Every funny man needs a straight sidekick. In this partnering, children’s writer Paul Stewart played the stooge for illustrator and self-confessed cartoonist Chris Riddell. The Brighton-based duo have been delighting children with dark and witty confections such as The Edge Chronicles and Muddle Earth for some time (with more promised) and judging from the appreciative and captive audience, their popularity is not set to diminish.
Through an affectionate and wry collection of anecdotes, the stoic Stewart allowed Riddell’s adlibbing and pen free reign – the latter never left the page as one polished drawing fluently followed another, magnified and displayed through an overhead projector. The playful banter was catching and enabled the pair to successfully convey to their rapt giggling audience the unusual collaborative process they go through to get one of their books to print. “Other writers are horrified that I work with an illustrator,” mooted Stewart at one point while Riddell continually ribbed him (and all writers) for being “troubled and difficult”, very different creatures to artists he mused. Any similarities between their work and great literary classics (think Lord Of The Rings and Muddle Earth) was, said Stewart, deliberate homage not plagarism, which again provoked telling laughs from the knowledgeable gathering. Who says children don’t do irony; this crowd did.
What came through most was the clearly affectionate and good-natured working relationship that exists between the pair, although my personal triumph was the signed cartoon of a Banderbear by Riddell my daughter duplicitously obtained.
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