Does a weekly strip in te observer, autobiographical. Someyhing with such ahigh turnaround you need to just keep going, puttting myself in it has helped with that. Steer away from very topical things eg politics.
I do stuff that taks quite a while to read, almost liek a column. Sort of the opposite what woudl gor viral on the internet.
ants comission for the art review (full page spread) You don't get a lot of editorial feedback when you're making comics
the chip and bean quiz for the independent
chip and bean altermodernism for the tate
advertising for tfl ads are much more heavily art-directed, writing and content are done by other people
Billy Bean's Dream, The little Giant first thing I did after college. Got a job illustrating a book for this author, children's book prototype kind of fell into their hands. Keep making stuff rather than being asked to do it. Looked at exisiting childrens books for inspiration, led to the work being quite conventional
Went back to college, started making more experimental comic stuff (away from beginning middle and end 24-page structure). "FIRST" nice paper, letterpress cover etc to make it feel like a real, tangible object. Important to think about how work will be seen. Paper, colour, typography are all part of the work. Good to ignore weird rules like "you can't have animals talking to people". Sometimes when you know too much about something it can be hard to break away from traditions.
Work on a graphic novel. Talked to a business person (with no background in art) to figure out how to publish it. Ended up publishing the story one chapter at a time, one chapter would pay for the next one. Also allowed audience to give feedback engage with the work as it was being developed.
Decided to try and get a proper book deal (this is easier when you're already making money with something, followers online is sort of the equivalent of that). Allowed wider distribution, cheaper for readers/
https://www.instagram.com/fluffypulcino/?hl=en
Second fluffy book about the characters 10 years later.
Oh great she's a Christian
They didn't teach this in worm school
Have been making work about worms for 10 years If you work on something like that you're ready to go when the book deal comes around new experince of working witha team of people sales people, editor, graphic designers, printers
Chip and Bean buy nothing
qs
can you elaborate on meeting with an editor I met her through comic stuff, kept in touch for a long time. She was really open about what we were going to do - it's all about trust in the end. I trust her decisions about wrting, but some of the larger decisions that come from higher up in the company I wasn't cool with. You hav e to find a balance of pushing back so your work isn't compromised but also not being a nuicanse
what was your first published work howd you get the job AS soon as the editor saw the book she was escited to do it, I wasn't even trying to sell it. Sold self-made books in shops, guy from bloomsbury picked one up and offered to publish it as a hardcover. People see your work, recommed it sometimes work comes through a chain of loads of people. But times have changed, you don't have to get stuff printed anymore. But if you do, theres a great community to support you
has your style always been the same, how has ti developed
since i was at the rca my style was pretty consistent. That allows you to just say what it is you need to say. It's useful if you're making a weekly thing to get work out quickly. Sometimes I do workshop days and use materials i wouldn't normally work with with no brief, tht can feed back into your main work. I use a style because my goal is to speak to the people in the other end, so it's less about the way it