“Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn’t grow out of either of our species’ two basic instincts: survival and reproduction.“
Scott McCloud, ‘Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
I started illustrating because I wanted to make comics.
I first became interested in comics in the second year of my degree. I’d always been aware of them when I was growing up because my dad was really into 2000AD; there were issues strewn about the house, so as a teenager with a voracious appetite for literature, I consumed them, but I didn’t really savour them. In all honesty, I found them kind of hard to follow and they seemed too hyper-masculine for my taste.
Then I saw Terry Zwigoff’s ‘Crumb’ and I got hungry.
I got so hungry, in fact, that I scrapped the original idea for my final year dissertation and decided to write the whole thing about Robert Crumb. This really marked the beginning of a journey – my journey – down a path that has brought me right here to this exact spot, sat on this slightly wobbly wooden chair, sweating through the zipped-up hoodie that I insist on wearing even in 32 degree heat, typing out this monologue on a website dedicated to furthering my career as a comic artist.
It’s strange how an acquaintance with something or someone can alter, or can seem to alter, the course of your entire destiny.
Lately, I’ve been trying to produce work that is a little bit closer to the bone, more confessional. Maybe it’s a little self-serving, but sometimes you’ve got to go in if you want to come out with something.
Of course, there’s still room for a sense of humour.
