Cartoon Archive Rapid Digitisation (CARD)

Last year The British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent's Templeman Library undertook a JISC-funded rapid digitisation project (CARD) which included not just cuttings of cartoons but also the notorious saucy seaside postcards by Donald McGill, from the Director of Public Prosecution's Archive. There is a CARD blog by Nicholas Hiley, Head of the British Cartoon Archive.

There are 389 postcards (excluding the DPP cards) on the BCA site by Arnold Taylor, Douglas Tempest, David Low, Giles, etc. as well as Donald McGill, and by publishers D. Constance Ltd, Bamforth and Co, Evening Standard, Daily Express, and Daily Mirror.  Many of the 1,324 prosecution cards (for cards by various artists) are in copyright and therefore have no image files but the 254 for McGill are online.  There is an index to the abbreviations used by the DPP.

The BCA catalogue also has 895 entries for poster (published in newspapers) and 1,568 for advertisement, mostly newspaper cartoons satirising advertising. The Advanced search includes a drop-down menu for searches by format: there are 265 menus (covers and artwork), 163 Christmas cards, for example. A fascinating insight into another ephemeral view of the world.

(C) British Cartoon Archive, Templeman Library, University of Kent