journalism – AmeliasMagazine

Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with fashion photographer Cynthia Berger

From the series Post Punk

A little while ago I wrote an article about fashion in Berlin. It wasn’t particularly amorous to say the least; save a few incredible museums, I wasn’t overtly impressed by the grade of the fashion I saw on the street. I was only there for the weekend, mind.

Coincidentally an email popped into the fashion inbox pretty soon after from Cynthia Berger – German born and Berlin based fashion photographer. I failed to mention my less-than-flattering view of Berlin, but her photographs completely stole my attention.

Cynthia is a fashion photographer through and through, and her early years were spent wielding a camera with the help of her photographer father.

The images Cynthia creates are often stark portraits of the citizens of Berlin, and with minimal settings and styling, there is a real photojournalistic realism to her photographs (it’s no surprise to discover, then, that her influential father was also a journalist). Her work reminds me much of some of the work that was featured in Amelia’s Magazine – Louise Samuelson in Issue 08 for example.

Cynthia uses street-cast models in her photographs, giving each picture added verisimilitude, along with the designs of up-and-coming Berlin fashion designers; with most of her work being set within the dramatic urban landscape of Berlin itself, Cynthia’s photographs totally embody the spirit of this historical city.

From the series Berlin Fashion

I managed to have a quick chat with Cynthia about her father, her work and her future…

How did you get in to photography?
My father was both a photographer and a journalist, so at a very early age I was surrounded by photography. At aged 8 I started to take my own photographs.

What did you study?
I studied Photography in Germany and worked later in Capetown as a photographer’s assistant. Back in Germany, I studied Communication and worked for a while as a researcher in the media world, finally coming home after that.

How do your shoots come together?
The photograph is already taken in my mind before I go and shoot. I plan the shoots entirely, so that I have the freedom to experience everything and to allow the ideas to evolve.

What about photography in particular keeps you focussed?
I like to involve and inspire people.

From the series Boys in the Suburbs

What messages do your photographs carry?
Every photograph always carries a variety of messages.

Which photographers do you admire, and why?
I like Richard Avedon, particularly his portraits – they have such high density and intense impression. I also like the work of Anna Gaskell, her mysterious atmosphere and symbolic storytelling.

How is the fashion/photography scene in Berlin?
Berlin is the fashion capital of Germany. Berlin is a city that is immensely inspiring through constant change. It’s a melting pot for design, fashion, art, architecture, music and photography.

Have you travelled as a photographer?
I lived three years in Capetown, a year in London and did a few travels through the USA and Europe.

Do you think photographs can change opinions, challenge ideals, inform, provoke or otherwise?
They can – if you put them into the right context.

What are your plans for the future?
I write any ideas I have in my “Idea Book” that I have with me wherever I am. I have many projects planned for the future, with an exhibition here in Berlin high on the list.

From the series Laura’s Story, exclusive to Amelia’s Magazine

You can see more of Cynthia’s work here.

Written by Matt Bramford on Tuesday May 25th, 2010 2:03 pm

Categories ,Amelia’s Magazine 08, ,Anna Gaskell, ,berlin, ,Capetown, ,Communication, ,Cynthia Berger, ,fashion, ,Germany, ,journalism, ,landscape, ,london, ,Louise Samuelson, ,Matt Bramford, ,Messages, ,models, ,photography, ,photojournalism, ,Richard Avedon, ,South Africa

Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with fashion photographer Cynthia Berger

From the series Post Punk

Cynthia is a fashion photographer through and through, and her early years were spent wielding a camera with the help of her photographer father.

From the series Berlin Fashion

I managed to have a quick chat with Cynthia about her father, her work and her future…

What about photography in particular keeps you focussed?
I like to involve and inspire people.

From the series Boys in the Suburbs

What messages do your photographs carry?
Every photograph always carries a variety of messages.

Have you travelled as a photographer?
I lived three years in Capetown, a year in London and did a few travels through the USA and Europe.

Do you think photographs can change opinions, challenge ideals, inform, provoke or otherwise?
They can – if you put them into the right context.

From the series Laura’s Story, exclusive to Amelia’s Magazine

You can see more of Cynthia’s work here.

Written by Matt Bramford on Tuesday May 25th, 2010 2:03 pm

Amelia’s Magazine | STACK Magazine Subscription Service: an interview with founder Steve Watson

Stack Magazines by Jo Cheung

There is something about print magazines; the aroma of them, sometimes thick and woody, sometimes fresh and glossy. There is something undeniably comforting about holding a magazine in your hands, the texture: solid and reassuring beneath your fingers. A magazine is something real and tangible that your eyes and tips can really get to grips with. There’s no feeling in world like getting your mitts on a virgin mag, previously unopened, your eye-balls the first to drink in the words and pictures of that copy. Even the ink-dust that sticks to your fingers on some mags; that’s something that I love, to have words physically rub off on my fingers. What could be better than that?

Little White Lies

For all these reasons, subscribing to Stack, a magazine subscription service which sends out a different independent magazine to its customers each month, is one of my indulgences. Every 30 days or so, I get an envelope in the mail. I collect it from the welcome mat and I bring it upstairs to digest. I open it like a kid at Christmas, cheeks flushed with excitement. I love the smell of magazines in the morning.

Stack Magazines

In the last year they’ve sent out: Boat, a magazine which transports itself to a new city for each issue; The Ride Journal, a magazine which weaves together the anecdotes of cyclists the world over; your new friend Oh Comely, a mag that wants to keep your curiosity alive. Old favourites such as Anorak, the kid’s magazine with a difference, make an appearance too. These are the mags that cross the divide between zine and art and with cover prices as high as £10.50 you’re likely to get your money’s worth if you subscribe.

Stack Magazines

With June came sun, and also Port Magazine, food lover’s heaven. Stylish and chic, it has a hint of glossy men’s mag about it. Kicking off with an open letter to Old Fulton Fish Market and complete with a pinch of Nigella Lawson, this mag will whet your appetite for future issues.

The July delivery brought me the music edition of Wooden Toy Quarterly, which not only came inside album-like packaging but also had little sister typography mag Lyrics and Type tucked inside. Put together by Kaleidoscope Festival co-founder Timba Smits, WTQ is a visual delight.

WTQ Music Issue Cover

Wooden Toy Quarterly Music Issue

Lyrics and Type

September brought issue 4 of Juke. With some of the adverts made in collaboration between brand and mag, this music magazine (with a side of fashion) takes a walk on the wild side. The editorial informs me that “it’s time to get your weird on” and it’s hard not to follow Juke through to obscurity and beyond.

Stack Magazines by Karen Brotherton

Very Nearly Almost, a Stack staple, came one chilly October. Issue 20 was so devoted to its main subject matter: graffiti, that I initially thought that the name of the mag was Retna, one of the graffiti artists it covered. This mag caught hold of my imagination, filled with street art, this is an urban art mag at its best and strong visuals made up a large bulk of this publication.

VNA

These are just a few of the mags that have been sent to me in the post since I subscribed. August presented an issue of Rouleur packed to the rafters with “the world’s finest cycle racing reportage”, and Delayed Gratification, “the slow journalism” magazine also made an appearance in my mailbox around Xmas.

Delayed Gratification

Stack really is revolutionary. Each magazine comes with a letter which explains why the mag was picked and what it has to offer. In one side of A4 it tells you a bit about the contents, whether it’s some info about the mag creators, or how Stack stumbled across the mag. This gives the service a personal element and really helps you connect with the issue in-hand as well as get to know the team over at Stack headquarters. Most letters also make you privy to the ‘message’ of the mag, meaning that you have a little insight before you crick its back.

The founder of Stack, Steven Watson is a guy with a real lust for magazines; “magazines are constellations of ideas,” he says. He had the brainwave to start Stack in September 2008; merging the t-shirt subscription model with a blog post he read about consuming different independent magazines as a way to stay interesting. Stack was launched pretty soon after and was up-and-running by December 2008.

Rouleur

Steve‘s love for mags stems from their ability to display the bigger picture, “with a print mag you can glance at a spread and focus in on a small detail. They’re read in a different way…they haven’t quite got this with iPad and tablet mags yet.” He’s a passionate printy himself “I love the fact some of these are mags being made by people not getting paid, sometimes not even breaking even; they are just hugely passionate about the subject matter.”

Stack Magazines

He identifies a Stack Magazine as, “a mag with something to say, with a distinctive point of view and a stylish way of saying it”. He goes on to elaborate further saying the mags they choose are “niche but welcoming”.

His passion for the print stuff started when he was off sick from school and his mum got him a copy of Smash Hits. During his teens this progressed to a love for FHM and Steve currently works for The Church of London, the Creative Agency which makes Little White Lies (which coincidentally began life in Amelia’s house when publisher Danny Miller lived there.)

He notes that over time a lot has changed and Stack now have around 1,200 subs and hope to break 2,000 by the end of 2013. He explains that they sometimes send out additional mags “but it mainly depends on the weight. When we started, we had 300 or so subscribers and it was ok, but now our circulation’s higher, it’s harder to convince mags to send us more than a thousand copies for free.”

DogEar
These additional mags are varied and include DOGEAR, which is both a magazine and a bookmark, and boasts illustration, poetry and fiction in its miniature pages. Each instalment comes on a different shade of pastel coloured card and the pieces in this nifty little bookmark are often short and pithy and many even take advantage of the mag’s small stature with their layout.

Your Days Are Numbered

I’ve also received a visually striking issue of Your Days Are Numbered which featured an interview in French which I think (although my French is a little rusty) is with Bastien Vives. This little mag is a real gem with a comic book slant and one of the pages gets up-close and personal with a member of the Judge Dredd team.

Shellsuit Zombie

Issue 3 of Shellsuit Zombie opens with a Trainspotting-style speech, and does not shy away from a well-placed profanity or two. A healthy shot of illustration and a young creative vibe give this mag its edge, making me draw comparisons to The Skinny because of both its colour newspaper format and street-savvy tone. These are just some of the mags which have been included with the main mag gratuit.

It’s been around a year since I subscribed to Stack. It’s been an emotional journey for me, whether it’s pulling apart a magazine and using the sheets to wrap my Christmas presents, as with the November 2012 delivery, issue 6 of Wrap magazine, or ohhing and ahhing over the vinyl like cover of Wooden Toy Quarterly, subscribing to Stack has been one of my highlights of the last 12 months.

Wrap

Each month with the service is a surprise and all you know before you get the tell-tale envelope in the post is that you’ll be getting one of the best independent English-language mags out there. I can’t recommend it enough, whether you’re a word lover, a design fanatic, an illustrator looking for inspiration, or you just want something interesting to get your teeth into each month; this is the best purchase I’ve made in years. If you want a fresh perspective or you just want to make sure that your coffee table is the most beautiful of them all, then Stack is for you. Sign up on their website here.

The Ride Journal

People have been throwing round the phase lately that ‘print is dead’. And while it might be declining, I like to think that it will rise up in pulp zombie form and take on digital in a fight to the death. Stack is part of the changing evolution of print distribution and evidence that the last rasping gasp the papers have been shouting about might in fact have just been a yawn, while it waited for something like Stack to come along and shake it up a little. (Amelia: If only STACK had existed before I decided to stop producing Amelia’s Magazine in print: distribution through the usual channels was an absolute nightmare and one of the reasons I decided to pull out of print back in 2008.)

Steven Watson by Rosemary Kirton
Steve Watson illustration by Rosemary Kirton

Written by Jessica Cook on Thursday March 7th, 2013 7:15 pm

Categories ,Amelia’s Magazine, ,Church of London, ,circulation, ,Danny Miller, ,design, ,DOGEAR, ,illustration, ,Jessica Cook, ,Jo Cheung, ,journalism, ,Juke, ,Karen Brotherton, ,Little White Lies, ,Love Letter to Print Magazines, ,Magazines, ,Oh Comely, ,Port, ,print, ,Rosemary Kirton, ,Shellsuit Zombie, ,Stack Magazines, ,Steve Watson, ,Subscription, ,Very Nearly Almost, ,Wrap

Amelia’s Magazine | Wrap Magazine: An Interview with Co-Founder Polly Glass

Polly & Chris by Gemma Cotterell
Christopher Harrison and Polly Glass by Gemma Cotterell

When I open Issue Seven of Wrap, I’m thinking of Princess Clara, Wooldoor Jebediah Sockbat, Foxxy Love, Toot Braunstein and the whole gang. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this wondrous cast of visual mockery, these are characters from animation parody Drawn Together, a TV show which pokes fun at our favourite 2D cartoonies, and also, the name of Wrap’s most recent issue. Wrap‘s Drawn Together puts a beady eye onto collectives, and the highlights of this issue include: Anthony Burrill, Peepshow Collective, Nous Vous, Pictoplasm, Studio Tipi, Print Club London, Hvass&Hannibal and Edition Biografiktion.

Wrap Magazine

‘Are four hands better than two?’ is the question at the nib of the latest installation of this illustration celebration. This “people power” issue not only explores the relationships between happily ever after collectives, but also plays matchmaker to a few of its own new ink-birds. There are some familiar faces here, making me think that the illustration world is pretty incestuous, but the overall effect is inspiring. This isn’t the first time I’ve had my mitts on a copy of the mag, and around Santa-time the Nordic Lights issue was like a security blanket for me; I carried it everywhere. There’s something very tactile and natural about yanking out the pages of a mag and the concept of this little magazine has me completely infatuated.

Wrap Magazine

Ripping a magazine is usually a painful, accidental and clumsy affair, caused by careless turning, or perusing in the tub. Wrap is meant to be ripped. With 5 pull out, reversible pages of double-sided illustration goodness, you can artwork-coat your gifts with this lovely ‘zine. Wrap seems to be everywhere I look these days, having stumbled across it via STACK, I’ve also found it hidden in a nook of the Ohh Deer online webshop. What could be better than dressing up your gifts in beautiful outfits before handing them over to your loved one? Undressing presents is half the fun of getting them after all. That and the ‘gift shake’; the little dance move you do when you first grab hold of a present to assess its potential insides.

Wrap is more than just an illustration magazine, it celebrates design and creative culture as a whole. Created by Christopher Harrison and Polly Glass it’s on the way to proving that print hasn’t passed its use-by date. I spoke to co-creator Polly Glass about how the pair got the mag off the ground and what they’re looking for in new contributors.

Wrap Magazine

What did you get up to before Wrap?
Before, and also during the early stages of Wrap, Chris and I both worked as jewellery designers in London for a fashion jewellery company – that’s how we met actually. We worked with a whole host of British brands including Mathew Williamson, Agent Provocateur, Ted Baker and Cath Kidston which was a great experience, and really helped us to see how bigger designs brands like that function.

Wrap Magazine

Wrapping paper is something many people overlook, has it always been a passion of yours?
I wouldn’t say it quite like that, no – although I do take pleasure in a beautiful wrapped present! For us, the wrapping paper element to Wrap is about it being the best way to show off the fantastic and hugely impressive work of our contributing illustrators, because the sheets are so nice and big. Also, as one of the main purposes of Wrap is to share illustrators work with other people, if our readers can pull out a sheet that has one of their favourite designs on, and use it to wrap up a present for their best friend, then they are carrying on that sharing process.

Wrap Magazine

How did you get the funds to publish the first issue of Wrap?
We funded issue one ourselves through savings – our print run was quite small, and we created a much simpler version of what Wrap is today, which made it relatively affordable to test out as an idea, and see how people would react. Luckily, people seemed to really like the concept of the magazine, and so from there, sales of the magazine have funded all future issues.

How does the financial model of the mag work now? Do you both work on it full-time?
Yes, we both work full time on the magazine, and we also have a team of brilliant freelancers who we couldn’t do without! Wrap is now 80 pages (compared to 24 in issue one!), so it takes a great deal of energy from all involved to make it what it is. Financially, magazine publishing is a hard industry to crack, but essentially the model is to make and sell lots of magazines! At the moment we have very minimal advertising in Wrap, so revenue comes mainly from sales, and we run nearly all the distribution ourselves in order to maximize profit and insure that Wrap is sold to the best shops possible, and ones that really understand what we’re all about. We also work firm sale (meaning they buy the magazines out-right) with our stockists, as this means every magazine that goes out the door has been paid for, which helps to reduce wastage and over-printing.

Chris from Wrap, by Karina Jarv
Christopher Harrison by Karina Jarv

Wrap uses vegetable based inks and 100% recycled paper, was making the mag environmentally friendly always a priority for you, despite cost?
Whether it’s the magazine, or our range of wrapping papers and prints, we always try to produce things in a considerate and environmentally friendly way – there’s no reason not to really. Printing can be a hugely wasteful industry, so we are very careful to only make things that we really believe in, and we only work with UK printers – a manufacturing industry we’re keen to support and promote.

Wrap Magazine

Issue Six focussed on Nordic lights, and Issue Seven on collaborations, how do you go about picking a theme?
There’s no particular method to our theme selection – really, it’s about delving into a subject or area that we think is interesting and relevant to the field of illustration at the time. We do also of course consider the time of year, so with the Nordic Lights Issue (our Winter 2012 edition) – we thought the idea of ten illustrators from across Scandinavia sharing with our readers their impression of a snowy, Nordic winter would be wonderful! And our new, seventh issue celebrates creative ‘collectives’ and collaborations – a way of working that seems to be growing in popularity and that we wanted to find out more about.

Polly by Alys Jones
Polly by Alys Jones

You mentioned that you visited Berlin for research, what’s been your best research trip so far?
Ooooh – we’ve been very lucky to go on a few research trips now. I loved Berlin, and our trip to Helsinki for the last issue was brilliant, if not a bit chilly, but for me, going to spend the day with graphic designer Anthony Burrill in sunny Rye was the best! He gave Harry (our editor) and I a super tour of the coastal town, including visiting ‘Simon the Pieman’ – his favourite cafe, and Adams of Rye – the traditional letterpress printers who he collaborates with to produce his famous posters, including the special one he’s made just for Wrap 7!

Wrap Magazine

I found a beautiful illustrated postcard inside my copy, is this something you’ll be doing in future?
Oh yes, we always try to include something a little special with each issue, like the postcards. Our subscribers all received a set of exclusive patterned stickers by illustrator Ed J Brown (who drew our title typeface in issue 7), with their delivery of issue 7 – we hope they liked them!

Who do you imagine as your typical reader?
From what we’ve seen, our readers can be pretty wide ranging, but typically, they are practicing creative people, and around 70% are women.

Wrap Magazine

Anthony Burrill produced a poster based on the latest issue, is it important for you to make Wrap more than just a magazine?
Wrap is about celebrating some of the best and most vibrant artists of the moment, and the more we grow, the more we find exciting ways to do that through the magazine and the Wrap brand! Last year we worked with four of our favourite illustrators to develop our first range of commercial wrapping papers, and so far this year we’ve worked with Anthony to produce his fantastic poster for Wrap, and the six illustrators in our ‘Make a Good Thing Happen’ project to produce a range of 3 limited-edition notebooks. We’ve had lots of fun, and have lots more ideas to work on!

Wrap Magazine

Your latest issue featured a whole host of illustrators, including Nous Vous and Peepshow Collective, how do you go about finding illustrators to work with?
We’re always on the lookout for new illustrators and designers to work with, whether it be through exhibitions, events or twitter and social media channels, but we’re also very lucky to get a lot of people contact us through our submissions email which is great. I suppose the more and more you’re immersed in an industry like illustration, the more you hear about, and know what’s going on. However we also love to go to the summer student shows by universities like Brighton and Kingston – they’re a great place to spot potential new stars.

Wrap Magazine
Do you think that “print is dead”?
This is a question we are often asked! No, I don’t think print is dead – but the industry is obviously changing and evolving, like lots of areas at the moment. I like that it’s actually making people more considerate and careful about what they print, which can only be a good thing.

Wrap Magazine

Photographs were provided by Wrap Magazine

Written by Jessica Cook on Friday April 26th, 2013 12:34 pm

Categories ,art, ,artists, ,collaboration, ,Collaborations, ,creative culture, ,design, ,drawing, ,Drawn Together, ,features, ,Gift, ,illustration, ,jessicasrcook, ,journalism, ,mag, ,magazine, ,Nous Vous, ,Ohh Deer, ,paper, ,Polly & Chris, ,Shellsuit Zombie, ,STACK, ,Stack Magazines, ,Subscription, ,Wrap, ,Wrapping paper, ,writing, ,zine

Amelia’s Magazine | Becky Barnicoat- Come In, Everyone is Here Already! Part 2

Image courtesy Becky Barnicoat

Valerie Pezeron: You mentioned previously that you did a project as a comic book at school. Do you think that if kids did that now, visit web adiposity they would be better received…?
Becky Barnicoat: I doubt it in the school I went to, prescription decease but maybe in a school where you had an English teacher who was creative? It would probably be more in a state school I feel. I’ve got a really good friend who is an English teacher, page she does English media and film and she loves comic books and I’m sure if a kid did that, she’d be interested and maybe she’d recommend some comic books? But my teachers, had they ever heard of a comic? No. They had no interest. We had to do this project, which was about your future career in English literature, and I wanted to be a cartoonist. And I thought I should draw this and I have to confess it was an absolute load of shit! It was so badly drawn, it was really really superficial and I’m sure if I had executed this beautifully she would have been more impressed but I did do it quite roughly.

All photographs courtesy of Valerie Pezeron

VP: You think so?
BB: Maybe, because it would at least have been interesting but I gave in were those stupid cartoons…I didn’t take the project very seriously but yeah, I did get a D minus and a detention for not doing it properly! (Becky laughs)

VP: That is really a shame, because I think that it is quite an original way of doing things and you were trying to approach it from another point of view. If I were an English teacher, I would applaud this because it’s about the content. Did she even look at the content? Maybe she balked at the fact that you decided to draw instead of writing?
BB: I think it was a combination of both. What I did was a story of these two people that wanted to be cartoonists and they went on journey to try and find some cartooning heroes in America and it all went very wrong for them and they failed because nobody was interested in them. And it was really silly; I don’t know why…my school was not interested, I was actually told I was not allowed to do GCSE Art because I was too interested in cartoons and that wasn’t appropriate. They made me do a still life to prove I was serious about art. I did draw a still life of a bowl of fruit…b because my sketchbooks were full of cartoons. And they said, “We just don’t think you’re taking this very seriously, this isn’t art, this is messing around.” How depressing is that!

VP: Very depressing! I’d be very depressed!
BB: How horrible is that because the only thing I cared about was art and I felt really upset about it!

VP: I agree and little knocks like that actually make a comic book artist, don’t you think?
BB: Yes, I guess, maybe eventually. But I felt I had too much self-doubt that what they said, “You’re not right, you can’t do art”, I thought, “Oh god, maybe they’re right.”

VP: I know because when you are at that age, you wanted to follow in the footsteps of all those great satirists. Who were you looking at when you were a teenager? How did you even get the idea that you could say things through cartoons?
BB: Yeah, I know! I don’t know why I liked cartoons.

VP: Did you know Bosch or Gerald Scarfe?
BB: A little bit. My parents love art and cartoons. It’s more typical for British people to be interested in political cartoons. I used to thin I love the cartoons but I find the subject matter really boring. (Laughter) Why do cartoons have to be about politics all the time?

VP: But you were aware of the Victorian cartooning?
BB: Yeah, we had lots of Punch books and I used to look through them. And I did really enjoy some of them, but I’ve always really enjoyed the absurd more than possibly satire. I love satire but I think for what I want to do…I really enjoy Spike Milligan, but they were just little doodles. I’ve always enjoyed a drawing where you don’t need to be realist and you can still make someone feel something.

VP: What about movies, or anything that could have influenced you?
BB: Well, I guess, the beginning was probably just children books, which I absolutely loved. I ate them up.

VP: For instance?
BB: Oh, I mean I love them so much! We read so many, and the illustrations, I never forgot them! I still remember all the drawings from all the children books I read. You know, Meg and Mog, John Burningam who did the Avocado Baby, Mister Gumpy and Simp, they were really beautiful. We read Tim and Ginger by Ardizzone, we did a lot of Edward Ardizzone and Maurice Sendak. And I read all the Tintin books. My dad is a massive Tintin fan! That was good, that’s actually a proper comic strip in my life. The Tiger who came to Tea by Judith Kerr…they were just magical to me and much better than just words, which I always felt was a really controversial thing to say. But now I think you are allowed to say that! Pictures are almost borderline as respected as words, not quite, but still not quite! (Laughter) But I’d look at the pictures and you don’t need words, because it was so exciting and your imagination would go wild.

VP: So what attracted you to this world were the characters, the incongruous…?
BB: Yes, I’ve always loved those worlds where… The Tiger who came to Tea is a great example, actually. Have you read it?

VP: No, I must admit my references are more French. But I do know the Maurice Sendak, Ardezoni and the Tintin obviously.
BB: But this book The Tiger who came to Tea is about this girl and her mum waiting for the dad to come home. And then this tiger just turns up in the house and they invite him in. He has tea with them but he basically trashes the house; he drinks out of the tap and he drinks all of their water, he messes up all the kitchen but they never really question the fact that there is a tiger in there, they’re not really scared! (Laughter) You know, he’s just there and the mess he causes is like the idea of a big person coming around and it’s all very harmless! I love that and Babar: elephants and people, they just coexist, you know, that’s how it is! I love that!

Image courtesy of Becky Barnicoat

VP: London is like that, isn’t it? Our surroundings is filled with the strange, the incongruous, the elephant in the room but everybody is going about their business not seeming to notice each other. They’re all in a way little elephants! Or it’s actually the opposite: you are the elephant in the room!
BB: Yeah, I suppose so. I don’t know what it is; I think it’s pretty really simplistic. I think the world would be more fun if a dinosaur just walked down the street, right now…

VP: And just eating everybody? (Laughter)
BB: …I just love imagining that! And everyone would be like “oh, hello!”

VP: We can see all of the above have influences this new comic you have been working on?
BB: Completely. Part of my interest is people and their faces; I love drawing that. But in terms of my storytelling, I love people with…(Becky shows me a cartoon of hers). So this was a story about an old lady who has a robot and she doesn’t ever question the fact that her friend is a machine and he has to be plugged into the wall. He is slightly limited. In this story, she is watching X Factor and wanting to take part. She is telling him all about it but his plug is not in, so he hasn’t been listening in to anything she has been saying. It’s kind of sad but she doesn’t really feel sad about it, she just “oh dear” gets on with it. I love to have people interacting with unexpected characters and it’s almost normal.

VP: But that’s a bit different because that is for adults.
BB: But my upcoming children’s book will be, well sort of.

Image courtesy of Becky Barnicoat

VP: So this will be for adults?
BB: I think so, yeah, but for most adults and children. It’s going to have darkness in it because it’s about a couple that go to stay in a cabin in the woods. And then the boyfriend goes out, he has to go and get batteries or something. He gets eaten by a bear. And then the bear comes into the house. She is waiting for the boyfriend to return and she hears what she thinks is the boyfriend coming into the bedroom, but it’s the bear! You think, “he’s going to eat her”, but he picks up the guitar and he sings a song on the end of her bed. And she hears the music and smiles. You don’t know if she knows the bear and she doesn’t mind. And the bear is not probably going to hurt her; he’s just singing a song. I don’t know what that really means but I like those kind of weird, absurd scenarios.

VP: I like this take on childhood. In a way, children are more ready to enjoy or to open the door to the unreal or surreal.
BB: Yeah, I think that’s true.

VP: And they are more accepting of the extraordinary.
BB: Yeah, definitely. I like the idea of the extraordinary being fairly normal. That’s probably what runs through everything. (Valerie is looking at the sketchbooks) I’m trying to draw every morning now. I have to do a comic. I was so tired when I did these sketches!

VP: I think it’s a really good effort! In the last few months, I have not worked on my comic book. I think I’ve been through writers’ block. Now, since last month, I’m forcing myself to do this again. Do you have moments like that? I mean, it’s terrible; my publisher at New Humanist is still waiting on me to show my complete graphic novel! Do you get that?
BB: Yes, definitely. I had it…hum…a longish period of my life when I wasn’t really drawing. When I was in university, I was the cartoonist for the student paper, so I was drawing every week. And then I just got to a point where I felt “I’m just not going to do this anymore”. I’m going to do journalism and I started editing my own magazine. And for that year, I was barely drawing at all. And then I went down to London and I got a job on a teenage girl magazine. I wasn’t drawing at all during the whole year I worked for that magazine. I barely drew; I think I drew card for friends. And then I started to really worry about the fact I hadn’t drawn for ages. I was getting insomnias as well, which was weird. And I started to try and draw again and I just couldn’t do a thing. I had an almighty creative block. I’s sit at the pad and draw rubbish, awful stickmen pretty much. I’d think: “this is it! Oh my god, I’ve killed it!” And it took me, well, until now, to get back to a place where I have ideas. I just forced myself.

VP: You know, I find that with me, when I have those blocks, I don’t have the dreams that I usually get when I am really creative- mad and very rich dreams. And I have to run the next morning and write it down or draw something. Do you have that?
BB: Yeah, definitely. When I am not drawing I become really dead, I think, inside. And I don’t sleep, I’ve discovered. If I don’t draw, I get insomnia.

VP: What made you want to go into journalism if you wanted so early on to be part of the visual arts?
BB: Well, when I started drawing on the student paper cartoons, I started editing the art section. I actually do enjoy editing articles. I find it really satisfying; tightening it up, cutting it down, you know, questioning things that don’t make sense. That appealed to another side of me.

VP: So would you recommend it as a way to get into comic art?
BB: I don’t know. I keep thinking I should try and draw something for the paper. But then similarly to you, I feel going to them with my portfolio, I think “Oh no, they won’t like it”, so I’m a bit scared of being judged and rejected.

VP: Yeah! One of the reasons why I really had to do this interview is that we really have a similar journey. We’re very different, but in some ways we have some similarities. Especially, I wanted to know about the blog. I find interesting what you said about…when you started the blog, and then things started to happen. Did you have that in mind when you created the blog?
BB: Yeah, definitely. The idea of the blog was to make sure I was drawing every day, to have something I’d say “public”. But I mean, god knows how many people check it; maybe ten of my friends. The idea would be they’d be expecting me to do something and I couldn’t just put it off because I’d be really letting myself down in public. You know, people would know I wasn’t drawing. So if I say “I really want to be a cartoonist”, they’d go “oh, you really didn’t update your blog for three months and they’d know that it’s bollocks. That was part of it; to force myself to actually follow through with this thing I was telling everyone. And then, ok, you have to show people what your cartoons are. So I started doing that.

VP: Did you advertise the blog?
BB: I sent a group email around to my mates saying here is my new blog. And that was it!

VP: I think it’s a very nice blog, very offbeat with great sense of humour and comic timing.
BB: Oh, thank you, I’m so glad. I think what’s been really nice about it. One person won’t get what I put up, but then somebody else would say, “That’s my favourite!” It sounds so corny but even if it’s one person who likes it, it makes me feel it’s totally worth doing a cartoon if even one person enjoys it.

Written by Valerie Pezeron on Thursday January 7th, 2010 7:16 pm

Categories ,Babar, ,Becky Barnicoat, ,blog, ,books, ,comic art, ,comic books, ,comica, ,comics, ,comicstrips, ,Edward Ardizzone, ,Fantagraphics, ,fanzine, ,Gerald Scarfe, ,graphic novels, ,Hieronimus Bosch, ,humour, ,ica, ,John Burningham, ,journalism, ,leeds university, ,Maurice Sendak, ,Meg and Mog, ,New Humanist, ,Paul Gravett, ,sequential artist, ,The Guardian, ,Valerie Pezeron, ,Valoche Designs, ,viz, ,Wimbledon college of art

Amelia’s Magazine | Becky Barnicoat- Come In, Everyone is Here Already!

Becky Barnicoat works as the commissioning editor on the Guardian Weekend magazine, purchase pharmacy but is also a cartoonist and currently works on a new comic about a musical bear – you can see a couple of sketches from it on her blog.

She’s always drawn, buy information pills and when she was at school I did a whole English project (the title was ‘My future career’) in comic book form. She got a D- and a detention for it. One could say that was kind of the theme of things – most authority figures think cartoons are for babies. “I wish I could have shown them Maus so they could see how wrong they were, ambulance but I didn’t know it existed back then” Becky says.

She started the blog Come in, Everyone is here already a couple of years ago and since then has started drawing for various people – including Le Cool magazine, Harry Hill and Five Dials. She was on the panel at the Salem Brownstone event at Comica this year, and last year drew the ‘Bowie and Bowie’ comic strip for Comica PoCom – which was on the wall in the ICA.

She is an enterprising gal as she also sporadically self-publishes a zine called Everyone Is Here Already.

Valerie Pezeron: What is the inspiration behind your work? Did you use visual references doing your faces?

Becky Barnicoat: Actually, that particular page all came from my head. It’s probably what I have always done from when I was a kid sitting in lessons, just drawing faces and caricatures of my teachers, that was quite a big thing. One of them was quite a nice woman, but she had an odd-looking face and I drew an awful caricature of her. She found my notebook and she looked really hurt, that was awful!

VP: Was it the lady who sent you to detention?
BB: She wasn’t one of the bad teachers but one of the good ones. It’s just that she looked a little bit like a guinea pig. But I won’t say anymore because she might read this! So this what I have always done; I just did “Faces” from my head, I find it really fun. I love the possibility of how ugly something could be but I don’t find that disgusting: I love weird faces so much and sometimes I see people on the street and their faces are just bizarre. The odder the shape the better it is.

VP: I agree with you there are so many different characters out there, especially where you live, in Stoke Newington.
BB: Oh yes! I cycle to work and I see many faces I want to draw! The other day I was cycling through Newington green and I saw this woman crossing the road and she had so much of something on her face that her skin was almost reddy-orange. And I was thinking “My, she’s put a bit too much foundation on, it looks extraordinary” and I thought maybe the poor woman has some terrible skin condition. And she would be a wonderful drawing but not in a way that would be mocking her. I love it when people look unusual.

VP: So would it be fair to say it is people that draw you to being creative? It’s not about the blandness of objects…

BB: That’s probably true; I’m not very good with objects. Landscapes? Not so much. It’s never been my thing, which is actually now a problem. I can get my pen going on a person or an animal but I have to put them somewhere and perspective is tricky.

VP: Don’t downplay your abilities!BB: (Laughter) So this is one side of what I am interested in. These were people who were on the Internet, and I drew them in on style…

VP: Glad you bring that up. I have noticed you don’t have one particular style.

BB: No, Definitely not!

VP: Is it on purpose or did you try to develop one or you don’t care that much?

BB: Good question as I think about it a lot. I definitely don’t try not to have one style. I just can’t imagine myself committing to just one style; I’d really miss too much the other style.

VP: So do you apply one style to one specific subject?

BB: Yeah, I suppose that is it, but it’s not that conscious. It just happens. I think of an idea and it’s immediately obvious to me what style should be for that.

VP: I see, very interestingly, you use all kinds of medium, inks, pen and washes, watercolour…

BB: It’s not premeditated when I use, and I love to use pen and ink. And I use this medium mostly.

VP: Tell us about the fanzine. When did you start it?

BB: That was a project a comic book artist friend of mine called Tom and I started. Just like me, he has a full-time job. We both want to be comic book artists and we decided we should do a comic book. A friend of mine who used to work in a bookshop called Persephone proposed we do a comic book evening; it will be in two months, you both work on the comic book and then we can sell it in the shop with drinks and music and we invite people along. They were ALL of our friends, there weren’t any strangers there at all!

VP: How many people?

BB: It was quite full actually…all of my family, friends of friends! I had about 50 copies of my magazine and they all sold! But another project came up at the same time and I had to really rush it!

VP: So this is issue 1 and issue 2 is planned for later? When did you do this one?

BB: That was earlier this year, sort of June / July.

VP: How often would you see yourself doing this fanzine?

BB: I’d like to do them much more often than I do but with my full time job, it’s not really that straightforward. Wake up every morning at 6.30 am, draw for an hour and then go work full-time at the office. I’d like to do it much more often. What Tom and me are going to do in the next couple of weeks is a 12-hour comic and whatever comes out of that will probably be issue 2. It will be much messier, scruffier and perhaps not make much sense!

VP: So I’m really interested to know about your journey? Did you go to university and study journalism?

BB: I didn’t, no, not for journalism. I went to an all-girls school in Barnes and then to Wimbledon Art College for foundation. It’s not that exciting, I was shocked at how crap it is. Everyone said “this is one of the best art schools” but it was awful! I stayed and I just about scraped a pass. Some of the people who I thought were the best there got fails because they just didn’t care. They were vicious about your actual work: “This is fine”, looking at someone’s beautiful drawings “but where is your reflective notebook and diary…sorry but that is part of your course requirements. If you don’t have those then we can’t pass you. Some of the students were part of that course in the 1st place because they are dyslexics, they didn’t want to write, and that’s why they are artists! It’s just insane. Wimbledon wanted everyone to be totally institutionalised, do their 9 to 5… The people whose work was the least inspiring but came in every day got the best grades. They were the stars of the year- the work was not great but they got lads of it!

VP: Woody Allen said a big part of success is showing up. It’s one of my favorite quotes and I think about it often.

BB: It’s so true! There were these brilliant dysfunctional characters with amazing imaginations and absolutely raw talent…you should allow them to thrive and allowing people work in the way that they naturally do because that is going to produce the best work. I hated doing the foundation. I really liked the idea of going to art school and part of me regrets it now; I don’t regret the choice I made because I had a brilliant time going to Leeds reading English Literature. Before that, I had a lot of pressure from everybody; I went to an all-girls private school all through my secondary school and all they were interested in was academia. They didn’t care about you wanting to be an artist; they just thought that was pathetic, they hated me. I’d say I want to be a cartoonist when I am older, and they’d go “Come again?” I always wanted to be a cartoonist since I was about 5. And then I ended up doing English, what was I thinking!

VP: I think it actually ties in, as it’s very close. I call what I do visual journalism or… cartoonist?

BB: Oh, but you’re not allowed to say cartoonist! We are visual communicators or sequential artists.

VP: So you knew that young! I remember doing my 1st graphic novel at 7.

BB: But in France, they have a much stronger culture of comics.

VP: That is true if you come from the right background. My family did not have a clue and I had to come here to explore all that was possible…

BB: I feel exactly the same. I did not even know people did comic books until I was maybe in my 2nd and 3rd year at university. I was in Cornwall on a holiday with my family and I was getting the train back to London. We went into Waterstones as I wanted to buy a book for the train. I noticed this really colorful cartoon and I picked up this book and it was Daniel Clowes “20th Century Eight Ball”. I thought grown-ups didn’t do cartoons, I had nor idea! Some of his pictures are so grotesque and disgusting; then I realised some of them were just about people chatting over coffee and having existential conversations.

VP: It’s very close to what you do, isn’t it? It’s definitely inspired you?

BB: Oh yeah, oh god, completely! I picked up this thing and it was a revelation! I recall thinking I can’t believe this thing is real; I can’t wait to read it. I was laughing so much while reading it on my way back on the train. Then I read this comic strip called “Art School Confidential”. You have to read it if you did not have a good time at art college. It’s so fun, it’s just the best, it’s perfect, and it’s exactly my experience of Art College! And then I realised other people were like me, they wanted to be a cartoonist and everyone at art school told them they were fools. You have to read it, it’s very good, it’s a collection of a lot his fanzines. It’s a satirical expose of his time at art school with a lot of people who are very pretentious. It seems amazing now that I didn’t know that he existed. I always associated comics with either superheroes, for boys or the dirty and sexy stuff like Vizz. Part of me wishes I could really love Vizz but I am put off every time I read it. “Yeah, right, woman with massive boobs naked in some joke…” it’s really basic toilet humour!

VP: We need more women graphic novelists!

BB: I agree. From those books, I discovered a whole world of cartoonists in America. It’s massive over there!

VP: What do you think of the UK comic book industry?

BB: I don’t think it even exists. There is not even a publisher that has an interest in it, really. Jonathan Cape do a few but they mainly bring American ones over. They just publish so very few British people. I don’t feel there is anyone really looking for it. So everyone over here is getting obsessed with Daniel Clowes, Charles Burnes and Chris Ware. They’re just about discovering people that, if you don’t know who they are, you must be living in Britain.

VP: Have you had a look at what’s going on in Europe?

BB: I did take a look. I went over to Portugal, in Lisbon to write a feature on the arts scene there for the Guardian. I met up with a load of comic book artists and illustrators such as Andre Lemos, Joao-Maio Pinto, Filipe Abranches. It was fantastic! They had that wonderful European attitude: “We grew up with comic books, it’s part of our culture”. I said I only discovered “Strip Burger” when I was 21. They said “Strip Burger, we knew about that when we were only 2!”

VP: That’s true with French people too. When you went to Comica festival, did you feel that something was about to take off? I know Paul Gravett feels very religiously that it is happening!

BB: Ah, Paul! Paul is incredible and without him, it would be…he is basically the comic book scene now. It all kind of stems from him, it is fantastic to have him there like this uncle who advises all those artists who didn’t’ think they could do this. He is the catalyst. Since I have discovered that, I’ve realised there is this world of people who want to do this, who love it, who know about all these artists. And they’re really frustrated in this country because it’s not really understood. People are quite illiterate, I think, regarding comics. But I have met loads of people now through Comica and other things. I just discovered this guy called Dash Shaw; his first book is about a thousand pages, called “Bottomless Belly Button”, Fantagraphics. He did this living in a tiny bedroom; he said he was so poor. I asked him how he made it as a comic book artist, how he paid his rent. He said, “ When I left college, I went and rented a tiny, tiny room for $200 a month and I worked part-time as a life model and I drew every second of every day. And he said it took him years, he must have drawn over a thousand pages of comics until anything happened. And he presented a manuscript to a big editor at a comics’ fair; they took him on and published it immediately. It’s a fairytale.

VP: Well, it is. You have to have some kind of break otherwise…

BB: Otherwise you are plugging away in the bedroom!

Tune-in next week for Part 2 of the interview!

Written by Valerie Pezeron on Thursday December 10th, 2009 4:59 pm

Categories ,Becky Barnicoat, ,blog, ,books, ,comic art, ,comic books, ,comica, ,comics, ,comicstrips, ,Fantagraphics, ,fanzine, ,graphic novels, ,humour, ,ica, ,journalism, ,leeds university, ,Paul Gravett, ,sequential artist, ,The Guardian, ,viz, ,Wimbledon college of art

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