Guys, there comes a time when it’s time to move on. It’s time to grow up. You have a choice: you can grow up, move on, move up or you can grow on. I have chosen to grow on.
During lockdown 1.0, to keep my spirits up and add a little structure to the meaningless days of worrying where i would buy rice, pasta and toilet paper from, I drew a drawing of something every day. It was usually some cartoon from my childhood or things Reuben and I would watch when he was younger. It was fun to begin with, I would put some music on and spend an hour drafting whatever that came to mind.
Four years have now passed. Whilst I am proud of my graphical efforts, some of the corners have started curling and the ones closest to the windows have faded due to sun damage. They’re not the vibrant illustrations they once were. I keep noticing the errors I made too, such as the extra line on the side of Dangermouse’s face, the awful hands of Steven Universe’s dad and the terrible pencil effects for Kermit the Frog. It is time to take them down and send them to the great recycling unit in the sky.
I will be keeping some of my favourites. The rest will be on sale at Sotheby’s in May. Bidding for each starts at £30,000 and plenty of interest has already been noted so you may want to register your own as soon as you can. Each one will be personally signed and framed by myself, and come with a free signed first edition of my new book, ‘Mind sorting: are you the you-est you that ever was?’ Available in stores now.
8 comments on “Growing on”
I think that both growing on and moving up are admirable activities. Your drawings have served you well and if their time has come then I salute their retirement.
It’s a bit sad that you’re binning them though. How many are being spared the shredder?
I have them neatly stacked in the corner of the bedroom. I need to sort through them and decide which are staying. I reckon no more than 10 to 12.
Will there be no commemorative book containing all of them, for the fans? No commemorative website where you can view them, and like, and subscribe? No commemorative tweet-a-day social media bot churning out scans every day of the year? No commemorative Royal Mail stamp set? No commemoration at all?
Nenny non commemorative anything. It’ll be lost media (even though its not media). People will sing songs about how wonderful my wall of illustrations was. Maybe I’ll do a commemorative tour ten years later.
I won’t be buying tickets to the commemorative tour, because it’s clear to me that the pictures won’t feature in it. There’ll just be you, standing on a stage, explaining that you threw them all away, while people throw things at you.
Actually, on second thoughts, I’m definitely coming to that.
Please do. If you pay an extra five quid you get a bag of rotten veg to throw at me, Medieval style.
That sounds great. I’m hoping you’ll be speed-drawing the pictures you threw away in a desperate attempt to recreate your lost legacy, while people enthusiastically jeer and chuck rotting courgettes at your face.
Pass me my speed pens! Maybe, I’m not promising anything. If I start making promises then it’ll ruin the performance and you’ll want your money back before you’ve even given it to me.