Lunch with Artist Kerry Waghorn

I had the pleasure of having lunch today with my friend Gary Bannerman, with whom I've worked for a number of years now on all manner of business, web and internet projects. With Gary, and the reason for lunch, was artist Kerry Waghorn. Kerry's brand new web site has been created by my brother-in-law, Doug Cook, and has just recently been launched. We were together to discuss some of the marketing methods and for me to meet Kerry at long last after hearing of him over the past 4 years while Gary and Don Nixdorf created their Kerry Waghorn illustrated book, Squandering Billions, on the state of health care in Canada.

"Why does this fact rate a blog entry?" you might ask. Read on for the answer...
Well, other than the fact that some sort of a reason to point a link to his site is better than just astro-turfing the web to get traffic to it, the fact is that Kerry's art is probably already familiar to you from your local newspaper - and if it isn't then it should be.


Certainly the subjects of his caricatures are ones you have heard of - Mick Jagger, Hillary Clinton, Paul Newman, President Bill Clinton, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Julia Roberts, Clint Eastwood and over 9000 other actors, entertainers, politicians, directors, business people, sports people, eccentrics and otherwise notorious people who have graced our lives over the past decades.

Kerry is an engaging character himself, and over the more than two hour lunch meeting we discussed all manner of ideas for the follow-on to his new site, but more than anything I enjoyed meeting the man who has brought such life to so many people I have come to know through the news, magazines and now the web.

So far there are over 200 of his drawings on the site - and most of the over 9000 will be there over the next while. Kerry is offering collector's originals, signed copies, prints and other items with these wonderful caricatures on them.

For an insight into Kerry's background I recommend visiting his wonderful memorium page to San Francisco Chronicle's late Features Editor, G. Stanleigh Arnold who, along with helping Kerry, also helped such notable artists as Charles Schulz and Gary Larson (The Far Side).