Chris Riddell Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2016 UK Illustrator Nomination PHOTO : JO RIDDELL PHOTO 1 Chris Riddell Biography Chris Riddell A Critical Appreciation Chris Riddell was born in South Africa. His father Richard Platt. This book and the earlier Castle Diary Chris Riddell is highly regarded in the UK and well as young readers’ chapter books, he addresses was an Anglican clergyman and his parents were involved him in detailed historical research, which internationally as a visual commentator and an audience that is often neglected: readers active in the anti-apartheid movement. His family he deployed in typically boisterous, characterful narrator; an artist and illustrator in command of who are still young enough to enjoy illustrations returned to Britain when Chris was a year old and and humorous style. Perhaps his most demanding a range of forms and genres varying from political supporting a narrative, but also old enough to he spent his childhood moving from parish to illustration project to date followed in 2004 with satire and cartoon to picture books, graphic novels engage with more sophisticated subject matter. parish. His interest in drawing began then and was his illustrations to Martin Jenkins’ adaptation of and cross-over forms. His broad understanding of Chris Riddell’s biggest virtue, however, is not that encouraged at secondary school. He remembers, Gulliver’s Travels, a classic whose combination visual communication, coupled with his classical he satisfies the expectations of theoretical analysis, “I had a wonderfully idiosyncratic art teacher, Jack of satire and fantasy played to his strengths as drawing ability and extended frame of reference, but that he can do so whilst communicating with Johnson, a painter who’d also been a newspaper an illustrator and earned him the second Kate has earned him the respect of broad and diverse and convincingly addressing his audience. In cartoonist.” Chris studied illustration at Brighton audiences. Greenaway. Goth Girl & the Ghost of a Mouse, for example, Polytechnic, taught by two well-known illustrators His visual language borrows from the legacies his characters are idiosyncratic and eccentric, of children’s books, John Vernon Lord and Raymond Although much of Chris’s work is necessarily in of celebrated British draughts-persons and appealing to young readers in post-modernist Briggs. “That was a wonderful time, there was colour, his passion is black and white line drawing. story-tellers like Arthur Rackham and William society. And his references to 18th century design printmaking – etching, lithography and lots of Dismayed at the lack of illustration in novels for older children when he began his career, he has Heath Robinson and from the precision of and to Mervyn Peake, among other visual clues, drawing – there was a real sense of the primacy of classical engravings. This can be expressed in a done more perhaps than anyone else to revive aid in creating an exciting and entertaining setting drawing – everything was allied to the importance contemporary gothic mood, capitalizing on the dark for his story. The fact that he has been awarded that tradition, largely through his collaboration of basic draughtsmanship.” When Chris graduated and macabre undertones of some of the narratives the Nestlé Smarties award (judged by children) with the author Paul Stewart. Following a chance from Brighton in 1984, Raymond Briggs introduced he works with, or in the more playful and witty several times, confirms his popularity amongst meeting in 1995, they have collaborated on a him to a publisher and Chris’s first children’s book caricature that accompanies his more humorous young readers over an extended age range. The number of fantasy series, most notably The Edge was published in 1985. texts. His illustrations are peppered with visual Edge Chronicles (and to a certain extent also The Chronicles. This perfectly realised and multi-faceted puns, subtext, wit and clever references to early Pirate Diary) with its versatile visual language From the first, Chris wrote and illustrated his own imaginative world began with a map drawn by Chris visual design and narrative traditions. straddling the genres of steam punk, science fiction books and illustrated the work of other authors. and is peopled by characters and places that often and fantasy, further demonstrate his understanding He says, “‘I became an illustrator because I love begin with his sketches and accompanying notes. Chris steers away from the often sanitized and of his audience and of the trends and notions of words. As a child I loved words and I loved the In recent years he has also provided illustrations for sentimental contemporary retellings of Grimm contemporary youth culture. idea of making drawings to accompany them.” award winning books by Neil Gaiman; and written and other fairy tales. His characters are nuanced His facility for storytelling and illustration quickly and illustrated two award winning series of books and layered, not depending on the portrayal of Yet, Chris Riddell’s illustrations transcend the established him as one of the most prolific, for younger children featuring girl protagonists, ‘beauty’ to convince his audience of their virtues. ephemeral nature of trends and styles. His reliable and imaginative of children’s book Ottoline and Goth Girl respectively. The Sleeper and the Spindle is a good example. In Gulliver’s Travels demonstrates an ability to creators, producing work of consistently high this fairy tale he cleverly balances the grotesque capture one of the best-known tales with respect quality, whether complete picture books, cover Chris’s parallel career as a political cartoonist with the romantic – subverting the conventional and understanding of its origins and satirical illustration or illustrations in novels for older started soon after his children’s book illustration. pictorial codes and his readers’ expectations by nature. At the same time, he adds his own subtext children. The first critical recognition of his work In 1988 he began illustrating articles for The merging two fairy tales and resolving the narrative and colourful depiction to Martin Jenkin’s retelling came in 1995, when his illustrations for Kathryn Economist and, after working for various in the women’s shared kiss. His off-key portrayal – thereby capturing the imagination and attention Cave’s picture book Something Else (1994) were newspapers, in 1995 he became the political affirms the post-modernist features of the text. of a contemporary readership of all ages. commended by the judges of the CILIP Kate cartoonist for The Observer, a position he continues His playful and, at times, irreverent narrative style Riddell extends his oeuvre beyond the Greenaway Award. The book was subsequently to hold. He says, “There is a clear link between my is probably best shown by the Ottoline books entertainment of young readers by using his talents awarded the first international UNESCO Prize for work for newspapers and my work on children’s that he both writes and illustrates. By sharing to address important and sometimes contentious Children’s and Young People’s Literature in the books. I don’t pick up one artistic hat and drop the some information only through written text and issues. For Something Else, Riddell and the author, Service of Tolerance in 1997. Further accolades other. One style feeds the other and they inform other information only through the illustration, Kathryn Cave, were awarded the first UNESCO followed. In 2001 Chris won the first of two Kate each other. It’s not unusual. It stems from a long he emphasizes (and challenges) the nature of the Prize for Children’s and Young People’s Literature Greenaway Awards with Pirate Diary, written by tradition of artists doing a wide variety of work.” picture book. By creating a cross-over form that in the Service of Tolerance in 1997. The endearing borrows from picture books and graphic novels as characters he created for Cave’s text communicate 2 3 themes of ‘otherness’ and of tolerance to a young indication of the broad frame of reference and Chris Riddell Interview : It’s about the texture of lines on the page audience without ever becoming didactic or theoretical interests that underpin the charming pedantic. His characters are evidently fantastic yet illustrations and narrative. they are also believable with soul and human and animal attributes, sharing the fears and joys of Whether in Hugo Pepper’s black and white line Extract from an interview with by Susanna utility belt and bowler hat from A Clockwork Orange.” creatures of flesh and blood. drawings, in vignettes or block illustrations, or Rustin in The Guardian 19 December 2014 through Gulliver’s confident full-colour spreads, So does he share Brand’s anti-establishment views? In Angus Rides the Goods Train, by Alan Durant, Chris Riddell manages to delight and provoke his http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/ “The notion that you should disengage is wrong,” he Chris Riddell again deals with serious subject young readership. His work is essentially hybrid. He dec/19/chris-riddell-illustrator-neil-gaiman-jk- says. “You should challenge and protest; but to be fair matter, telling a story about hunger, charity and is a ‘cross-over’ illustrator: moving between picture rowling-russell-brand-books-interview to Russell, he does. I think the message of the books sharing in an easily understood and entertaining books, illustrated children’s novels and even graphic is at the core of what he has been doing on and off: manner that communicates with children without Chris Riddell opens a sketchbook and flicks to a novels; between genres ranging from adventure questioning power. That’s not a bad message.” becoming burdened by heavy moralism or trivial to science fiction and social awareness; between drawing he wants to show me, in which a rather caricature. classical rendering and contemporary post-modern ordinary-looking middle-aged man is wrapped in the Fantastic creatures and monsters of all sorts are a long arms of a skinnier, taller, hairier one.