Lo! a ripe sheaf of many golden days
Gleaned by the year in autumn’s harvest ways,
With here and there, blood-tinted as an ember,
Some crimson poppy of a late delight
Atoning in its splendor for the flight
Of summer blooms and joys
This is September.
– Lucy Maud Montgomery
Hello and welcome dear reader to my roundup of cartoons, caricatures, and culture that intersected with me neurons this month. Once again let me assure you this is a good read as it features that most important element missing from most internet,
AN END.
This was September.
[Housekeeping note: I’ve collected all the links at the bottom of the newsletter this month for a smoother read.]
Weddings:
September was crazy! 8 weddings and 1 convention over the course of what is normally a period where things start to quiten down! I was in Springfort Hall in Mallow for the first time in about 20 years, The Village Barn Tyrellspass twice, County Arms Hotel Birr, Newbay House Wexford, Kenmare Bay Hotel Wexford, The Slieve Russell Hotel Cavan, and Ballykealey House Carlow for the first time, and I’m back there again in October! I had a lovely stay in Treacys Hotel Waterford, €98 B&B on a Friday night in a delightfully quirky, old and characterful hotel in the city centre.
I managed to put together a gallery of a wedding in Mount Juliet during the summer, which you can check out below! (Wait wait read the rest of the newsletter before you go after the links!)
Live Music: Denise Chaila and Band in the Roisin Dubh
Denise Chaila is back after a too-long haitus and has put together an intimate and emotional show that was one of the best gigs I’ve seen in a long time. I met a friend on the stairs afterwards and we just smiled, shook our heads and said wow to each other, and left it at that. Very welcome back Denise.
Touring next year is Saul Williams who’s coming to Dublin’s Sugar Club in March, I HIGHLY recommend you catch this powerful poet, singer, and human rights activist. Currently on tour is Amano, who’s another wonder of the conjuring of the note and the word and should be seen if possible. (Links to both artists below, wait wait wait until you’re down there anyway!)
Caricature Commissions:
Wedding season is running late this year (believe me I am FINE with this!) so I only posted two pieces on the site this month, a wedding gift and a retirement gift. The wedding gift was the first piece I drew with my new textured screen protector and it made my iPad feel like paper, I still remember the thrill! The retirement piece was commissioned by Supervalu for one of their retailers who was retiring in Cork. They simply wanted them standing in front of their shop and I was quite happy with how that turned out.
Fighting Generative AI: This Time It’s The Arts Council?
A preface:
The first time I saw Holbein’s The Ambassadors my legs went from under me and I had to sit down. I knew every inch of this painting from textbook reproductions but that did not prepare me for the experience of standing in front of a masterpiece. I’m recounting this here to frame my vocal and probably at this stage annoying antipathy to the subject discussed below. Here’s the important bit:
Art reminds us of the power of the human will.
Looking at art reminds us of our own potential.
This is what is deliberately being put in danger.
So September was another busy month down’t’ degenerative AI mines. The Arts Council, Culture Night, Galway City Council Arts Office, and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, have funded and promoted generative AI in this year’s Culture Night Galway programme, specifically 8 Bits of Galway under the name Serhii Khadzhava. I’ve written complaints to all the above parties and received boilerplate replies from Arts Council and Culture Night. The gist of my complaint is as follows:
Culture Night is tacitly endorsing the destruction of artists’ livelihoods by promoting generative AI. The only art involved in this is the work of genuine artists that has been consumed and regurgitated by data sets created by immense companies for whom copyright law simply doesn’t exist. Culture Night is giving full-throated support to the theft of artistic works that are then returned in plagiarised, statistically generated approximations of images.
Many of my peers are now closing down their creative practices because of the desolation generative AI has created in the market of images. To see a state body not only promote, but FUND this process, is official dissonance of the highest order.
This event should be withdrawn from the programme and safeguards put in place so similar “projects” derived from the literal endings of creative careers do not pass the printing press again.
You can read the very standard replies I got in the post linked at the end.
Meanwhile in Longford artist Trea Ivory had one of her original works replaced with generative AI in the official Culture Night programme assembled by Longford County Council. The crude facsimile that was presented as her work was an abhorrent mess and had been censored of political content (a figure in the original piece is holding a protest sign about the housing crisis). Trea was given all sorts of excuses but in my opinion she never received the truth about what happened. Trea eventually decided to withdraw from exhibition for Culture Night. This is the tangible harm that the use of degenerative AI slop by state bodies is having. The takeaway is increasingly that art is a great marketing tool but artists are expendable. Trea has the entire thing catalogued in her Instagram stories. Solidarity Trea.
Film: The Odyssey
This is one of those Christopher Nolan films that I had to appreciate on craft alone as I just was not engaged with the characters, but that’s still a remarkable film experience. In a broad sense it’s about the consequences of your own actions. In a more specific sense it’s the indelibility of an atrocity that transforms the very society you were part of. Thematically it reminded me greatly of The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. I suppose there is an allegorical reading of a society (🇺🇸) that completely collapses (🇺🇸) through abandoning norms of charity (🇺🇸) and conventions of battle(🇺🇸). It’s a little too earnest though, with the almost parodic film baddie Darth Agamemnon swooping about to comic effect. You cannot watch a group of men in period costume running away from monsters without reflexively laughing if you’ve grown up watching Monty Python’s Holy Grail. The Cyclops, the Laestrygonians, and the Circe scenes are impressively executed but the film is leg-crampingly long. It’s so long in fact that when it shows the fellas inside the Trojan horse you’ll know exactly how they feel. My son took a little break and went to watch the Oasis film for a while.
Galway City Council’s New Logo
I knew Galway City Council‘s new logo (starting at just €28k!) reminded me of something, it totally looks like Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc., but it’s probably reminding all these companies of something a lot more:
There’s a petition to keep the existing Galway City Council logo in place, and I’ve linked it below.
Cartoons:
Gavin Bazunu has more backbone than the entire FAI and UEFA put together.
If you saw the Israeli fan chant you’ll know how bloody prescient this cartoon was.
Ed Sheeran doesn’t take sides, and definitely not the side of his stadium-owning, Epstein-file-mentioned, Zionist mate whose wedding he got paid to play at. What’s that? Staying neutral during a genocide is taking sides? If only someone had told Ed, who chose instead to read from a teleprompter that teleprompted him to make it all about him. Dig up Edward!
It was Batman Day on the 19th.
It’s an allegory ok?
Phil Tippett selling off prized props and memorabilia
This one made me sad. Legendary visual effects and animation artist Phil Tippett is selling off memorabilia and props from some of the most iconic movies in history, including the original Star Wars trilogy, Jurassic Park, and RoboCop.
‘Tippett said that he’s “keeping the Oscars” he deservedly won for his work on Return Of The Jedi and Jurassic Park,” but as years of work is sold off, he added that he’s “made a lot of painful decisions.”’
U. of Chicago Bans Tech, AI in Social Sciences Core Courses
You love to see it: “The University of Chicago’s undergraduate social-sciences division will go “analog” this fall, implementing a blanket policy banning technology in class and AI assistance on coursework across the division’s core courses.”
Names That Suit Jobs:
Floods Water Solutions:
“Our original company Johnny Flood Water Pumps was founded by Johnny in the 90s, after working with his uncle in the water industry for several years.”
Floods Water Solutions, founded by Johnny Flood also has Briain Flood, Fiona Flood, and Patsy Flood O’Connor!
And Finally: Trump Caricature Ripped Down And Seized By Police in Italy
Caricatures are especially potent when you have a political class with atom-thin skin. ‘Rome, Italy – May 30, 2026 Police ripped down and seized a satirical caricature of U.S. President Donald Trump during an Extinction Rebellion protest before an activist was later reported under Italy’s Article 290 for insulting the Republic and Government.’
[Did you enjoy this? Did you read it to the end? Do you have feedback? I’d love to hear from you! Drop me a line!]
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I’m Allan Cavanagh and I have been professionally producing caricatures and cartoon art for over 20 years.
Links:
Petition to Keep the Galway City Council G
@denisechaila
Saul Williams Sugar Club Tickets
https://amanoanseo.com/music/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_(Holbein)
Longford artist Trea Ivory
Phil Tippett selling off prized props and memorabilia
https://www.floodswatersolutions.ie/
https://www.chronicle.com/article/u-of-chicagos-social-sciences-division-bans-tech-ai-in-core-courses
Trump Caricature Ripped Down And Seized By Police in Italy