudeau (and therefore If... vsDoonesbury ) debate, occasionally spilling onto the paper's Letters page, which existed mainly because the twocomic strip s were, for many years, carried by the "Guardian" adjacent to each other. Steve Bell is a great admirer of the Doonesbury strip, not least because the only reason he found work at "The Guardian" was because the then editor,Peter Preston was looking for a home grown strip to run alongside it. The debate was as much about taste as anything else, prompted for example by Bell's typical juxtaposition oftoilet humour with high art. He is fond of parodying famous paintings. Examples include his parody ofGoya 's "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters " (in an [http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1234690,00.html editorial cartoon] about theUK Independence Party );William Hogarth 's "The Gate of Calais " about the ban on UK meat exports following outbreaks offoot-and-mouth disease and bovine BSE; and - before the 2005 General Election when it briefly seemed as if theLiberal Democrats might seriously threaten Labour -J.M.W. Turner 's "The Fighting Temeraire ", in which a chirpyCharles Kennedy astug-boat towed a grotesque and dilapidatedTony Blair to be broken up. Bell is also fond of using thepejorative British word "wanker " and its euphemistic variants in his "If..."comic strip .External links
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/archive/stevebell/ "Guardian" cartoons by Steve Bell]
* [http://www.suchsmallportions.com/pagesfinal/features/stevebell.html The Art of Comedy, an interview with Steve Bell, from suchsmallportions.com]
* [http://www.3ammagazine.com/litarchives/nov2001/bell_and_rowson_interview.html Interview alongside Martin Rowson]
* [http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,1442859,00.html Interviewing Robert Crumb, 2005]
* [http://opal.ukc.ac.uk/cartoonx-cgi/artist.py?id=15 Biography article] at Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature, University of KentPersondata
NAME = Bell, Steve
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = Political cartoonist
DATE OF BIRTH =1951-02-26
PLACE OF BIRTH =Walthamstow ,London
DATE OF DEATH =
PLACE OF DEATH =
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