Patrick Blower

Soon after university, he spent time in the US, developing his painting and travelling across the country, drawing his experience. His first published commission appeared in the East Village Eye. He returned to Britain and began freelancing as an illustrator after joining the government's Enterprise Allowance Scheme. His work has appeared in most British newspapers and magazines including The Times, Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday, The Guardian, Daily Express, Private Eye and The Spectator. Blower succeeded JAK as the Evening Standard editorial cartoonist in 1997, remaining there until 2003. Shortly afterwards, he conceived a time-lapse animation technique named Livedraw and went on to produce regular animated cartoons for BBC Newsnight and the BBC 10 O'Clock News in addition to drawing weekly animated political cartoons for The Guardian from 2009-2011. He was filmed by the BBC in 2019 as he drew and talked about the process of conceiving a cartoon to a tight deadline. He co-produced the animation How Pandemics Spread for the launch of TED Ed and also created the drawings for an animation which was at the centre of an award-winning exhibition commemorating the centenary of The Spanish Flu for the Florence Nightingale Museum. In 2017, he became a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and succeeded as chief political cartoonist in 2021. In 2021 he won the Political Cartoon Society’s Strube Spoon for runner-up political cartoonist of the year and in 2023, the Award for Political Cartoonist of the Year.