Back in the studio

I actually managed to get back into the studio after weeks of absence. It felt good to be back at my desk with paper and pencils rather than a computer screen in front of me.

I spent most of the afternoon measuring out the dimensions of a classic four panel strip, using the standard (American) format. I have been toying with the idea of doing another strip for ages and I have finally decided to actually do something.

Developing strips is a tricky business. There are so many things to consider: the design of the characters (if they are to appear every time), the style of the drawing, the design of the type, the style of the borders to the boxes and whether all panels will be boxed. And all this is without the more pressing question of what the heck is the strip about?

I have done a few strips now, one as a writer to Chris Riddell (a strip called Bestiary), and I still do one in the New Statesman called Payne's Grey. Payne's Grey is unusual (though not unique) in having no overriding plot or linking characters. Each strip is self-contained. The only connection is my jaded world view. Here is a recent example:

The oldie

I was sent an offer of subscription to The Oldie magazine on Saturday - the cheek of it! Junk mail is bad enough, without actually being taunted by it. But I suppose that is what I have to look forward to - leaflets on hearing aids, stair lifts and cruises.

I have been wondering - as anyone reading this may also wonder - what is this blog exactly? Is it a journal? Is it a column? Is it a chance for me to blather on about whatever flits into my head? Well - I suppose it is all these things at some point - as well as a shameless opportunity for self-publicity. But is there a theme? Is some kind of form looming out of the chaos?

Possibly. It does after all reflect my taste and my taste does lean toward the weird and wonderful, the strange, the uncanny - the macabre. I was thinking that perhaps the blog should have a name that says that.

I wondered about CHRIS PRIESTLEY'S NETHER REGIONS.

Winsor McCay

By a spooky coincidence there was an article about Maurice Sendak in this Saturday's Guardian magazine supplement here in the UK. The article was by Jonathan Jones, one of the paper's art critics. Maybe because it was by an art (proper art, high art - not comic book art) critic it was full of how Sendak's work was reminiscent of all kinds of real artists.

Sendak was great because his babies were like those of Philip Otto Runge and Caspar David Friedrich. The floppy dough aeroplane of In the Night Kitchen was reminiscent of Claes Oldenburg's soft sculptures. Well done Maurice.

It is not that these statements are necessarily false, it is just typical of a critic more used to gallery art. They tend to know little about popular art forms and therefore even when they praise - as Jones does here with Sendak - they have to validate that approval in some way.

The more obvious work that In the Night Kitchen is reminiscent of is Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland strips. The homage is obvious (and Sendak has acknowledged it) to anyone who knows Little Nemo, but is still seldom mentioned. To his credit Jones does mention the Little Nemo link, but then describes it merely as a '1900 New York comic strip' and says nothing of Winsor McCay. He mentions Philip Otto Runge, but not Winsor McCay!

Winsor McCay is a hugely influential figure, it is just that his influence has been in areas (comic books, animation) that clearly do not interest Jonathan Jones. His work is subtle and weird and brilliant. Jones says, 'While the original is a congested, chaotic comic strip, what Sendak does is give the images more air to breathe. . .'

Chaotic? Congested? I don't think so. There is more going on in Macbeth than there is in Dr Who, but that isn't normally seen as being in Dr Who's favour. He says that Sendak is constantly wondering 'what pictures can show that words can't tell', when McCay, not Sendak, was the master of sequential drawing.

Pat Sendak on the head by all means, but don't do it by elbowing Winsor McCay out of the picture.

The hip bone's connected to the candlestick

OK, OK - so the That Much I Know thing that had the nice Kyle MacLachlan quote was in The Observer magazine, not the Guardian. It was still good though.

And while I'm admitting to errors, Patti Smith heard the 'angel calling' rather than 'angels' in Break It Up and it is Edgar ALLAN Poe, not Allen as I keep mistakenly putting it.

I watched a programme called Dan Cruickshanks Adventures in Architecture on BBC 2 this week. Dan Cruickshank is a bit 'Crikey', 'Golly', 'Gosh' for his own good, but I find it hard (I'm not sure why) to dislike him. He went to have a potter round the Sedlec Ossuary in what was Bohemia but is now the Czech Republic.

I first came across this amazing place in World of Interiors magazine (I think). An ossuary was built to house all the bones from the nearby graveyard. Initially they were piled up, but in 1870 Frantisek Rint, a woodcarver, was given the job of giving the place a bit of a makeover.

If you want to see the results, do a search on Sedlec Ossuary images. Here is a taster - it a huge skull and assorted bone chandelier.

Judith Weik

My author photo, top left, was taken by a friend of mine called Judith Weik. When not trying to made me look moody and mysterious, she is a very talented artist and photographer. She is Swiss, living in Cambridge and her work is shortly to exhibited here at the Michaelhouse Cafe with two other friends of ours - Anne Cunningham and Isa Tenhaeff. It starts 28 April and runs through until 10 May. Go and see it if you can. If you can't, here is an example - a particular favourite of mine. You can see more of her work at her website by following the link.

Morose Sendak

I went to Bloomsbury today have one last (ish) look at Tales of Terror from the Black Ship with my editor Helen Szirtes and to have a word with Adrian Downie about the website. The fine tuning of a book is exhausting, but it is so important. There is nothing worse than seeing something in print you wished you had phrased differently. It was good to see Adrian. He was so enthusiastic and imaginative in his work on the Uncle Montague site that I can't wait to see what he comes up with for the Black Ship.

I arrived early at Soho Square and Helen was in a meeting, so I had a chance to raid the bookshelves in reception. Bloomsbury reception would make a superb writing room: a big Georgian room with high ceilings and big windows, masses of bookshelves, the bookshops of Charing Cross Road round the corner, and the buzz of Soho on the doorstep.

Whilst I was waiting I pulled down a copy of When We Were Young, a book about childhood done for Unicef, compiled and illustrated by John Burningham and read a really nice piece by Maurice Sendak.

I never really got Sendak. Everyone kept saying how great he was, but I just couldn't see it. There was something about the way he drew that just didn't do it for me. Then I picked up a second hand copy of The Sign on Rosie's Door and I changed my mind entirely. It is so beautifully written. It is that very rare thing - a perfect book.

So I read what Sendak had to say with interest. There was a lot of sadness. The Holocaust looms large in his life and his work - he is tragically the last of the Sendaks. Some of his close friends apparently refer to him as Morose Sendak.

I particularly enjoyed the story about Judy Taylor, his English editor on Where the Wild Things Are, saving his life when he had a heart attack on a visit to the UK. I pointed out to Helen that this was the kind of level of commitment I am going to expect from her.

Battle of Britain

A book I had published by Scholastic in their My Story series a few years back - Battle of Britain - is being reissued with a new cover next month.

It tells the story of a fictional young pilot, his training, his first combats over Dunkirk (where my father, who was there, still swears he never saw a single RAF aircraft) and his exploits during the Battle of Britain itself.

For research I listened to lots of taped interviews with pilots, all of whom were brutally frank about the grim realities of combat and the fear they felt at facing the enemy. I sat in a Spitfire for a few moments, startled by the claustrophobia the tiny cockpit induced. And I read a lot of poignant letters and diaries, some of which ended with terrible abruptness.

I grew up in a revisionist age where the story of the Few seemed all myth, but I came away from the research realising that whilst the Battle of Britain may have been hyped for propaganda purposes, those (mostly very young) pilots were astonishingly brave and did, in no small way, change the course of the Second World War and therefore of all our lives. You don't have to think war is a good idea to acknowledge that.