Judges for the Rotary Club of Coffs Harbour City awards spent more than three hours recently pouring over entries, narrowing down the field to 119, which are now on display at the Bunker Cartoon Gallery.

Category winners and the overall Cartoon of the Year will be named at a mayoral reception and gala evening at the gallery on Friday, November 21 – the night before the prestigious Stanley Awards will be announced in the city. The Stanleys are cartooning’s equivalent to the Logies.

Gallery director/curator Louise Rawson-Harris said entries for this year’s Rotary Cartoon Awards were up about 200 on 2007.

She said entries had been received from cartoonists in 26 countries, including Iran, China and several from South America.

“We’ve received entries from all these remarkable places and we’re very pleased with that,” she said.

“Some (cartoonists) have even donated cartoons that have not been entered into the awards.”

All of this year’s entries have already been catalogued and placed in folders for people to view when they visit the gallery.

The gallery now has about 11,000 cartoons on site, gathered from the 20 stagings of the awards.

Visitors to the exhibition are being encouraged to cast a vote for their favourite cartoon in this year’s line-up, with the most popular to receive the People’s Choice Award at the presentation on November 21.

Tickets to the gala evening are $25 and are available from the gallery.

The Cartoon Awards exhibition is open Monday-Saturday from 10am-4pm. Entry to the gallery is $2 for adults and $1 for children.