Gerald Scarfe, the legendary cartoonist and designer, tells his life story for the first time in the excellent, newly published book, Long Drawn Out Trip.

In 1964 a young artist sat in the public gallery of the House of Commons, sketching former Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The Sunday Times refused to print the resulting drawing of this frail, aged figure - so far from the public image of the man - it was too truthful.

In the sixty years since, Gerald Scarfe's work has continued to expose the truth, and has appeared many times in the pages of the Sunday Times, in the Evening Standard, New Yorker, Private Eye and Time, as well as on the walls of the V&A and the Tate, the stages of the English National Opera and the English National Ballet, and cinema screens around the world in the form of Pink Floyd The Wall and Disney's Hercules.

In Long Drawn Out Trip, Gerald tells his life story for the first time. With captivating, often thrilling stories, he takes us back to his wartime childhood and the terrible curse of asthma, through his days as an advertising draughtsman, to his field reporting in Vietnam and the giddy highs of rock 'n' roll. He also reveals the process of cartooning - and the ways that certain subjects have reacted to his visions of them. Along the way he has been car-jacked in Derry, dined with royals, and thoroughly upset Mrs Mary Whitehouse. It is a very personal, wickedly funny and caustically insightful account of an artist's life at the forefront of contemporary culture and society.

You can order Gerald's Long Drawn Out Trip book now through the following direct links: Amazon UK, Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon France, Amazon Germany, Amazon Spain and Amazon Italy.

Long Drawn Out Trip is followed by another book, designed to complement it - Scarfe: Sixty Years of Being Rude, an incredible looking, fully illustrated retrospective art book which is coming next month. This 576 page book isn't cheap, although looks well worth considering. It can be pre-ordered through Amazon, although please note the price varies considerably from store to store at the moment, so it might be worth "shopping around" to find an Amazon store with a cheaper price for you! Here's the direct links: Amazon UK, Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon France, Amazon Germany, Amazon Spain and Amazon Italy.

However, if you really want to treat yourself, there are a couple of very special, exclusive editions available at ScarfeBook.com. Both editions from that website contain a signed print, and the Artist’s Edition also includes an original piece of Scarfe's unique artwork!

COMPETITION: With thanks to the publishers, we have three copies of Gerald's Long Drawn Out Trip to give away in our latest competition! To enter, all you need to do is answer this question correctly:

• What was the first piece of work undertaken for Pink Floyd by Gerald?

Email your answer to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it with the subject line of "Gerald Scarfe book competition", and include your name and full mailing address. The closing date is November 11th, 2019, and all entries received by the end of that date will be in with a chance of winning. Just one entry per household please - and best of luck to you all!

UPDATE: This competition is now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered! We've gone through the piles of entries and selected at random the three winners, all of whom knew that Gerald worked with the band back in 1974 on the British Winter Tour, providing the caricature on the tour poster and in the centre pages of the tour programme, and also started work on the Welcome To The Machine film too. A copy of the book is going to: Emily Denyer, California, USA; M. Fischer, Germany; and Steve King, England. Well done to you three, and better luck next time to the hundreds of you who weren't so fortunate this time.