(Picture: Vegan Sidekick)

An illustrator is poking fun at the arguments meat-eaters have with vegans.

The Vegan Sidekick entertains his 90,000 Instagram followers with regular posts about the common contradictions and arguments that come with being a vegan.

They make many laugh out loud but Vegan Sidekick, real-name Richard, doesn’t take his work too lightly.

The irreverent British activist, 33, says: ‘I tend to describe them as comics that show why it is absurd to defend animal abuse, which is what you’re doing when you debate with a vegan.’


Richard has been vegan for 15 years and used to make images and YouTube videos offering vegans support and advice on how to answer questions and handle debates.



He says: ‘Over time, I found that I got a much more positive response to my hand drawn comics, so I focused on those.

‘I later realised that I could actually convince people to go vegan, so this is now the primary purpose of the [Instagram] page.

‘I’ve always wanted to be able to do more for the animals, and the number one thing we can do is educate people and get them to respect animals – which means going vegan of course.’

He has now self-published six volumes of his work, at £9.50 each, through lulu.com.

‘It means that the only person involved is me,’ he says. ‘I just upload the files, and then lulu prints them to order. It’s a great way to do things.

‘You can find links to my individual books on my website, but nobody should feel obliged to buy anything. The comics are a form of outreach, I want people to share them with their friends, and that can be done for free.

‘A lot of people asked me to make books though, so they can give them as gifts, or have them on their table at home.’

Of course, Richard gets some stick from meat-eaters from his work.

‘Someone said they hope that I get cancer, and another person said they would like to drown me in cow’s blood.’

But mainly he finds his bold approach tends to convert more people to veganism than it angers, which makes it worthwhile.

‘That happens regularly these days, and it’s the best.’

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