Oliver Preston has been a cartoonist for more than 25 years, publishing 20 books and helping people enjoy a laugh and a smile with his engaging and well-observed works. As he prepares to return to this summer’s Game Fair after a five-year absence, Trade News caught up with him to find out more…

TGF: How did you start in this business?

Oliver Preston: I am very lucky. The art came from the Swiss side of my family, the humour from my British father. I have always thought that if it was the other way round, I wouldn’t have had much of a career! I drew cartoons at school, studied graphics at A Level and designed play programmes and theatre sets, but I have never been formally taught, so what you see is what you get.

Having been given this gift I was always determined to use it. Doing what you love is a good calling to have and a wonderful way of starting the day in my studio at Tetbury.

TGF: Your work covers all sorts of areas. Where do you draw your inspiration from?

OP: I am very lucky in that I never know what I am doing next, so that I draw caricatures and commissions, work for magazines, illustrations as well as greeting cards and designing our products for Beverston Press, which we will bring to The Game Fair.

I tend to be drawn towards skiing and shooting, and town and country life, and I am working on my 21st book due later this year. I draw jokes about the people I see, observing what Norman Thelwell called: “the enduring lunacy of human behaviour”.

Listening to the quirkiness of people’s conversations, observing their clothing, their mannerisms, their activities, and the strange things they people get up to. I clock lots of things and there is a funny side to everything. Oh dear, have I said too much?

TGF: Is there a particular cartoon strip character that is especially close to your heart? Why?

OP: I drew a whole page cartoon for the Beano and the Dandy for six months when I first started out in the 1990s, creating a character called Marvin Marmite. He had a friend called Tommy Toaster and a cat called ‘Damage’, with a bandage around its tail, and they had many adventures. I was very proud to be drawing for such an illustrious title, and it was fun, great fun.

Since then, I have really enjoyed drawing Your Grace for The Field magazine. Drawing a strip is a little more complicated than a single page cartoon, as the speech bubbles and pictures need to flow, and to get the ‘punchline’of the joke to work.

TGF: Your work with the Cartoon Art Trust and the Cartoon Museum in London is well known. It must have been a blow to lose HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, who was a patron?

OP: Yes, the Duke of Edinburgh loved cartoons and was particularly fond of Giles and Matt. He was enormously supportive to us, opening Britain’s first Cartoon Museum in 2006 in Bloomsbury, and he opened our exhibition on the Kings and Queens in cartoons, as well as supporting our move to Wells Street in Fitzrovia in 2019.

I remember taking him round and showing him the permanent collection in 2006, and he showed a particular interest in Sir David Low’s WW2 cartoons, as well as the greats – H M Bateman, Rowlandson, Gillray, Searle and all our Heath Robinsons.

Of course, he had a great sense of humour and loved a good joke. But he also understood the importance of cartoons and caricature as records of what people thought of their Kings and Queens, their Prime Ministers and politicians and celebrities throughout history. It’s a very British genre of art and we’re very good at it. He was a perfect match for us as patron and we will miss his generous support.

TGF: What can visitors to The Game Fair see from you this year?

OP: We have not been at The Game Fair since 2017 so there are lots of new cartoons – birthday calendars, new puzzles, tea towels, new greeting cards, books and many, many new prints from Country Life magazine and some favourites from The Field. We are so looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones!

TGF: What do you most enjoy about The Game Fair?

OP: I most enjoy seeing the people, the buzz of the event, the dogs, the smiles, the banter, visiting the shops, seeing old friends and the feel of the show. We always take our children, so it is a family affair and, of course, as a cartoonist I love the social observation of the people, the characters and the enjoyment of all things countryside.

www.oliverpreston.com