Olympic Cartoons

There's an entertaining and topical new exhibition at the Museum, in the upstairs exhibition room. It's a selection of Olympic-themed cartoons from the past few decades, provided by the British Cartoon Archive. It's an interesting slice through history - do pop in for a peep.

The director of the BCA, Nicholas Hiley, came along to the opening to give us some background about the cartoons and tell us about the BCA.

The British Cartoon Archive is located in Canterbury at the University of Kent’s Templeman Library. It has a library, archive, and exhibition gallery, and is dedicated to the history of British cartooning over the last two hundred years. They hold the artwork for more than 150,000 British editorial, socio-political, and pocket cartoons, supported by large collections of comic strips, newspaper cuttings, books and magazines.

The sheer quantity of material they have is amazing - for example, the Giles archive arrived in TWO removal lorries! They're busily digitising their collection, which means that you can find tens of thousands of cartoons online on their website - have a look, but be warned: it's very diverting!