Tom Gauld

@tomgauld

Cartoonist and Illustrator. My book of science cartoons, PHYSICS FOR CATS, is available now!

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Tom Gauld@tomgauld· 28d

Some hot book sketchbook doodles...

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· 29d

My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com Many more here: www.theguardian.com/profile/tom-gauld

Title (in a yellow star): "Offers at our Bookshop"

Panel 1: Buy two, get one free
A figure approaches the till with three books

Panel 2: Buy four, get a free tote bag
The cashier holds up a tote.

Panel 3: Buy one, get talking to staff, leave with five
Customer leaved happily, carrying a full tote and waving to tthe wo staff

Panel 4: Buy none, get a guilty feeling
Customer skulks out of the shop

Panel 5: Buy three as gifts, get the urge to keep them
Customer walking home already reading the books

Panel 6. Get overexcited, buy twelve...Get home, get eye-roll from partner
Customer arrives home reading a book and carrying two full totes.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jul 12

My latest @newscientist.com cartoon

Title: My confidence in my understanding of the scientific theory.

A diagram where the confidence is marked in red on an otherwise white figure

Panel 1
"Before I got a book about it."
The figure is red up to about his stomach

Panel 2
"While I was reading the book."
The figure is reading a book. He is red up to his forehead.

Panel 3
"When I had finished the book."
The red level has dropped to around his mouth

Panel 4
"One week later."
Now it is at his chest.

Panel 5
"When I try to explain it to somebody."
The level is back at stomach level.

Panel 6
"When they ask a follow-up question."
The red is so low we can barely see it.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jul 10

I will be signing at The ARC festival this Sunday from 1-2pm at the @goshcomics.bsky.social sky.social table. @arcfestivallondon.bsky.social al is an exciting, new, free comics festival in London on the 11th and 12th of July. Come along! www.arc-london.uk

Title: At the book festival

Image: A woman gives directions to a man outside a large tent:
"No, this isn't the literary fiction tent, It's the self-help marquee. You need to go back to the cookbook pagoda, turn to face the popular science teepee and it'll be on your left, between the celebrity memoir gazebo and the military history wigwam."

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jul 9

A heatwave cartoon for @newscientist.com

1. Title: The North Wind and the Sun quarrelled as to who was the stronger.

2. The Sun says: "I propose a wager: See yonder traveller, let us see who can make him remove his cloak."

3. The northwind blows on the traveller, the sun says: "You blow yet he only wraps it tighter!"

4. The sun shines on the traveller, saying: Observe! . The traveller mutters "nice and warm"

5. The Sun says "See, my kindness brought results!" The traveller has removed hos cloak and begins to sweat. "Fair enough, you win." concedes the North Wind.

6. "Tremble before my gracious heat!" says the sun, smiling bradly. His heat has started a fire. the traveller flees. The North Wind says "I think that’s enough."

7. "Let the world burn with my cleansing benevolence!!" blazes the sun madly, now grown huge in the sky. The land is a burning fireball. "Now you’re scaring me!" says the North Wind anxiously.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jul 8

I will be signing at The ARC festival this Sunday from 1-2pm at the @goshcomics.bsky.social table. @arcfestivallondon.bsky.social is an exciting, new, free comics festival in London on the 11th and 12th of July. Come along! www.arc-london.uk

We see a stick figure running through a ravaged desert pursued by a mechanical claw. The text begins "2050ad: Society has collapsed and the book festivals have gone rogue. Their terrifying motorized venues patrol the wastelands, hunting for audience members" We can now see that the claw is on the front of an enormous, mad-max-style battle-rig, adorned with spikes, skulls and armour. The text continues "Programmer-Warlords brutally preside over a relentless series of interviews, discussions and poetry readings.” In the trailer of the truck, a poetry reading is taking place, in a tower above it, the huge, muscular, horned programmer raises his fists and yells orders to his minions. The monstrous vehicle thunders on leaving one lone stick figure behind The text concludes "Occasionally, dazed survivors are found wandering with a signed hardback book in a cotton tote bag."

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jul 6

My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com #heatwave

Panel 1
A cartoon book with a face, legs and arms shouts out "Beware! Heatwave reading dangers!"

Panel 2
Caption "Binding glue softened by the sun"
Image: The book stands helplessly as its glue drips and pages fall to the floor.

Panel 3
Caption "Dropped while reading in a cooling bath"
Image: The book splashes into the water

Panel 4
Caption "Mislaid by a heat-addled reader"
Image: The book gestures wildly as the reader stumbles away in a daze.

Panel 5
Caption "Spontaneous combustion"
Image: The book explodes in flame.

Panel 6
"Sweaty hands!" screams the book as it runs away from a large pink hand, dripping with perspiration.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jul 1

This, as requested by @mhplives.bsky.social, is the @newscientist.com cartoon that Alan Moore describes (rather well) in a recent episode of the Team Human podcast www.teamhuman.fm/episodes/371...

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 29

My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com

Title: Presenting My cover designs for a series of Highbrow Literary Novels

Panel one.
Designer shows a book cover to the publisher. It shows a woman and man looking at a burning house with an orange sky behind.
The publisher says
"Not classy enough!"

Panel Two.
Designer shows a book cover to the publisher. It is now the same image in back and white with a text box hiding the house.
The publisher says
"Better, but not right!"

Panel Three.
Designer shows a book cover to the publisher. It is now just white text on a plain navy blue background
The publisher says
"Yes! But take it further!"

Panel Four.
Designer shows a book cover to the publisher. The author name is now gone too, the title is tiny on plain green.
The publisher says
"So close!"

Panel Five.
Designer shows a book cover to the publisher. It is completely blank, white paper.
The publisher says
"Perfection!"

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 27

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

Title: "In shops now: Classic literature with added mathematics!"

Image: Four book covers.

The Prime Number of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark.
Empire of the Sum, by JG Ballard.
Wuthering Heights × lengths × widths, by Emily Bronte.
The Remains Of the Data by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 26

All my New Yorker covers, part 3 of 3 They are all available on the Condé Nast Store where you can buy prints, cards, and other merch. I get a royalty from this. condenaststore.com/art/tom+gauld

The New Yorker
‘food for thought’
cover by Tom Gauld
Description 'City dwellers thinking and talking about their food cravings.'

The New Yorker
‘Captive Audience’
cover by Tom Gauld
Description 'Apartment building residents in windows watch a dog playing fetch with its owner outside during lockdown'

The New Yorker
‘winter sun’
cover by Tom Gauld
Description 'A woman and dog gaze at a painting of the sun on rainy winter day.'

The New Yorker
‘Landscape Portrait’
cover by Tom Gauld
Description 'A tourist takes a selfie in front of a museum's large painting.'

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 26

All my New Yorker covers (2/3) They are all available on the Condé Nast Store where you can buy prints, cards, and other merch. I get a royalty from this. www.condenaststore.com/art/tom+gauld

The New Yorker
‘On the beach’
cover by Tom Gauld
Description 'Panels of people arriving, sunbathing, swimming and finally leaving the beach'

The New Yorker
‘Winter Garden’
cover by Tom Gauld
Description 'Woman watering plants in an indoor garden on a rainy winter day'

The New Yorker
‘Dog walking 2.0’
cover by Tom Gauld
Description 'Robot walking a dog in the park comes upon a woman walking a robot dog'

The New Yorker
‘Rooftop Astronomy’
cover by Tom Gauld
Description 'Panels depicting an adult and a child looking at the stars from a rooftop telescope'

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 26

All my New Yorker covers (1/3) They are all available on the Condé Nast Store where you can buy prints, cards, and other merch. I get a royalty from this. www.condenaststore.com/art/tom+gauld

The New Yorker
‘Fall Library’
cover by Tom Gauld
Description 'A woman reclines in a room full of books'

The New Yorker
‘Soundtrack to Spring’
cover by Tom Gauld
Description 'Musical notation in speech bubbles coming from every person and bird in the windows and on the street in front of a New York townhouse.'

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 24

Some process images for my cover for this week's New Yorker (2 of 2) 1 - final Ink drawing. 2 - Close-up of the finished image. 3. - A drawing from the show that inspired my image. 4 - New Yorker web page on the cover.

A photograph of the ink on paper drawing for a New Yorker cover.
The cover is almost completely filled with a large classic painting in a gold frame. It shows a landscape with hills, rocks and trees. A horse and rider stand on a rocky outcrop overlooking a plain that stretches out to the sea. In the bottom left corner of the cover, a smiling tourist takes a selfie with the painting behind him.

The British Museum Website
Object Type:
Drawing
Museum number:
00,9.9
Description:
Mountain landscape with a river; four travellers near a tall, slender tree at left, others including two mounted, on a path moving towards cottages to right, a castle on a craggy, partially wooded mountain beyond. 1553
Pen and brown ink
Watermark:
lozenge with five stars (centre), 41 × 45 mm. Very close to Briquet 6098 (from Prague, 1543).
Producer name:
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
School/style:
Netherlandish
Production date:
1553

The NEW YORKER

Cover Story

Tom Gauld's "Landscape Portrait"

By Françoise Mouly, Art by Tom Gauld

For the cover of the June 29, 2026, issue, the British cartoonist Tom Gauld took inspiration from a visit to an exhibition of early-Netherlandish drawings at the British Museum. "I was blown away by the landscapes-small and intricate, but with such depth, drawing your eye from blades of grass in the foreground to a ship on the horizon," Gauld said. "And, as soon as I stepped out of the quiet darkness of the exhibit, I was surrounded by flocks of happy tourists snapping away with their phones."

Find Tom Gauld's covers, cartoons, and more at the Condé Nast Store.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 24

Some process images for my cover for this week's New Yorker (1 of 2) 1 - Drawing in a passport sized notebook. 2 - Various other doodles. 3 - Rough ink sketch. 4 - Neater Pencil Sketch.

A small notebook with an imaginary landscape drawn in black ink.

Scratchy black ink doodles of thoughts and elements leading to the cover.

An early ink version of the cover. The cover is almost completely filled with a large classic painting in a gold frame. It shows a landscape with hills, rocks and trees. A horse and rider stand on a rocky outcrop overlooking a plain that stretches out to the sea. In the bottom left corner of the cover, a smiling tourist takes a selfie with the painting behind him.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 22

I drew the cover for the latest @newyorker.com More here: www.newyorker.com/culture/cover-story/cover-story-2026-06-29

The New Yorker dated 29 June 2026 titled ‘Landscape portrait’. The cover is almost completely filled with a large classic painting in a gold frame. It shows a landscape with hills, rocks and trees. A horse and rider stand on a rocky outcrop overlooking a plain that stretches out to the sea. In the bottom left corner of the cover, a smiling tourist takes a selfie with the painting behind him.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 21

My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com

Title: The Cyclops discusses his part in Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey'

Panel 1.
The cyclops wanders across his island, talking to the audience
"Most directors these days just use computers, so I appreciate that chris sailed the entire crew to a mythical island to shoot my scenes on film."

Panel 2.
He continues as he climbs the hill.
"I wasn't going to do it: The young people are all so down on cannibalism. But I called up Homer and he said "Are you an idiot?This is Hollywood money, not poetry royalties!"

Panel 3.
He sits on a rock and looks out to sea.
"So I got to meet Matt Damon, which was cool."

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 20

My latest @newscientist.com cartoon

Image: A scientist proudly shows an extremely complicated machine to a colleague "My experiment is generating infinite power!". A screen displays the infinity symbol "∞" and a label reading "watts"

Caption: Simon assumed that Veronica was speechless with envy and awe, but she was actually wondering how to break it to him that the monitor was on its side.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 14

My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com

The FIFA Prize for Literature

Following the success of their Peace Prize, FIFA establishes a literary prize judged by the footballers at the world cup.

(image of trophy)

All does not go well...

Players arrive at games exhausted by reading hundreds of novels and heatedly debating their merits long into the night.

(image of tired players on pitch reading)

The south American teams boycott the tournament when an official disparages Isabel Allende's use of magic realism.

(Image of players angrily leaving)

Seventeen plavers receive red cards after a discussion of radical honesty in the works of Karl Ove Knausgaard turns into a brawl.

(Image of players fighting)

However, all is forgiven as Joyce Carol Oates takes the thrilling final to extra time, before losing on penalties to Haruki Murukami.

(image of Haruki holding the trophy aloft)

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 13

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

Title:
“A pie chart of what the Mars Rover can see”

Image:
A pie chart. The lower half is orangy red. The upper half is divided into three, with a small browny red area and a small darker browny red area on each side with a larger cream section in the middle

Key:
Orangy red area: Surface of Mars
Cream : Sky
Browny red: Mountain
Dark browny red: Another mountain

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 12

I've added some new original drawings to my website www.tomgauld.com/art-for-sale

Panel 1 Caption: The town is famed for its year-round book festival, but for one weekend in summer, it closes. The literary people leave on a fleet of coaches and the tents are dismantled. Image: Workers take down a tent. A bus departs. Panel 2 Caption: The unbroken parade of bookshops on the high street move novels and tote bags to back rooms and fill their shelves with everyday items Image: A bookshop with shelves containing eggs, loo roll, a bucket, bleach, etc Panel 3 Caption: With no talks, signings, or workshops to attend, the townsfolk gather on the green, conversing uncertainly on non-literary topics. Image: people on the green with speech bubbles labelled "The weather", "Football", and "Proposed Ring-road" Panel 4 Caption: Everyone enjoys the novelty, but agrees that one weekend is enough. On Monday morning the festival resumes with a kev-note address from Robert Macfarlane. Image: A fascinated audience watches Robert talk, a projector shows a book with a bird on the cover.

Title: Bertrand Russell, 1933 Panel 1 Bertrand sits at his desk, puffing on his pipe. He says 'The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubts.' Panel 2 He gets up and walks over to a mirror. Panel 3 Pondering his reflection, he muses 'But if I'm certain about this...' Panel 4 'Does that make ME a fool or fanatic?' Panel 5 He walks back to his desk. His reflection in the mirror says 'Talking to yourself in a mirror seems pretty doubtful to me.' 'Good point.' says Bertrand.

Title: "Literary ecologists celebrate the successful reintroduction of rare species to the Yorkshire moors." Image: The sun is going down on a bleak windswept moor, various figures and trees are each labelled as one of the following: 1. Classic literary Cathy and Heathcliff 2. Young, carefree Cathy and heathcliff 3. Sexy Hollywood Cathy and Heathcliff 5. Ghost Cathy, tormented Heathcliff 5. Spooky tree

$Panel 1 Caption: 2025, Middlemarch Is voted the best novel of all time and wins the right to represent earth at the IGCLC\* finals. Image: The cover of George Eliot's 'Middlemarch' \*Intergalactic literary Champions league Panel 2 Caption: 2028, A young Editor from Penguin Classics climbs Aboard Artemis VII for the thirty-year journey to host planet, Kepler-22b. She carries a first Edition of the book in a lead-lined briefcase. Image: Astronaut boarding spaceship. Panel 3 Caption: 2089, She returns with news that earth placed a very respectable third, and that she bought rights to the two winning novels. Images: The capsule returns to earth and splashes down in the sea. The astronaut emerges and waves to the rescue helicopter. Panel 4 Caption: 2092, The alien books are translated and published to critical acclaim and modest sales. Image: Two books. 'Magnesium Sunset' by Zylob Pyrxx and 'Orbital Amnesia' by Unaha Closp More caption: Middlemarch is a runaway success in gas form$

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 12

I have a small exhibition in Amiens, France at the Louis Aragon library from June 6th to August 29th. It consists of cartoons, prints and objects created in collaboration with @editions2042.bsky.social actualitte.com/article/1317...

A photograph of a library containing large and small prints of cartoons by Tom Gauld.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 11

#hotdesking My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

A man sits at a desk working on a laptop. He thinks:
"Why do I always end up next to the volcanologists"
at the next desk, two figures in protective silver heat suits take samples from a small volcano which spits outlava, flames, sparks and ash.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 10

MUNICH! This is tonight!

Tom Gauld auf Lesereise (D)
Mi, 10.6. 19 Uhr
Lesung und Gespräch mit Lisa Frühbeis
Comic Bar
Gasteig HP8
München

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 9

FRANKFURT! This is tonight:

Tom Gauld
Physik für die Katz Buchvorstellung und Gespräch Mit Jakob Hoffmann
Dienstag, 9.6.2025, 20 Uhr
Buchladen Land in Sicht, Eiserne Hand 3, Frankfurt
- Eintritt frei -
In Kooperation mit
STORIES + STRIPS

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 7

My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com

A cartoon in which the speech bubbles are categorised by colour.

Panel 1: A man cooks dinner for a woman who is looking at his bookshelves.
He calls from the kitchen"I hope you're not judging me on my bookshelves?" (Blue)
She replies "Haha, no!" (Orange)

Panel 2: She takes a book off the shelf and asks
"Have you read all of these?" (Blue)
He replies "Of course!" (Orange)

Panel 3: she leafs through the book and asks
"Can I borrow this?' (Blue)
He replies "Sure, I love lending my books!" (Orange)

The key below explains that Blue represents a question and orange represents a lie.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 4

I'm coming to Germany! Come along and see me talk, read comics and sign books. Links for more info are at www.tomgauld.com

Physik für die Katz Germany tour

6&7th June, erlangen various times, comics salon.

8th June, Berlin 6pm, modern graphics, kastanienallee.

9th June, Frankfurt 8pm, land in sicht buchladen.

10th June, Munich 7pm, comics bar.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· Jun 3

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com. p.s. I'm coming to Germany soon with my new book of science cartoons. Details at www.tomgauld.com/

Image: three figures look awkwardly at a fourth figure in a flying-car-type-vehicle that seems to have landed clumsily a few metres from them.

Caption: As the gyro-saucer's systems failed, ending its maiden flight 249.99 miles early, Professor Baxter wished his parting words to colleagues had been something other than "So long, losers! See you at my Nobel Prize ceremony!

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· May 31

A cartoon about book festivals for @theguardian.com

Tom Gauld@tomgauld· May 28

I will be in Madrid signing books, reading comics and talking this weekend. Science Cat has noted down the details here ferialibromadrid.penguinlibros.com/Gauld,%20Tom