From the Marsden Archive:
Apparently he is hiding out, heavily armed, in dubious underground pubs all over the world, while playing a deadly cat and mouse game with an equally armed-to-the-teeth Rudolph….
Black and white pen and ink cartoon, comic, graphic novel illustration by Ian Marsden
What does Santa do for the rest of the year?From the Marsden Archive:
This golf cartoon was originally in color, this is the only reproduction I still have.
It was created using a pen and ink and gouache on D’Arches watercolor paper.
It depicts a bunch of highly distrustful birds who have ganged up on a poor golfer somewhere in Scotland. Their suspicion seems to be that it is not a golf ball at all but rather an egg he might be playing with.
It was published in the Swiss Nebelspalter magazine in 1991 and was exhibited at the
4th International Cartoon Biennale in Davos, Switzerland
(22. July – 22. August 1992 Kongresszentrum Davos)
The original was purchased at the Cartoon Biennale Davos by well-known Swiss media personality, actor, comedian, writer, producer Hansjörg Bahl and is in his personal collection.
Golf Cartoon by Ian Marsden – International Cartoon Biennale Davos 1992…with several dogs waiting patiently below….
This is a black and white pen and ink cartoon I drew for my own personal Holiday greeting card. (Ca. 1995)
Cartoon artwork © Copyright 1995 Ian D. Marsden
A cat up the Christmas tree – Cartoon by Ian MarsdenFrom the Marsden Archives:
This is a cartoon commissioned by Urs Kneubühl for Mövenpickles Magazine, the internal publication for the Mövenpick corporation.
Urs Kneubühl was a wonderful person to work for and I would like to count him to my personal friends.
The concept was to have a party with 50 scoops of the fantastic Mövenpick ice-cream flavors. The seagull on top of the mound if ice-cream stems from the fact that ‘Möve’ means seagull in German.
I used a sketch of my own daughter Joanna for the little baby – she was 1 year old right around the time I drew this cartoon.
Pen and Ink on Paper – colored with aquarell watercolors and colored pencils.
Cartoon from 1998 – 50 Years Mövenpick by Ian MarsdenIn 1997 when I lived in Barbados, West Indies I was asked by my very good friend John Flann, who was (among other things) the owner of ‘Da Ark’ floating bar in the center of Bridgetown, to design the logo mascot and labels for his new product, Whistling Frog Barbados Rum.
The concept was very clever, and the bottle cap even had a frog shaped whistle built in. The labels were very nicely executed also with a blue metallic rim and embossed 3D ‘warts’ and bumps on the actual frog.
I later also designed the website for the product, the JuJu Lounge.
Unfortunately John passed away at a very untimely age and the product stopped production shortly after it had even launched.
The artwork was designed, inked and colored by hand on paper – this was just around the time when I started to use digital graphics.
This is an ‘old’ cartoon (from around 1991 or so I would guess), when I had definitely not quite found my own style yet.
This was intended for Playboy Magazine, and as one can see in this example, I was trying way too hard to make it look like the already existing cartoon art in the magazine, and failing in my opinion.
(The original artwork for this, is in the collection of the Karikatur & Cartoon Museum Basel, Switzerland)
The back story: I am a huge fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories and have been since early adolescence.
In the early nineties my girlfriend at the time always suggested that the two bachelors living together at 221 B Baker street were obviously a gay couple. I strongly disagreed (Not that there’s anything wrong with that) – and hence this is my rebuttal I came up with. It never got selected nor published (and I am quite happy about this actually, looking at it now).
A back story regarding Playboy cartoons: Many years later, as my work started to show a more identifyable style I started submitting cartoons to Playboy again. This time I received a very positive reaction from Michelle Urry, the cartoon editor at Playboy, who is a marvellous, classy lady who I am very honored to have met. (I read with sadness in 2006 that she had unfortunately passed away)
We corresponded for quite a while and I even had a meeting with Mrs. Urry at the Playboy HQ in New York, which struck me as a very ‘Austin Powers’ kind of place – just as I had hoped and imagined. In the end Mr. Hefner himself gave the thumbs down on my cartoons being published in the magazine. I was somewhat upset certainly, especially because Mrs. Urry was endorsing my addition to the list of Playboy cartoonists, but such is life.
Among Mad Magazine and the New Yorker, Playboy was definitely on my top 3 list of places where I always dreamed of publishing my drawings. Since the last negative reply seemed somewhat final, I haven’t submitted anything anymore since then.
(Cartoon von Ian D. Marsden: Das Original ist im Besitz des Karikaturen & Cartoon Museum Basel, Schweiz)
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were not gay after all….(Karikatur & Cartoon Museum Basel)I hope you have a marvellous Holiday Season, see lots of loved-ones, experience many surprises, recive and give tons of lovely gifts and may 2008 be a fantastic year for all of you!
It was my great pleasure to draw a cartoon Holiday Card for the local Mairie this year. Although it doesn’t really snow very frequently in the south of France, I used some wishful thinking to give Santa Claus and Rudolph something soft to land on.
As the region produces some really fantastic wines (if you have not yet tried a Languedoc-Roussillon rosé or red you are in for a treat!) it seemed only fitting that Santa would find a nice bottle left for him by the local people.
The drawing itself is a pen and ink drawing on paper which I later colorized in Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Corel Painter 9.5
J’ai eu le grand plaisir et honneur de dessiner la carte de voeux 2007 pour la mairie de Vacqières (Hérault, Languedoc-Roussillon)
Cartoon Holiday Christmas Card – Santa Claus and Rudolph in the South of FranceI started work on this quite a while ago – but now I am zipping along nicely and hope to complete it within a reasonable timeframe.
I don’t have a publisher yet, but I will deal with that when the time comes. For me it is equally important to finally finish this sucker, so I can move on to the next few graphic novels which are all ready to go as well.
As you can see I went a little nuts with the detail on this one, however this is something I like doing in any case – so I am having fun. I think the dark ‘Film Noir’ touch is coming together quite nicely.
“I realize you have a policy about not allowing dogs into your cinema,
but I can assure you: Bartholomew is not a DOG!”
