Ralph Steadman.

Pro Cartoonists’ Organisation invited me to interview their members, so naturally, I had to start with Ralph Steadman. We arranged to talk via Skype at 17:09 his time, and during the resulting two hour interview, my webcam insisted on presenting me to him as a technicolor light show, my computer crashed, and two out of the three devices that I used to record the interview (my electronic devices are what is known in the professional cartooning community as “very bad,” so I figured I’d be prepared) utterly died.

Ralph was lovely about it, and against the technological odds, the interview was captured, resulting in ruminations on his tools, artistic process, and influences. The day after the interview, I woke up with a sore face, and it wasn’t until I listened back on the recording that I realized it was because Ralph made me laugh so hard, that by the end of our talk, my jaw began to lock! —Jane Mattimoe



Ralph: This is for Pro Cartoonists? Are we known as Professionals now?

Jane: I interview New Yorker cartoonists about their art supplies and drawing process on my blog, A Case for Pencils, and PCO invited me to interview their members the same way.

R What are we doing now?

J Well, I’m setting it up so this interview will record on numerous devices, so hopefully one of them works.

R Oh, that’s wonderful, like a collage of sorts!

J Ralph, I was trying to contact you earlier, but I didn’t know you’d changed your email address!

R Oh no! That’s why I don’t get many emails at the moment!

J That’s must be nice!

R It’s a good sort of thing to do! People will find it eventually.

White Rabbit

R Do you see that? [holds up painting] You know, Hunter said “Don’t draw Ralph! It’s a filthy habit!”

J He had many filthy habits of his own!

R He said, “That’s filthy scribbling!”

J Most readers will probably know this, but for readers who have been living under a rock for a very long time, you’ve had a long and varied career as a cartoonist, as an author and illustrator of numerous books, you’re well known for your place in the establishment of Gonzo journalism because of your collaboration with Hunter S. Thompson, you’ve done a lot of work with Polaroid photography…

R: I’ve found a poster the other day, Where the Buffalo Roam. Bill Murray was in it…

J You’ve done films. You’ve had loads of work in Punch, Private Eye, Rolling Stone… where you were their Gardening Correspondent.



R Oh I don’t write about that… they just said, “What do you want to be on the masthead?” So I said, Gardening Correspondent!

J [laughs] You’ve starred in a documentary, For No Good Reason…you’ve sung sea shanties, which I’ve heard and liked a lot!

R That was “Little Boy Billee,” about a cabin boy, wasn’t it?

J You’re a good singer!

R I’ve got some songs I’ve written on my own you see— I’ve written some about Leonardo da Vinci, for I Woke Up In the Dark.

J Oh yeah, your book! And you wrote an operetta right? You’ve done just about everything!

R I wrote an opera, called The Big I Am, about God, and I’ve also done Plague and the Moonflower. I’m not sure what I’m doing at the moment — yes I’ve just finished a book, Critical Critters, which is about endangered animals, and that’s coming in about a month’s time.

Ralph’s studio

J I saw in the documentary that you use dip pens, gesso, ink, razors, blow pens, masking fluid…do you use watercolors, or is that ink?

R That’s ink! I can show you some if you’d like to see [walks to find the ink].

J Do you have any brands of ink that you’re loyal to?

R It’s Winsor and Newton… that’s a good one. Here, do you see this [shows painting in progress]. I’ve been dripping ink on this.

J What kind of paper is that?

R Snowdon, 300 gram.

J Is that watercolor paper?

R No, it’s just cartridge paper! Oh, look at this! Somebody gave me this, it’s quite nice isn’t it? [Holds up a package]

J What’s that?

R It’s one of my birds… Somebody brought it to me, they brought a skull. Do you want to see the skull?

J Sure!

Ralph later emailed me a list of his favorite art supplies:

“Winsor & Newton - for Indian Inks - Daler Rowney for GESSO Primer- an Acrylic for solid colors and System 3 Primary Colors - or colours - as we say! And I just spilled half a bottle of ROHRERSAUSZIEHTUSCHE SEPIA on my office floor! Damn scheize!!!! Shwcweinerein- dumpkopft!!!. And don’t forget Stephens Writing Fluid - No. 264 - for the best SCARLET!!! - and P.W. Akkerman DEN HAAG forfur Vulpenspeciaalzaak sinds 1910!!!“

He also emailed me an anecdote about the sorts of tools you can find if you’re willing to put in a little effort:

“ … and mention that at least 40 years ago, when we still lived in London, I came across a Printer in Leytonstone in East London - and he was selling up his stock of Letterpress Printing Blocks and retiring - so I bought the lot - and it only cost me £25.00 - on condition that I took everything in one go! So I did! I invited an Art Director [ Harry Pecinotti ] over to see if there was anything there he would like - and he took just the one complete font - which was used for a new magazine (at the time!), [NOVA]. [It] became known as the NOVA Typeface - because there was absolutely no record of it in Stephenson Blake’s ‘Complete’ Catalogue…”



The Blotometer

J Are there any tools you wish you could use better?



R: I tried most things, but I still like using ink. Though I’ve tried to use body paint.

J Body paint?

R You know all sorts of thick paints.

J Like the paint that Sports Illustrated puts on naked models to make them look like they’re wearing swimsuits?!

R No, acrylic! A lovely kind of paint-y paint.

False Profits

J Are there any tools that you wish existed?

R Wet ink movie cameras. So you could shake it to do something else.

J Like an Etch A Sketch?

R No, a camera with liquid ink, and you shake it to change the image! So you can move the image, or slowly turn it upside down, and drown it. That would be quite fun. Just swimming in ink. I swim every day you know. It opens the heart. The old breastroke is the best thing to do. People should do something to keep fit, or at least decent enough, to keep themselves breathing, as it were. There was this thing the other morning, on near death experiences on the television, and people are brought back quite suddenly, because something hits them suddenly..they were dying, and then they were talking about it— it’s a very weird thing. Then of course, they’re asked the question, what was the last thought you can remember, in that moment when you were dead? Some people said “I can’t breathe,” which is quite a scary business, I should think.

Hunter Pigface

J Do you have any tricks that you’ve come across —any particular way of using tools, or anything you’ve fashioned yourself?

R Don’t do it first in pencil or whatever. Just go straight in — make a mistake. People say,” Don’t you make a mistake?” And I go, there’s no such thing as a mistake, a mistake is an opportunity to do something else.

J So there’s never been a piece of work that you’ve done where you’ve gone, “Oh, this is irretrievably bad?”

R I just make it into something else.

J You don’t throw anything away—you just keep going until you have something?

R You just keep it. I have these drawers, called “Things I’m Allowed to Give Away.” I give so many things away, and my daughter Sadie (Note from Jane: Sadie is lovely!) says I shouldn’t give quite so much away. You see, the problem is, the drawings I did for the Kentucky Derby with Hunter S. Thompson, my agent at the time said it would be a good idea to sell these drawings to Jann Wenner, the owner of Rolling Stone, and I said well, why? And he said, “It’d just be a good career move.” And I said, how much is he offering? And he said, ” 75 pounds each!”

J How is that a good career move?

R Now they’ve been sold for thousands of pounds…

J I hope you fired that agent!

R Oh no, he died. Which was his own fault.

J So I know you did a correspondence course to learn art, apprenticed at an ad agency, and then later went to art school — how necessary was that sort of formal background for your development as an artist?



R The way it started, the first thing I wanted to do outside of school, was to go to build airplanes. I got a job at the de Havilland Aircraft Company. It’s gone now. And then I had to do military service. I took up a course that I saw in the newspaper. It said “You too can learn to draw for £££.” It was called “The Percy V. Bradshaw Press Art Course.” This gentleman, who lived in Forest Hill, in London, I went to see him once, and I said, your course is a bit old fashioned, and he said “Oh no, my dear, the principles of drawing never change.”

For 12 pounds I could have 12 lessons in learning in how to draw. For an extra five pounds, you could get six lessons for how to be a cartoonist, which I took as well. I did this during my military service, and I was drawing my boots and blankets, and bed, and the men playing cards around the table.

I’ll tell you who was around at the time, Nasser, working on the Suez canal, all those years ago. And I did a drawing that got used, about a canal keeper…a lock-keeper, reading a paper, and it says “Nasser? Who’s he?” Just silly, a lock-keep not knowing who Nasser was, but [Nasser ]blocked off the Suez canal, so the British and everyone else couldn’t go through. Things have not changed much in politics, they’ve always been stupid in some way or another, and they’re even more stupid now.

Ideology Appeal

J How do you know when you’re done with a piece?

R I think I get bored with it. I think, “I seem to be done,” and I just get rid of it. It’s best to get rid of things. Don’t hang about too much on them. Just a couple of lines sometimes can be useful, you know. A simple drawing can be enough.

J Do you find that drawings get an idea out of your system, or does the process merely reinforce it?

R No one is ever quite happy, or has everything…even that North Korean guy, he lights up atomic warheads, every couple days… he’s just constantly provoking, and they can’t stop it, these people. Trump too.

J Have you ever had an idea that you felt you had to draw?

R In the last 20 years, I’ve found some things have become inevitably, ridiculously unnecessary. You know, people get involved in fights for no good reason. What I think, is if you’re going to have a war, you should have it with custard pies. Just throw them.

J But if you were to see something like that, would you feel that you’d have to draw something in reaction to it?

R: No it’s a bit like Laurel and Hardy, where they tried to get a grand piano up the stairs!

J Like Sisyphus!

R It just keeps coming down again. We seem to do it all the time. We create another fine mess, for no good reason!

I actually did something with Picasso, his 347 Suite, because I rather liked Picasso, thought he was amazing, and I’ve got a whole set. There’s 347 pictures he did over five months, but I decided, I’ll do the same, I’ll do my version, but I will do 400 in three months. It’s a whole series of them now.

J I find that after I work a long time on a piece of art, I get an adrenaline rush, that will last after I’m done working, and I can’t sleep for hours. Do you have a similar experience? Or is it more meditative for you?

R Sometimes I suddenly am so bored with it, that I’ll leave it, and what I’ll do, is I’ll hit it with a brush, with whatever’s on it, and it does whatever it does. Sometimes a wonderful thing happens. I think accidents are fantastic.

People shouldn’t bother with style. You should just go for content. People go, “what are you doing?” And I say, I’m just trying to make paint play with itself! When you’re a painter, you could draw an old lady, for no good reason, because you want to, and then you can make it very nice, and you can give it to her and she’d be happy, and just do it careful— or you could draw horns on it. Maybe she’s a demon witch!

J Your handwriting is so distinctive — is it something you’ve purposefully cultivated?

R I tried to do it neat, but it doesn’t work, so I decided to let it go whichever way it goes. I let it tell me where I’m going.

J Yeah because I think so many people try to desperately do what you’re able to do, but you’re just letting go, which is funny.

R Yes yes, it’s like trying to keep a dog on its leash!

Jackson

J Who are your influences?

R Andre Francois, Picasso… I’ve been a big fan of Ronald Searle….The legs he used to do were very thin on people. I think it was because he was in the war, in the POW camp, and you know people were hungry, and the thin legs, you know, were skin and bone. I think that affected the way he drew, and I think that’s something to think about, when you do these things about people, like “how did he do this?” or “how did he start doing that?” It’s all to do with something you did in life.

I was in the last war, as a young thing, and my mother would take us down stairs to the bomb shelter every night. And she would knit all the time — knit one purl one, to try to keep calm. I must have been affected some way, bombs and shrapnel everywhere. I’d go looking for damage on the road the next day, and a house would have disappeared.

J Is skype freezing again? Or are you just sitting very still?

R [starts to sing “The Famous Pig Song”]

J What advice do you have for cartoonists who are just starting out?



R Do something else!

J Is that your way of cutting down on competition? [laughs]

R No no, they should come and see me, and tell me what to do next! It’d be fun! Just an army of people saying, “Excuse me, can I tell you what to do next?”

J You should do balloon animals!

R My grandson has been given a float animal, for the pool. A unicorn!

R With an interview, you just have to let it go where it goes. I lost you, when the computer froze…

J Yeah my computer froze and just started shaking!

R That was God! He was mad we hadn’t mentioned him!

J Yes we did, you told me about your book about him!

R Oh Yes, The Big I Am! Much better than the Bible! Buy it instead! We’ll get everybody upset!

J If I include that in the interview we might get conservative groups after us!

R No, we’ve got to make them laugh! The Bible punchers need to laugh! We need to have bouncy Bibles, for them to bounce upon!

J There’s your next career! Bouncy Bible Pool Floats.

R There we are! We’ve just invented that. You’re welcome to have it for nothing, unless you plan on making money on it. You can have bouncy Bibles for children, with little handles!

J I’m telling you, that’s your next market!

R That’s right!

J My jaw is starting to lock from laughing too hard!

R Oh yes, “What book are you working on?” It’s a book called The Bouncy Bible!

Find art and prints at www.ralphsteadman.com



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