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The Illustrators
Posy Simmonds
In the course of a career spanning more than fifty years, Posy Simmonds has become one of Britain’s best-known satirical cartoonists. She is also as a much-loved author and artist of widely translated children’s books and graphic novels. These include Fred, animated in 1996 into the Oscar-nominated short film Famous Fred, and Gemma Bovery and Tamara Drewe, both adapted into films, increasing her international fame.
Simmonds once described her job on a census form as ‘a visual engineer’. Her extraordinary precision of drawing, her powers of observation and her sharp but well-tempered wit have made her one of Britain’s most sophisticated innovators, renowned especially for expanding the scope and subtlety of comics.
This is the first book to explore Simmonds’s life and work from her early childhood to the present day. In a series of interviews with Paul Gravett she offered insights into her creative process and provided unprecedented access to her ‘workroom’ and archives containing sketchbooks and rare or never-before-seen artworks. A portrait emerges of Posy Simmonds as a chronicler and critic of contemporary British society and a storyteller in words and pictures of rare perception and humanity.
Simmonds once described her job on a census form as ‘a visual engineer’. Her extraordinary precision of drawing, her powers of observation and her sharp but well-tempered wit have made her one of Britain’s most sophisticated innovators, renowned especially for expanding the scope and subtlety of comics.
This is the first book to explore Simmonds’s life and work from her early childhood to the present day. In a series of interviews with Paul Gravett she offered insights into her creative process and provided unprecedented access to her ‘workroom’ and archives containing sketchbooks and rare or never-before-seen artworks. A portrait emerges of Posy Simmonds as a chronicler and critic of contemporary British society and a storyteller in words and pictures of rare perception and humanity.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2019
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June 21, 2021
A telling insight into the work of Posy Simmonds who trailblazed the way for graphic novels and cartoons here in the UK as well as leading the way to challenge and topple patriarchy through comic art during the 80s and 90s onwards.
Gravett is the master critic of the graphic novel format and his engaging and precise overview of Simmonds' life and work is well written. I wanted it to be longer but as a concise, visual biography of her work, it was very good.
Gravett is the master critic of the graphic novel format and his engaging and precise overview of Simmonds' life and work is well written. I wanted it to be longer but as a concise, visual biography of her work, it was very good.
Displaying 1 of 1 review