I came across Tom Gauld's work in Project: Telstar recently and was so intrigued that I went to his website to see what else he'd done. Well, unfortunately he's in Britain and most of his work is only available from his website. He and Simone Lia (also featured in Project: Telstar) had published two small books, titled First and Second, which were then collected in this third book, Both. I liked what I saw on the website enough to buy Both, Gauld's Guardians of the Kingdom, and his postcard collection "Robots Monsters Etc."
Since it's mostly Gauld's artwork that I'm interested in, I won't say a lot about Lia's, other than that it's the sort of crudely-drawn stuff that sometimes makes me laugh but isn't that great. Gauld's drawings are a little Edward Gorey-esque, with lots of grey gloomy skies rendered in tiny crosshatching. His stories tend to have fairly little dialogue and a lot of space, making them feel lonely and remote.
My only complaint was that the website didn't say anything about how big any of these items were; upon receiving them, everything (except the postcards, of course) was a bit smaller than I expected for the money I paid. I guess that's what happens when you buy things from Britain. Still, even though Guardians of the Kingdom probably qualifies more as a mini-comic, it was still quite entertaining and this was probably the easiest way for me to get my hands on a copy.
The website's the best way to see if you'd like his style, and at least the last book, Both, is available here in the States.
Fed to jonathan's brain | July 26, 2006
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