Jim* lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

He was published in his first newspaper by the age of 13 and in his first book by 14.

Since then, his cartoons have featured in magazines and web sites in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.

He has drawn cartoons for businesses, hospitals, community organizations and churches, and is an associate member of the Australian Cartoonist's Association.

Jim draws black and white gags, full-colour cartoons, single panel or comic strips that aim to go a little deeper than most and work on multiple levels.

If you want a cartoon that makes you think while it makes you laugh, you'll want a cartoon by Jim.

Browse around this site and you'll find some samples. (Start at the blog!) 

Influences

Berkely Breathed ("Bloom County / Outland")
Gary Larson (“The Far Side”) 
Bill Watterson ("Calvin and Hobbes")
Stephan Pastis ("Pearls Before Swine")
Jim Borgman / Jerry Scott ("Zits" / "Baby Blues")
Max Cannon ("Red Meat")
Matthew Martin
Rod Emmerson

A Little History...

*Jim is the alter-ego of me Brendan Boughen, cartoonist.

(The Jim name has been around since I was a fetus, being the nickname my dad gave me when I was in utero. It stuck after I was born, in spite of being named Brendan. It's also a lot shorter to sign than my real name, which is generally a good cartoon policy, ie. Brief is good!)

When I was about 8 years old, my family moved to rural New South Wales, Australia. I started devouring the many Charles M. Schultz books that were on my dad's bookshelves amidst the theology. (He was a Lutheran minister, a career which certainly required a sense of humour at times!)

It was about then that the desire to draw my own cartoons set in. I started by playing around with some abstract figures, based on graffiti I had seen sprayed on walls around Melbourne. These three guys played in a band and had wild punk hairdos. Again, my dad lent a hand in the naming department and christened them 'The Twangups'.

In my first year of high school, I entered a cartoon caption competition that was sponsored by a bank in association with the local meat producers association. (This was rural Australia after all!) To my amazement, I won the competition and a $100 bank account.

Since the local small town paper was always hard-up for news, they ran a story about my win along with a photograph. Ever the schmoozer, I slipped in a mention to the interviewer about the fact I drew my own cartoons and would they like to see them. Still desperate to fill space in the weekly edition The Twangups premiered in the Eastern Riverina Observer on March 1, 1987. It ran in the weekly edition for the next two years.

Around this time, Codswallop (a small publisher in Albury / Wodonga) put out a call for any local Riverina cartoonists to submit work for a potential book. In the end, about 12 pages in this book, called 'No Mean Feat', featured cartoons by the 14 year old Jim. Signing copies at the launch remains one of the biggest thrills of my short career to that point, and does still today.

Eventually, what started out as an atrociously drawn gag strip, The Twangups slowly developed its humour, drawing and audience (mostly my school friends) to the point where I felt confident enough to ask them to pay me ($5 a strip! Score!) It was cancelled after my second pay-check, due to the fact that my family had moved to Melbourne (some small-town grudge against the big city?) and I had school-work to attend to.

Cartooning was put on the backburner until the end of my first year of university, after which I moved to Adelaide (for love) and ran into some old friends who remembered my cartooning days from the country. They commissioned some cartoons and things kept going from there.

Word of mouth recommendations led to Jim doing cartoons for a range of business entities, community groups and other organisations and publications, and he has been published regularly ever since.

In December 2006, Jim published his first book, titled "Gone Astray: A Collection of (Sac)Religious Cartoons by Jim." To order a copy, go to the 'Gone Astray' page on this web site.

These days, Jim's cartoons can be seen monthly in the editorial pages of Touchstone magazine and randomly in a variety of publications around the world.