The Cartoon Festival at St Just-le-Martel

St. Just-le-Martel – 28 Glorious Years!

St Just Cartoon Festival banner from 2008

Crowds at St Just Cartoon Festival

CARTOONS, CARICATURES AND cartooning have yet to be elevated to the status of ‘artform’ by the Arts Council in the UK. And perhaps this is a national attitude reflected in the difficulty of establishing a regular celebratory festival of the art (I’m going to use the term just to spite them) in this country. The few that have surfaced in recent decades have been lucky if they ran for more than five years and at all times all struggled against huge budgetary constraints due to inadequate sponsorship.

By contrast, the artform (there – I said it again) has been celebrated with numerous festivals, large and small, throughout Europe with an astonishing conglomeration hosted by our nearest neighbour, France. Unfortunately many of these have fallen by the wayside too, with St Estève and Louviers now committed to the great Festival in the Sky. Louviers ran for 11 years virtually on a shoestring and yet managed to conjure up the ‘festival’ atmosphere so essential to differentiate these events from mere ‘exhibitions’ or ‘conventions’.

UK Cartoons on display at St Just Cartoon Festival

But the Grandaddy of them all, it seems, is the unstoppable festival at St Just-le-Martel which celebrated its 28th year this year. This needs repeating: Twenty-Eight! I had barely stepped out of the ranks of the employed to attempt to become a full-time cartoonist when it started. I had heard it mentioned in hushed tones by several veteran cartoonists at the Cartoonists Club of Great Britain and since becoming a sort of veteran myself, at Louviers, had always been curious to sample its delights. And I wasn’t totally disappointed.

Once in Limoges, via a free train service from Paris, we were efficiently herded onto a coach for the fifteen minute drive to St Just-le-Martel. The town seems to be a mixture of cattle farmland and commuter-belt homes for workers in Limoges.

The local football club was half taken over by huge marquees for both the capacious dining area and the festival exhibitions and activities. With over 125 cartoonists attending, many with partners, plus the local families giving them living accommodation over the weekends, the throng inside the hospitality tent was throbbing vibrantly.

Once we were found by our respective host families we settled down to dinner: a sumptuous carnivourous feast of huge steaks with rural salads, bread and wine.

The Dining Hall at St Just Cartoon Festival

But down to the business of the cartoon festival.

There were numerous exhibitions on a panoply of themes with special guest slots from a deputation from Korea, Egyptian illustrator Baghory, Dutch cartoonist Willem and the New Yorker’s New Yorker, Liza Donnelly. Countries represented included all of Europe plus Argentina, Lebanon and Serbia. The quality was extremely high with no exhibits eliciting the ‘What’s that doing here?’ response. This was quite exciting because it means that despite free-for-all nature of the application process, that the art of cartooning is taken very seriously by its practitioners around the world. Which can only be good news for cartooning.

Entertainment was on offer from a variety of booked jazz, oompah and novelty bands, the wine and beer flowed freely all day long. The public were slow to show on Saturday but positively streamed in on the Sunday. This is the same as at Louviers where Sunday was always the busiest day. The cartoonists who chose to do so were kept busy in the main public area, drawing the public or simply demonstrating their craft. And there were prize givings.

There were no workshops for the public as far as I was aware but there were panel discussions on the main stage on both days, with a prominent ‘cartoon of the day’ by Willem.

A symbolic beginning of a wall was erected to signify the start of building a permanent museum and home to the festival and on Sunday morning we were invited into the home of the local Pastor for aperitifs.

We were given an aperitif in Pastor's House on Sunday

The Brits present were John Landers, Alex Noel Watson and myself with Jock and Trish Williams making an appearance on both afternoons. Fellow Brit Clive Collins made the journey the previous weekend and left his mark with a stunning selection of cartoons on display. Dutch FECO president, Jean Gouders and his wife Liliane introduced us to the guitar and harmonica playing Dutchman, Martin Reekers who is well on the way to establishing a cartoon festival in his home town of Rotterdam.

Old friends reunited included Robert Rousso, Gab, Fidel Castro (the brother of Daniel Chabouis, organizer of Louviers), Batti from Corsica, Philippe Moines, Genny, Luis Vuitton, Ric et Rac (crazy name, crazy guy) and the ever charismatic Maurice Zabuski. New friends included Dutchman Nol and Kiki the vegetarian.

Simon Ellinas with Robert Rousso at the St Just Cartoon Festival

The festival lacks a souvenir catalogue which would have been a great collection over the last 28 years for regular visitors and also serves as a great way to engage the public. The fact that the cartoonists are dispersed over a large area at night does rather bring a damper on proceedings. Many cartoonists were driven away at 10.30pm! If they had all been staying in the same hotel, as in Louviers and Shrewsbury, the festival atmosphere and camaraderie would have been heightened. The trick of using local families does help to attract public to the event, but the fact that the houses are a minimum of 12 kilometres away shattered my vision of being given a front door key and being allowed to come and go as I pleased. Having said this, I was overwhelmed by the hospitality I received.

The house where I stayed at The St Just Cartoon Festival

This, of course, is a minor gripe in the face of a cartoon festival which has thrived and continued to grow for twenty-eight years. All of us who entertain thoughts of mounting similar events must surely pay attention to this tried and tested formula and see if it can be adapted to our plans.

I was honoured to be allowed to attend and look forward to next year if the preceding opinion has not blotted my copybook!