Hello, and welcome to the new website and blog. I'm going to be writing about behind the scenes stuff, case studies of existing work, new work as it's made, the how and the why of what I've been up to and probably a little bit about what actually inspires me to do all of this in the first place.
Speaking of inspiration, the title of this post, My World.. and Welcome To It was pinched from the 1942 book by James Thurber. It was also the basis for a TV series in the late 60s. James Thurber was an American writer, cartoonist and humorist who came to public attention as one of the original contributors to the New Yorker magazine. His most famous work is probably The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which I was introduced to by another inspiration, the late DK Cooper, my English teacher, to whom I am profoundly grateful.
Mr Cooper introduced the story by drawing Thurber's seal cartoon on the blackboard (current New Yorker cartoonist Michael Maslin identifies it at one of his favourite cartoons, here, if you'd like to take a look.) The experience was a revelation in itself as DK was a profoundly thoughtful, witty and kind man in the classroom, but a terrifying authoritarian outside of it. This was the first time I'd seen anything but the latter.
Thurber wasn't much of an artist. EB White (author of Charlotte's Web and a New Yorker colleague) originally rescued some drawings from the bin and presented them for publication. While friend and contemporary Dorothy Parker described his cartoons as having 'the semblance of unbaked cookies', they found favour with Harold Ross, the editor. Thurber continued to draw cartoons even as his eyesight failed, apparently drawing on larger and larger pieces of paper with thick crayon or even chalk.
I planned to put one of his cartoons as the illustration for this post, but couldn't find anything copyright free so you've got a picture of my rather unwashed dog instead. Thurber became known for drawing cartoons of dogs who, for the most part, were deeply perplexed by their owners. He once wrote 'If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven and very, very few persons.' He claimed he wrote 'largely about small matters and smally about great affairs.' He had an eye for the absurd, an idiosyncratic view of the world and a capacity for moving from the commonplace to the universal with humour which he described as being 'emotional chaos remembered in tranquility'.
He also had some very useful advice for writers - 'don't get it right, get it written.' If you get a chance to check out his work you should.