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201509Aug21:12

No kid­ding, RZSS appoints a Car­toon­ist in Residence

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 09 August 2015 | mod­i­fied 09 August 2015
Archived

The Royal Zoo­log­i­cal Soci­ety of Scot­land (RZSS) has appointed Dr Cameron McPhail and his Kar­toon Fak­tory as RZSS Car­toon­ists in Res­i­dence. Humour as an instru­ment to raise aware­ness about RZSS’ mis­sion on nature conservation.

Dr McPhail is a for­mer banker turned writer and car­toon­ist. After stints in acad­e­mia and Scot­tish Enter­prise, he joined the Royal Bank of Scot­land and rose to be Chief Exec­u­tive of Wealth Man­age­ment, before leav­ing to pur­sue a career in writ­ing and car­toon­ing. He and his tal­ented team at the Kar­toon Fak­tory (based in Jer­sey) cre­ate unique car­toons and mem­o­ra­bilia based on polit­i­cal and social satire.

Cartoonists in Residence at RZSS

Humour is a bril­liant avenue to bring top­i­cal issues to people’s atten­tion, and to piqué their curios­ity about con­ser­va­tion mat­ters we care deeply about
Kathy Sor­ley, RZSS Thinker in Res­i­dence and Man­ager of the RZSS Res­i­dency Programme »

The RZSS Res­i­dency Pro­gramme allows col­lab­o­ra­tion with a num­ber of experts in their fields, enabling RZSS to engage with many dif­fer­ent audi­ences about the con­ser­va­tion work we under­take at home in Scot­land and else­where around the globe,” said Kathy Sor­ley. “To date over a dozen Res­i­dents have been appointed, includ­ing a Sculp­tor, Bee­keeper, Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­en­tist, Sto­ry­teller, Sil­ver­smith, Wildlife Artist, Nature Pho­tog­ra­pher, Palaeon­tol­o­gist, Adventurer/​Explorer and an Organic Chef.”

Humour is a bril­liant avenue to bring top­i­cal issues to people’s atten­tion, and to piqué their curios­ity about con­ser­va­tion mat­ters we care deeply about through clever use of wry and insight­ful car­toons, which Dr McPhail cre­ates in abun­dance. We are delighted he and his illus­tra­tion team at the Kar­toon Fak­tory have agreed to become our RZSS Car­toon­ists in Residence.”

The first two car­toons in a unique series for the con­ser­va­tion char­ity, one cel­e­brates the lat­est batch of meerkat pups at RZSS Edin­burgh Zoo’s Meerkat Plaza, whilst the sec­ond fea­tures Dr McPhail and illus­tra­tor Oli Nightin­gale get­ting an authen­tic ‘behind the scenes’ look at life in the Zoo.

Cartoonists in Residence drawing meerkat

Upon receiv­ing his appoint­ment Dr McPhail com­mented, “This is a won­der­ful time to be asso­ci­ated with RZSS Edin­burgh Zoo and RZSS High­land Wildlife Park, and given the wealth of sub­ject mate­r­ial we are bound to have a lot of fun dur­ing our Residency.”

The Car­toon­ist in Res­i­dence allows the pro­mo­tion of the Royal Zoo­log­i­cal Soci­ety of Scot­land through humour and illus­tra­tion, and will help to raise aware­ness of the mis­sion of RZSS to con­nect peo­ple with nature and safe­guard species from extinc­tion. In the future it is hoped that RZSS will offer vis­i­tors the chance to watch the Kar­toon Fak­tory at work both at RZSS Edin­burgh Zoo and RZSS High­land Wildlife Park and that ulti­mately signed, lim­ited edi­tion prints will be devel­oped for our shops. Long term goals also include car­toon books based on the ani­mals at both vis­i­tor attrac­tions, speeded-​up footage of illus­tra­tions being cre­ated at both parks, and pos­si­bly even RZSS’s own car­toon strip!


(Source: RZSS press release, 09.08.2015)


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