Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Ian Hislop, jon stewart, private eye

Jon Stewart Came To London To Talk To Private Eye's Ian Hislop

Jon Stewart has come to town this week, and he was here to see Ian Hislop, EIC of Private Eye Magazine, to talk politics and populism.

He nipped in and out of Heathrow without a selfie. Jumped on the Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road with a full film crew, no one batting an eyelid. Leaving via the Dean Street exit, popped into the Private Eye offices of Soho Square for a mutual backslapping moment. Jon Stewart was in town and he was here to see Ian Hislop.

Private Eye Magazine, for those not in the know, is a satirical magazine of cartoons and commentary, that has been running since it was founded by Peter Cook in the sixties. Working for Private Eye since he was a teenager, Ian Hislop was made editor-in-chief of the magazine in 1986 at the ridiculously young age of 25, a position he has held since, switching the magazine away from"society" gossip and towards the political. Reputedly the most sued man in English legal history, and in recent years has led Private Eye to be the most popular political magazine in the country, increasing sales against a market in which they are declining. He is also known for being one of the stars of Have I Got News For You, the BBC political satirical TV panel show that has been running for 33 years and has appeared in every episode. He has also bought one or two of my cartoons over the decades. There you go, interests admitted to.

Clearly a fan of each other's work, they discuss their respective country's attitudes to politics, personalities, lockdowns and general social swings, and Jon Stewart manages to avoid doing his impersonation of the late Queen. This is the kind of thing we would normally expect to be done over Zoom, but for Jon to make the trip over made it all rather special. It's a rather fun watch/listen, available on Apple TV as The Problem With Jon Stewart but also made available for free on YouTube and on podcast, embeds below. And it reminds me, I really should try and sell some more cartoons to Ian Hislop, now that I know that Jon Stewart will likely be reading them too.

Private Eye is somewhere between MAD Magazine and Charlie Hebdo, but it ploughs its own furrow and gets into the weeds in a savagely satirical way of oft-ignored subjects, and you can also see its strong influence on John Oliver. From the current issue, here's a look at British power station issues, plagiarism accusations in academia, and corruption allegations against the London council of Croydon. Recent issues also looked at the relationship between British media and Ghilaine Maxwell, those financially backing a suspended MP, current libel cases from a Tory donor, environmental concerns of freeports, and the utterly essential covid column from a working GP known as MD. And yes, they do cartoons too.

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