Wouldn't You Love to See How It's All Done?
This is how I create a Merrie England strip. Want to watch?
I don’t know about you but being an avid cartoonist makes me pretty nosey about how other artists and authors create their work.
Obviously, YouTube provides a great platform for the current crop of artists to show the inner workings and production processes of their creations but for me, whose great hero is Albert Uderzo, creator of Asterix The Gaul, it’s frustrating. He didn’t leave a lot of footage of himself actually working - although what he did leave is fascinating to me - and so it’s hard to get an idea of his thought processes.
There’s no mention of the old lags who will have shown him the ropes when he was a wide-eyed newcomer. He doesn’t seem to have had much professional guidance worth talking about and really, the only person he gives credit to, and he does so in spades, is his old friend and collaborater, René Goscinny. He speaks of him with admiring reverence and indeed, after Goscinny’s early and tragic death, Uderzo insisted that his name continued to appear on the cover of every new album, as though he was still writing the scenarios himself.
When you see him interviewed, though, the twinkle never leaves his eye; not for a moment. And he seems to be still laughing at the ridiculously big noses of his characters even after fifty-odd years of drawing them!
The man was a genius. He got maximum humour out of every situation.
So now, to the latest Merrie England strip. Again, only the last one is new, the previous ones setting the scene and keeping the story line going.
Here, we meet Esme Gat-tooth, the witch.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Being an intelligent person who enjoys reading, you’re thinking “Surely it should be ‘Gap-Tooth’?”
Well, when I was a spotty lad at school, being led miserably through the opaquely written works of Geoffrey Chaucer, I discovered that our language hasn’t always sounded the way it does today. We were studying “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, a supposedly hilarious short story in “The Canterbury Tales”. The author describes this woman thus:
“Gat-tothed was she, soothly for to seye. As brood as is a bokeler or a targe; A foot mantel aboute hir hipes large, And on hir feet a paire of spores sharpe.”
In the period of writing, a gap in the front of a woman’s teeth was a sure signifier that she was voraciously lustful. I make no such claim for my witch, though, since lust and carnal matters play almost no part in the Merrie England strip. Not so far, anyway.
I wanted a witch who was a bit different from the usual pointy-hat variety, so presented her bare-headed but with certain fetching characteristics. For instance, whichever side of her face you’re looking at, the wart on her nose is on that side. So obviously, she’s a witch from every viewpoint! And she is festooned gourds. Brightly coloured ones hanging from strings draped about her like bandoliers. Inside these gourds are mysterious items which help her with her spells and curses but which we rarely see or discuss.
The gap in her teeth is the reverse of most witches’ appearance, since they almost always have but one tooth. So much for originality.
Esme is the Abbot’s nemesis, although he is constrained to allowing her to practice her arts due to her having saved the Abbey from destruction when she “recovered” the missing relics of Saint Cyril The Fingerless.
“Why was Cyril Fingerless?” I hear you ask, filled with wide-eyed curiosity.
Because his finger bones were used as relics, so he was rendered fingerless! And if you think that sounds unlikely to be believed, you should read up on how and why some saints were beatified! Part of the fun of the medieval period is that people would believe absolutely anything if it was told to them by a witch or a cleric.
Which makes for great comedy opportunities.
Now, I promised you a look at the creative process and did so in the very title of this piece, so, to avoid accusations of “click-baitery”, here it is.
Just click on the link below.
But just before you do, hit the subscribe button. That’ll show me that my efforts have been worthwhile and it’ll also mean that I won’t order Esme Gat-tooth to turn you into a hedgehog or a snail, examples of which will be forthcoming as the strip continues.
Once you get there, subscribe to my YouTube channel as well and be sure to hit the “Like” button;
There. I’ve done all I can!
See you very soon..