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Heroes and Villains: Ana Sampson and Chris Riddell · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creators brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and
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  today I am joined by two titles of the fantasy field in I am joined by Anna Sampson who
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  is an experienced editor and author of anthologies that often skew towards homes in the world of
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  fantasy and also by Harding needs an introduction by Chris Riddell who is, there are so many things I
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  can say about Chris but let's just say he is previously the UK Children's Laureate in 2015 to
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  2017 and he's won a huge number of awards. He has a very distinct style that if I just mention
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  the front cover of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard book or indeed Chris's series The Edge Chronicles
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  written with Paul Stewart The Edge Chronicles you'll probably instantly be able to know who I'm
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  talking about and if that wasn't enough he's also a political cartoonist and no doubt it's very
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  busy with the world politics at the moment oh yeah yeah welcome both to the podcast we are talking
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  today though about this new book which is published by Macmillan called Heroes and Villains
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  Poems About Legends so before we start talking about this particular collection I was wondering
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  as you're collaborating on a poetry compendium together do you have a particular poem
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  that you came across as a child that you've carried along with you in your own little
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  anthology inside your head I've got one which I can share with you but let's hear what you come
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  up with well I've got one instantly and that goes back absolutely to my childhood and that is
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  possibly the greatest fantasy poem ever written and that is the Jabawaki at the beginning of
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  Alice Through Looking Glass there it is red and mirror-riding and what up the Guiled Me completely
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  well was the fact that it seemed to make no sense and yet I understood it and it was that sort of
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  elk me that fascinated me as a child it was brilliant and the slightly toad stood Giron Gimmer
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  you know it just wonderful evocative words that sort of didn't mean anything except maybe in
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  an imaginative way and it spoke to me as then a sort of you know a young child who enjoyed drawing
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  it spoke to my visual imagination and I think fantasy often does that you know the creating of
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  worlds we wish to inhabit we want to visualize and that I suppose began my illustration journey
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  that is perfect I imagine you must have drawn the warful blade going snicker snack
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  or in your books yeah how about you Anna obviously you know huge numbers of poems now but
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  what was the one that you thought of when you were younger that you know lyrical imagination
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  as soon as Chris said Jabawaki I remember realized that of course all of the Alice poems are there
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  really from very early I mean will you walk a little faster set of waiting to a snail you know I say
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  that to my kids all the time with those looking very what I consider to be very slowly so definitely
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  the Alice poems but I think the one that I really remember is the Lady of Shalot oh yes
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  just seemed so kind of beautiful and I think I was very excited that it was very long
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  I must have read it as an age when you know that seemed like genuinely a sort of epic if that
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  seemed like paradise lost to me it seemed very very long and I think the idea of Kamalot
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  comes so beautifully to life from that the other one and it's not it's not a fantasy one is the
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  Robert Louis Stevenson I'm fed in summer so think of every year around this time winter I get
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  up at light dressed by yellow candlelight I would just think about the Lady of Shalot which appears
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  in your collection it's so visual but it's also so much about the sound like one of the perhaps
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  less famous lines whenever I see a breeze going through willow trees willows white and
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  aspens quiver whatever that means is dusk and shiver it immediately licks in in my brain I agree these
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  are such great poems you've chosen and very one listening hasn't read them immediately stop
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  put pause on and go and read them oh thank you Chris because you were watching the youtube version
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  again it might well be worth following this particular episode on the youtube version because we're
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  going to have Chris doing some illustration for us and he's showing the beautiful illustration for
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  I think it's the next extract isn't it of the latest extract yes we couldn't fit it all in
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  yeah which I was a shame Anna but but you gave me the absolute best bits and and we good
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  a very brief conversation before we started recording about lockdown and I suppose the Lady
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  of Shalot is the ultimate sort of luck person in lockdown and she sort of sees the world as many
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  of us do and did during the lockdown through the prism of I would have thought a screen for her
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  it's the mirror and so she sees people coming and going through through the mirror from the outside
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  world and it's only the breaking you know when she finally sort of you know breaks free and the
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  mirror in that wonderful line sort of cracked from from side to side and she emerges and then we
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  have the sort of ultimate sort of the final sort of line delivered by Lancelot that's so beautiful
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  so it's a deeply romantic poem so being as well as being deeply gothic I think yes there's so much
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  there's so much mystery in it you know we don't know how she ended up there or why she's there
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  there's sort of so much happening around the frame of the story in the poem he left the word she
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  left the loom she made three paces through the room I mean it's all in the head just ready to come
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  out not better stop because there's a lot more in there and so that that was the the child version
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  of you and your relationship with poetry and Chris you said that you found that the Jabba walkie
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  kind of helped you become the illustrator that you have since become but for someone listening
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  who is wanting to follow in your footsteps what how did you get there what what were your what
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  happened to that little boy to get him to be such a well-known illustrator oh my goodness well
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  well who knows is is is the unhelpful answer to that I suppose a more helpful answer is that
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  I was an inveterate reader and so I read Tolkien and I read CS Lewis and I read Ursula
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  and I read a lot of sort of fantasy that that was just perfect for illustration and I attempted
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  to illustrate the books that I read so I remember sort of drawing the battle of the five armies
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  when I was in sort of you know year six you know having read the Hobbit and being inspired by it
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  the other thing I did was I went back to the illustrated books that I loved and would find
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  illustrations that really spoke to me and I would attempt to copy them and sometimes copying
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  gets a bad name but I think it's a great way to analyze how images are made and particularly
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  illustrations in books you know can tell you a lot by careful sort of perusal and certainly by
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  by sort of attempting to to recreate the the effect that the illustrators has got so I used to
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  almost obsessively draw the white rabbit from the frontus piece of Alice in Wonderland
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  because there was something magical about the way the artist John Teniel conveyed both the
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  character of the rabbit without losing the essential rabbit nature of the character so there
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  was this and it was something about the eyes something about the stance and I would draw this
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  and then I would discover the foliage in the background I would discover the way that Teniel drew
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  the folds in the jacket and this just entered my visual imagination and the great thing about
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  copying is that once you've copied you can then put that away but it lives in your visual imagination
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  so it's a great way to learn and so I would say sort of you know go along to a gallery get one of
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  those little stools that you often see sort of by the reception up to see far few people
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  doing this but take a little stool take it to your favorite exhibit sit down with your sketch
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  but copy something beautiful just for half an hour and you'll find you'll take that away with you
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  yeah that's and what I find really interesting about that idea of copying is that there is a stage in
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  writing about that too as my Anna will probably agree with me that um certainly young writers
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  at school but also new writers who as adults there's no harm at all in doing your fan fiction or
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  your homage to I don't know Dr Who whatever it is because you are learning how plots are put
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  together you're learning voice you're learning style you're learning characterization what could
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  happen to this character know that's outside what they would be like you're learning coloring in
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  in a sense but it's gonna say Anna isn't that how a poetry anthology is work in exactly that
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  that way yes I mean that the idea is that you have a buffet of poetry and you sample all of those
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  different styles um and you can go away obviously and explore them more fully if there's something
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  that really strikes a chord with you but I mean I do think there are any kind of writing I think
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  everything starts with reading I'm always incredibly shocked when you meet someone who says
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  oh I've written a book and then you say oh and you know what do you like reading and they say oh no
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  I don't really read and you think your book is bad I'm sorry you know we know that it's sort of
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  everything starts with experiencing how other people put words together um on the page and you're
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  right the nuts and bolts of plot and character and those kind of things and I think when people
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  I've I certainly remember going through little periods of writing like
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  but DH Lawrence and I was doing my A levels somewhere there are presumably a lot of pages are
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  uh terrible kind of rip off the H Lawrence writing somewhere in a drawer at home
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  yeah so it might be quite unintentionally funny because I'm just thinking about this
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  lush lushness but just going back to this question of the role of a verse compendium um it is
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  the absolutely gorgeous book and it reminded me of the kind of books that school libraries must have
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  on the shelves and local libraries and I was thinking of what compendiums I knew about I was thinking
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  of course the first one I thought of was the um rattle bag with Sheamus Heaney and Ted Hughes
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  but also Anna you've already done and with Chris um gods and monsters mythological poem yeah
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  yeah that's right so yeah now coming to this what what was your mission should you choose
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  to accept it what was your quest in putting together this particular selection well so gods and
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  monsters was mythological poems of which of course there are so many you know such an embarrassment
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  of riches and I sort of thought well we've done myths we need to do legends and then of course my
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  editor said to me wonderful what's the difference and I have to look it up and of course the
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  the difference is that legend has a grain of trees but we have I think it's fair to say stretch that
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  definition quite far so perhaps there are real people like saints and kings and queens and
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  villains and highwaymen at the at the centre of the stories um but some of them for example king
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  Arthur we think perhaps he wasn't a real character but his his legends have been believed and been
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  felt to be true for so long he gets a pass so we can have Gwynnevere in the night and we have
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  dragons and beasts because uh an awful lot of these but you know there were some beasts like the
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  minotaur who I don't think that people ever genuinely believed were real and inexistence and you
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  might meet them around a dark corner but dragons of course legends of dragons have jumping
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  cultures all over the world perhaps because of their fossil records of dinosaurs being discovered
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  um you know perhaps perhaps that's why and we have mermaids which I've allowed us because of
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  course sailors might have seen the tales of seals and at a distance after a few too many tots
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  the brum a different kind of legend grows up so either things that have that germ of truth to
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  them or things which have sort of taken on the rate of truth over the century I was interested
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  as well that you often put in two poems around or even more uh I think the Mary Celeste,
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  Bodiceer, Bodica um sometimes they were an older poem I could recognize it was an older poem with
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  a more modern interpretation but not always is that I mean I can guess why you might have done it
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  you tell me why you did that um sometimes I do think oh we could have got an extra an extra legendary
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  figure in there but we've got two ludicrous or two Mary Celeste I just I love the way poems talk
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  to each other and I love showing to readers the ways in which different people particularly if
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  they're writing perhaps centuries apart have written about the same subject or the same feeling or
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  the same story or the same legend and I think when you're putting together an anthology on myths and
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  legends you're really it's really something important to get across that we can climb inside
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  these stories and and sort of use them in different ways and they have been used in different ways
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  and they have been retold with new sidelights on them over the centuries that they've been popular
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  so I think with myths and legends it's particularly important to have perhaps more than one
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  I think also Anna what what I enjoy about your anthologizing if I may sort of for coiners
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  is the the way in which poems can sort of collectively take you on a journey and so I love the
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  proposition of heroes and villains so throughout your list collection I was sort of surmising
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  you know this is a villainous character this is a hero this is as sort of you know a situation I
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  wouldn't want to be in because of this character this is a situation that is entirely wonderful
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  because there's a saintly figure doing something great so it was the way in which you know the
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  different figures come together but I turn this page for those watching on youtube there is a
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  wonderful poem called hush for the four v witches and it has two sisters who have obviously
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  been some ostracized by the sort of puritanicals of authorities in Scotland in the sort of 16th
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  century now you know heroines heroes yes to a certain extent but but sort of the situation they're
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  in I think is fascinating in that in this passage of the anthology the way that one is goes from
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  witches to a castleist lady to a wonderful one of a wise woman turning into a hair so these
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  are different ways to look at heroes and different ways to look at villains I think through through
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  the poetic form I think that for me overall that was the thought journey I enjoyed the most
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  although I did enjoy finding saints mixed in with them all because of course so many
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  legendary heroes from the past were saints and we tend to on the whole drop them out of the
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  discussion because of you know multi-faith world and all that it's easier to talk about King Arthur
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  and the one is it's Kevin and he's blackbird and he's that one I mean that's just a fabulous
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  poem it's shame is he and I think isn't it but I it's going to be really tough Anna but do you
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  have a favorite poem that you'd like to share with us I mean I never choose the favorite never
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  I would like to read then and Anna I must ask you to give me a page number as well so I can
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  turn the page yeah everybody go over to youtube because it's really a treat
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  should we do let's do should we do if page 242 and if we all turn to our textbooks
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  245 that's right I always wanted to say that so on page 242 so this is in the beast section it's
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  one of the dragon poems of one of Chris's absolutely gorgeous dragons and this is called if
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  by James Carter I choose this this is my daughter's favorite she is an aspiring paleontologist
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  so she thought this was wonderful if dinosaurs were real then maybe dragons were as well and perhaps
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  one day they'll find a skeleton beside a craggy cliff bar inside a cave a backbone and a tail
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  a jagged skull and those branch-like bones where the wings would have been or even a whole dragon
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  perfectly preserved in Siberian snow gray green and scaly those two top canine fangs
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  just jutting over the jaw the raging fire of the beast long lost to the deep sleep of the dead
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  those saggy eyelids closed forever wonderful wonderful thank you so just before we move on to the
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  illustrations um I just wondered if there was because it's not just you you knew all these already
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  presumably you had to go and research your subject was there a sort of research gem that you
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  found during so many I think that I always start an anthology with a little list of things and I
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  think oh we must have that we must have that um but uh it's always such a pleasure to discover new
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  things a lot of the contemporary poems were new to me and I also just love discovering um older
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  poems that I just hadn't come across before uh there's a there's a lovely quite grizzly Macbeth
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  poem by Walter Dillermere that I found for this which I I didn't know and the Earl Casalist's
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  Lady which Chris mentioned earlier by Sylvia Townsend Warner I really really love that and I love
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  the illustration that Chris has done um there's one by Lisell Mueller as well Mueller I'm sure I'm
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  saying that wrong who uh called sometimes when the light and I love it when I find sort of a poet
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  that I hadn't heard of before and I hadn't heard of her and I discovered that poem and then went
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  and sort of fell in love with some of her other work as well which which wasn't right for this book
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  it's just an enormous pleasure for me so yes there's always lots and lots that I discover loads of them
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  they're always new to me yes and so I mean obviously for people listening it may be we've been
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  talking about this being used in a school context but I would also emphasise that if you're looking
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  for new ideas for imagination new sort of ways of looking at fantasy do don't restrict your reading
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  dip into anthologies this anthology and others because um for me I found really exciting the one
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  about the um the wise woman turned turning into a hair beautifully yeah we such a beautifully
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  intensely felt experience I just thought it was great um food book there so would you like to hear it
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  I yes I was I'm going to ask you about your pictures um because this is a particularly fine one
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  as well but please read it um Nan Hardwick turns into a hair I will tell you how it was I slipped into
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  the hair like a nude foot into a glorious slipper pushing her bones to one side to make room for
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  my shape so I could settle myself like a child within her in the dark I grew up for her freedom
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  gently teasing it apart across my fingers to web across my palm here is where our separation ends
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  I tensed her legs with my arms pushed my rhythm down the stepping stones of spine
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  and odd feeling this to hold another soul in the mouth like an egg the aching jaw around her
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  delicate self her mind was simple full of open space and weather I wore myself on her frantic pulse
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  and felt the draw of gorse and grass the distance slaked line at the edge of the more
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  the air spanned diamonds out of seafret to catch across my thorny coat as I began to fold the
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  earth beneath my feet and fly across the heather the heather thank you that was a cumbrian wind
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  who could transform herself into a hair and in this one this this is sort of quite a good example
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  to visually for what one can do when one is illustrating a poem it's got beautiful imagery in it
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  it sort of speaks for itself in a sense so what all one wants I think as one is turning the page
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  is to stop and see a very large hair a pleasure to draw and I enjoy to have inhabiting as an
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  illustrator the the white space is on the page and then sort of just getting as close as I possibly
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  can to the text so Nan is represented just as a disembodied foot slipping into the shape of this
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  hair so the foot is emerging from the text and you see it in in a sort of spirit form
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  entering this rather sort of quivering and sort of staring-eyed hair and so compositionally it
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  allowed both space but also a sort of concentration on on on exactly what is happening here the
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  transformation and that's something I think partly can give an illustrator it can give an
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  illustrator a moment a distillation of other sort of of a feeling and a mood and then the poem
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  does it what the poem does the beautiful words formed in two sort of images but you are as an
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  illustration you can just choose a single image to crystallize the thought around which is very
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  different from what I I do in say so illustrating what's a fiction web as a narrative thread and one
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  is drawing characters in different sort of situations throughout a book and what what I'm
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  so given in in something like heroes and villains and it just gives me a whole range of moments to
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  crystallize as an illustrator so it's a real pleasure to to illustrate poetry in this way
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  when it reminds me again of our discussion of Alice and Wonderland because of the mouse's tail
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  poem feels very much like that with the the emphasis on shape and Chris I was just going to ask you
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  because a lot of them are open illustrations in a way they feel they're going to be on the page but
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  occasionally you'll also box out the text so on page four in Mapple Mundi you've got I'll hold it
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  up on my screen we've got there we go we've got the poem boxed out is this very much led you're not
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  told what to do I presume but you're led by subject matter and cartographer completely completely
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  I always think of the sort of book as as an object something that you know one is going to hold
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  in one's hands and the the experience of the reader turning turning pages and I think visually
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  one wants to just invite the reader into you know onto a page and to sort of focus on what this
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  might be so it's it's variety I mean having a poem that is completely boxed by my illustrations
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  have been a very formal sense almost decorative gives a certain mood and then you can turn the page
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  and have a much freer open composition where a figure is running across a vast expanse maybe
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  osamandius a huge disembodied head desert sands drifting away into the distance gives you that sort
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  of desert like you know arid sense that the poem conveys and then you can turn the page and
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  have a very different sort of environment on the next page and and it's that sort of progression
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  through and it can be a simple sometimes saying right let's have a lot of drawing on this page
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  and let's have just a little bit of drawing on this page always it's the primacy of the material
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  it's what the poem is is saying that's most important and my attempt I think it's to find a moment
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  in a poem and an example I suppose in in this collection would be the poem about Merlin where by I
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  think it's David Harmer and you can sort correct me but a wonderful poem about Merlin where there's
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  just a single line about Merlin riding a Griffith there's lots of other things in the in the poem
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  it's full of detail but it's a single line and I thought well that's that's what you want to see
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  on the page you want to open this page and go wow that's a wizard riding a Griffin you know
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  wings spread across the other side of the page there it is you I define one not to stop and go I
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  wonder what that's about and then find all the wonderful imagery within the within the poem
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  completely so there's I've got one serious question for you both which is because we're dealing
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  with the matter of fairy tales and legends that obviously a lot of the content is go basically
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  there's a lot of marital abuse, child cruelty, neglect, terrible treatment of the world and also
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  some very bloodthirsty moments and that was grim playbook in other words yeah exactly so it's not
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  as if it's the undisneified version of of this and legends and I just wondered if you because
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  this is going to be sitting quite happily on a shelf in a school library somewhere eventually
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  what what are your conversations about this so for example
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  saints lives because of the master of saints they usually end up in really grisly ways and it's
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  often you can go into many a church around the country and see imagery of saints with heads
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  under their arms and all sorts of things and in this case in the poem St Margaret of Antioch you've
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  got the flying head because that's how she meets her doom in that particular story what is your
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  I personally think children are fine with this material but I imagine there is some gatekeeping
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  questions you have in your head when you're drawing and when you're choosing so what did you make of
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  that so did you even talk about it I mean I certainly would I agree that I think children can
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  be wildly bloodthirsty and enjoy plenty of hate splying across the room and what have you and I
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  think that those sort of legendary tropes occur in so many children's stories I would for example with
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  gods and monsters you know particularly the Olympian gods are very repacious towards women I wouldn't
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  have included anything that was you know very explicit on that on the sexual violence which is
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  you know I mean I would love to do a collection for adults where you could really let rip the
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  darkest and most terrible kind of elements of the myths because there have been some
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  extraordinarily brilliant poems about them but no I wouldn't I wouldn't include anything very very
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  explicit or particularly gruesome in a collection for children but on the other hand a lot of
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  the stories are quite dark and so we don't shy away from what happens to former Gritiv Antioch
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  and actually it's also framed in a way where actually it's like a liberation at the end isn't it
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  I don't know if you want to read the last verse of that Chris did you got it open I've got it open
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  here and you know the invitation to draw a sort of severed head sort of flying through the air was
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  irresistible as an illustrator but it's interesting one doesn't necessarily have to be gratuitous
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  about it you know you don't have to sort of go to a hammerhouse of horror there can be a sort of
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  and sometimes religious art can can have that quality a macabre quality a contemplative quality
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  but it can also be very beautiful even when one is sort of describing sort of terrible sort of events
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  and this this is Margaret of Antioch being swallowed by the dragon and so the dragon swallowed me
• 30:59
  it was like this I'd given myself to God and said no to marrying a powerful man
• 31:04
  thought it my would-be husband threw me in a dungeon consigned me to dampen darkness and the devil
• 31:10
  who came to me in leathery skin clawed and fanged as yellow eyes burned his hell jaws yorned and
• 31:16
  built me into his red gullet down and down I slivered until the cross of Christ I held struck him
• 31:22
  like a holy fishbone and snagged the helter's shelter of his coiling throat
• 31:27
  an eye who was sucked and squeezed in that hot tunnel foul flesh was spat and spasmed out again
• 31:34
  miraculous not that I lived to tell the tale for long they tried to burn me but I failed to fry
• 31:41
  they tried to drown me and I came out dry third time lucky they took an iron blade and swung it
• 31:47
  see how my head takes to the air watch it fly yeah that parent by Jan Dean I think it's one of the
• 31:56
  tearing poems isn't it I think there's a previous um pertin with Margaret getting out getting
• 32:02
  out of the dragon which is rather fun a very surprised looking dragon yes but please do follow
• 32:09
  up on YouTube because Chris is now showing it's very surprised dragon so Chris I think you
• 32:15
  traditionally offered to draw us something so um perhaps we should ask you to draw well can we
• 32:24
  pick a subject one comes to mind immediately I think which which is um one of the rather magnificent
• 32:33
  dragons that Anna was kindly kind enough to include in the in the anthology and I would invite
• 32:41
  as I'm sort of sketching here the the outline of oh one of the aforementioned dragons I'd invite
• 32:48
  Anna maybe to to read a dragon poem any poem Anna of your choice and there are a few in this anthology
• 32:58
  for those who lost Anna chooses her poem and I'm very interested to see that Chris starts with
• 33:04
  the nostrils I'd always thought people might start with the eye no not always it it depends but
• 33:11
  but you know it's a good focal point I always like us sort of you know the coil of smoke the
• 33:16
  the rises up from a dragon's sort of nostril and dragons come in all sorts of shapes and sizes you
• 33:24
  know there can be huge and fierce and the sort of game of thrones sort of dragons that are quite frankly
• 33:30
  enormous and terrifying but you can also get some small sort of um leconic dragons the sort of
• 33:38
  eastern you know sort of dragon that might sort of befriend Mulan and sort of give her sort of
• 33:45
  cryptic advice and you can also get some rather wonderful English folk dragons that sort of
• 33:51
  um you know exist in you know in the sand dunes outside a little town and cause problems you know
• 33:59
  and I suspect they're not game the thrones style dragons they they're more sort of I don't know
• 34:05
  Alan Bennett style dragons who you could sort of they're sort of causing causing a little
• 34:09
  trouble with with various sort of locals and it's that sort of breadth I think that I really enjoy
• 34:17
  and I don't know whether you found a a poem I've got I've got the dragons are hiding here which
• 34:23
  I know perfect perfect by Moses and I really love this one to be born a dragon hunter is somehow to
• 34:31
  know that once a very long time ago dragons were not just the stuff of dreams it was a way for young
• 34:38
  men to fulfill their destinies to ride off on horseback seeking treasure it was first and foremost
• 34:46
  a measure of their courage the best sort of quest it was a solitary pursuit one to one hunter and
• 34:53
  hunted the odds even sharp eyes cunning and surprise all counted for a lick of flame would be all
• 35:00
  it took to paralyze dragons knew they were young men's quarry they became elusive led secluded
• 35:07
  lives let by day fed at night easily fled when challenged then down the dick years dragons
• 35:15
  disappeared there were tales of course a mountain in Scotland elaborate thin whales but the trails
• 35:22
  proved cold no smoke blackened caves no burned out villages no graves of would be dragon hunters
• 35:30
  yet recently there were rumours again the whisper of wingbeats in darkness distant thunder from
• 35:39
  mountains a tumult beneath a waterfall where roaring could easily be disguised any young warrior
• 35:47
  outseeking dragons should look again in slate cabins and abandoned mine shop they should travel to
• 35:55
  the hidden sides of mountains look beneath devils bridges and daringly dig to discover the silent
• 36:02
  secret spaces where dragons might be waking bore in a darkening Welsh landscape with evening
• 36:10
  purpling the hills it is easy so easy to believe as those of us who would be dragon hunters
• 36:19
  one day find them again yes definitely it would be dragon hunter in my last
• 36:27
  for those of you who are listening to this what was happening whilst that poem was being read
• 36:32
  is an amazing dragon has emerged from hiding out of the white space on the page
• 36:38
  thanks to the magic of Chris's pencil so I wonder if we could just have an all practical help for
• 36:44
  those who are wanting to be a creative or already are creative but perhaps wanting to make it
• 36:49
  something which pays some bills that's the hard part um so Anna what you're looking at is people
• 36:56
  reinterpreting legends in their poetry particularly the modern poems version of this
• 37:03
  do you have any tips for writers who are looking to use some kind of legend that's already out there
• 37:10
  be it Robin Hood or King Arthur or Merlin what do you think they should be thinking of when they're
• 37:19
  trying to do something for our today when they're using existing myths and legends
• 37:25
  I think with myths and legends the the best advice is not to be frightened of the source material I
• 37:32
  think because people have been telling and retelling these stories for so many hundreds of years
• 37:38
  often um that you can get inside them and change the furniture around and and
• 37:48
  make them your own because so many people have done that before that's sort of how they've come
• 37:53
  down to us with a little bit of embellishment from hundreds of different imaginations so not
• 37:59
  so I would sort of advise people to really put their own stamp on those legends I think they are
• 38:07
  there to be reinterpreted and reused and you can discard what you don't need and use what you do I
• 38:15
  think I mean that's so important Anna I think this is you know what you do when you're anthology
• 38:21
  when you're putting these different poems together you're giving us perspectives and I think from
• 38:26
  the point of view is sort of writing fantasy one of the things I always enjoy is when I get to hear
• 38:32
  from some of the minor characters who become actually very major in the writer's imagination
• 38:39
  whenever I'm watching sort of you know say an epic dramatization something I'm always drawn
• 38:45
  to the guy at the back who maybe is holding the spear wandering I wonder what you've seen
• 38:49
  you know the going on I know the king's up there and he's got a mighty quest going on but what's
• 38:55
  it like down in the sort of Camelot kitchen where you know it's frost is set in and you know quite
• 39:01
  frankly this arm is chafing and you know what's the relationship going on between the cook and the
• 39:08
  sort of you know housekeeper you know whatever it might be and I think I think that's a lovely way
• 39:14
  in it in some ways and it's I'm always interested in way in when fantasy sort of brings the aspects of
• 39:22
  our own reality to to the forefront and so you know the contemporary issues can be reflected
• 39:31
  extremely well through fantasy in a way that too so things you know maybe fantasy
• 39:37
  exists and endures because it speaks to some of our sort of primal sort of feelings and you know
• 39:44
  whether it be that sort of fear of large and and sort of oppressive creatures or you know
• 39:50
  embodiments of sort of weather and catastrophe or the small sort of moments of of decision-making
• 39:58
  and you know sort of small personal quests that we might go on it's always a good starting point
• 40:07
  I think you know the inconvenience of fantasy you know what is going on behind the quest
• 40:13
  yeah so we should rename the heroes journey to the inconvenient journey yeah um so Chris
• 40:20
  I had a question for you about um there's sort of the practicalities of approaching a publisher
• 40:25
  as a team unlike you did with Paul Stewart um but I also want to ask you about your political
• 40:31
  cartooning so the question about um that I often meet aspiring writers who also talented
• 40:38
  illustrators and I never know what because not having illustration background I never
• 40:43
  know what to say about whether they should go to a write to a publisher with all of their stuff
• 40:49
  or allow the publisher to broker the marriage between them and an existing illustrator what's
• 40:56
  your gut feeling on that one well it works both ways I think um so working with um Paul Stewart
• 41:03
  I think was a very uh the two of us actually met at um we both had sons of the same age uh we were
• 41:11
  at their nursery and we met sort of you know at the nursery gates as it were um and started to
• 41:19
  talk about the thing the mutual sort of books that we enjoyed and realised we loved CS Lewis and
• 41:24
  Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin and you know there was a lot of shared stuff um I think our collaboration
• 41:30
  really started because Paul was also a fan of the illustrations that accompanied the books
• 41:35
  which is not always the case sometimes fantasy sort of you know famously won't be illustrated until
• 41:41
  maybe it's it's later iterations um I think it's telling that someone like Tolkien you know drew
• 41:47
  his map you know you had this lovely sort of visual imagination that the company it you know uh
• 41:54
  his writing he was also a poet so he had that sort of quality in in what he did um I think there's
• 42:01
  a sort of you know charming illustrations that that Charles Dodson did when he was writing the Alice
• 42:08
  story uh for Alice Little um all all that time ago said the often stories do begin uh with images
• 42:18
  with stories I'm a huge fan of Gorman Gast where Mervick drew characters almost as an aid
• 42:24
  memoir to sort of give him something to describe in his wonderfully sort of visual writing um when
• 42:31
  so in some sense it's sometimes that the words have got to sort of I think words come first always
• 42:36
  and as an illustrator and my uh the the primacy of the text is what I always sort of believe in
• 42:42
  now if you can meet a writer and and you know you get on well together I think there's a sort of
• 42:47
  you know way in which you can synchronize your your efforts you can you can feed off each other's
• 42:52
  imaginations one visual the one sort of um you know uh word-based and then you can uh develop
• 42:59
  something quite unique um equally you know a publisher might say well what is it this you know how
• 43:07
  do we want to package this book and I believe that books you know beautiful books are incredibly
• 43:12
  important and I think in the fantasy realm even more important in a sense the book is a beautiful
• 43:17
  object is is is something we we cover it and I think you know you have digital forms and adaptation
• 43:22
  you name it but a beautiful book is something very magical about that um and of course with
• 43:28
  illustrations it's a way of celebrating the book as an object um and so I think I believe also
• 43:34
  publishers can ask illustrators to come in and and you know lend their magic to to the uh what is
• 43:42
  already a sort of wonderful uh text um that's not a useful answer for some sort of pitching but I
• 43:48
  would say to any illustrator if you see a straight poet or or or writer wandering down the street
• 43:54
  just sidle up and sort of you know say hello to them and maybe buy them a coffee and gently
• 43:59
  suggest that uh their book with these beautiful white spaces might need some illustrations to go with
• 44:05
  that's very nice thought um I have to try walking past your house looking desperate to see if you
• 44:11
  want to invite me um I have a cheeky question for you um Chris uh which is because we also know
• 44:19
  you as a political cartoonist and you've been working on this volume of heroes and villains
• 44:25
  politics does lend itself to heroes and villains have you found things you've been
• 44:30
  illustrating for Anna creeping into your political cartooning inevitably I mean you know the
• 44:37
  the visual metaphor I think in in a political cartoon is is a gift it's a wonderful thing um
• 44:44
  you know I think Vladimir Putin's sitting on his sort of throne of swords you know sort of saying
• 44:50
  you know winter is coming you know it is just it just works doesn't it um I think uh I think
• 44:57
  sort of you know a blowhard sort of Donald Trump is is a sort of you know a gift that keeps on
• 45:03
  giving or you know with his extraordinary sort of appearance and ridiculous utterances um what I
• 45:11
  like to do every so often enough sort of fantasy context I think um and this is just for my own sort
• 45:16
  of personal pleasure he's drawn the incumbent prime minister it started I think as far back as
• 45:23
  David Cameron but but every so often during each administration I like to draw whoever's
• 45:28
  the incumbent asleep at night you know that oft asked question how do you sleep at night yeah I
• 45:34
  like to address that you know a figure Cameron or Theresa May or Rishi Sunak or now um you know
• 45:42
  Keir Starmer lying asleep at night do they pulled up close over their sort of chins and visiting them
• 45:51
  in a sort of you know Christmas Carol style will be the problems of the day which can be characterized
• 45:58
  you know as fiery dragon or hideous trolls or appalling sort of figments of Tolkien's imagination
• 46:06
  standing there so probing them with pitchforks or or breathing sort of down their necks
• 46:11
  and of course I do what political cartoonists have done down the centuries I apply judiciously
• 46:18
  labels labels are a great sort of tool for the political cartoonist the dragon of winter fuel
• 46:26
  payments standing menacingly um is is an absolute gift and someone once wrote me a tweet I think
• 46:37
  and said you know you're a cartoonist I bet you label everything I bet you label fridge
• 46:43
  fridge um and I just tweeted back as one does um I don't often do this sort of thing I just
• 46:49
  tweet and say you're right you know I do label everything except on my fridge my fridge is label
• 46:55
  conspicuous consumption um on you go you know it's it's it's that sort of uh thing um yes the
• 47:02
  visual obviously comes in to to what I do um and uh politics is always with us and I think poems
• 47:09
  often shine a light on on contemporary issues rather rather well as as we started this conversation
• 47:15
  with the lady of shalotte in lockpan um you know it's love it's extraordinary isn't it when you get
• 47:23
  a contemporary resident from a poem that has been around for many many years and I think an anthology
• 47:30
  that that Anna's compiled like like here is in bilance does exactly that it gives us lots of
• 47:35
  I think the contemporary term is chills yeah and fives fives and chills which is a lovely note to
• 47:44
  end the conversation about this anthology on um but as a bit of fun I always ask my guests to
• 47:51
  transport themselves into any fantasy world at all it can be star wars it can be bitrix potter
• 47:58
  down a rabbit hole up into space really we don't mind but I want to know where is the best place
• 48:04
  in your view to go for something and I was thinking well you know we tend to think the villains are
• 48:12
  the most exciting part of a story very often so where would be the best place to be a villain and
• 48:19
  so I was thinking where could you have the most fun and get away with it do you think so have you
• 48:26
  got a fate Anna which we start with you we got a favorite fantasy world where you went mine putting
• 48:31
  on the the black robe or my shoes or whatever it is in the fantasy world that is the villain very
• 48:38
  difficult isn't it because they do tend to get their comeuppance at the end and no you get away
• 48:42
  with it if you have the volume to this question if I get away with it yeah I don't mind Jardis in
• 48:49
  non yes sweeping around oh yes being Turkish light on my sleigh many centuries of doing that I
• 48:55
  think before the pesky ship I'm along in a ruin the whole thing gig but once you get woken up in
• 49:01
  Chan you have you have some good years before Father Christmas turns back up yes I'm going to ruin
• 49:06
  everything so maybe I'd be her she's terribly glamorous very good yes it is a glamorous one that one
• 49:14
  so we've got some glamour on the table here how about you Chris if you got a favorite face to go
• 49:21
  well obviously I mean I was on a plane going to the Auckland writers festival a little while ago
• 49:30
  and a nice young man sitting next to me that we struck up a conversation I said where are you going
• 49:35
  said I'm going to the shire he said yeah say he was actually going to do the set the film set in
• 49:42
  New Zealand where away and I had the good fortune to be invited to go to the wetter workshop in
• 49:49
  Wellington on my trip to New Zealand and a lovely cap Richard who runs the workshop just showed me
• 49:55
  around the the the workshop and it was just full of everything you would need to be both a hero or
• 50:02
  a villa and I've got to say I was very very taken with a life size and when I say life size I mean
• 50:09
  a fantasy life size a boot armoured boot and it was Sauron's boot from the beginning of the
• 50:16
  Lord of the Rings films and it's huge they build it sort of life size so Sauron towering above
• 50:22
  with that ring of power on his finger you know that was his boot and I stood and I looked at that
• 50:27
  and I thought wow that is very impressive so you know I think in a contemporary sense you know
• 50:34
  going forward to possibly the fourth or fifth age of middle earth you know obviously things
• 50:41
  have come down a bit you know you know tourism has taken over there that you can now maybe
• 50:47
  sort of go to mortar and and it's been sort of rewilded in the in the most perfect way
• 50:53
  but they've been stirrings you know I mean there's been local sort of civic sort of meetings and
• 50:57
  stuff and there's this guy you know walking around he's got a sort of you know unconvincing
• 51:02
  comb over and tends to wear a baseball cap that says make mortar great again and you know things
• 51:09
  aren't looking good so yeah we're waiting I think for the I suppose the the final sort of battle
• 51:16
  sometime in November to see whether the forces of of Sauron actually you know sort of
• 51:24
  research or whether we can return to a sort of you know more benign time my money is on
• 51:30
  gab doth I can see the next political cartoon being sketched even as we talk there
• 51:37
  just the hobbiton by the way if you didn't do it is it's the best day out that I've had took
• 51:42
  my family there in January and even though I live in the shire literally I live in a village
• 51:48
  like hobbiton I still enjoyed the shire and I you've both nicked probably my two favorite
• 51:56
  fancy worlds but I've got to go different so I was thinking that a really fun place I think
• 52:00
  to be a villain would be bitrix potter's world because there is something just delicious
• 52:06
  particularly my one of my favorite ones when I was growing up was the tale of two bad mice having
• 52:11
  the run of a doll's house without that which is intriguing so maybe a spin as some world creature
• 52:22
  with you know evil intent and I think when you reread for example jimima puddle duck
• 52:30
  oh yes absolutely so dark and truly don't talk to strangers yeah well you've got a pint
• 52:38
  with Jeremy Fisher you know not not a villain in some senses because it's just doing what pikes do
• 52:44
  but but that terrified me as a child and at my local lake in Norfolk I was just recently asked
• 52:54
  to draw these giant fish that they fish out of the lake the fishermen hold them as trophies
• 53:00
  yeah the plastic thing and they give them nicknames and I was given a lovely job to actually
• 53:07
  draw each of these giant cart with their nicknames as a commission and I thought
• 53:12
  that Jeremy Fisher then I where I can't look at a lake without think it Jeremy
• 53:17
  well Jeremy yeah thank you so much for joining me it's been an absolute delight talking to you both
• 53:22
  and I encourage everybody to go and get their copy of heroes and villains poems about legends
• 53:30
  and feel inspired both as illustrator and also as writers so thank you very much
• 53:37
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