By Ronald Searle (Penguin Books)
ISBN: 0-1400-6312-9
Sometimes there is simply no need for complex story-telling. Just occasionally the graphic narrative only needs a title and the talents of an artistic phenomenon to convey not just a story, not only shades of depth and texture but also, most magically, the pure emotion of a situation made real with line and colour.
Ronald Searle, expatriate caricaturist and commentator, has been making pictorial wonders for decades. His surreal and abstract grotesques have been charming generations whilst he either makes telling points or just makes us want to laugh until we burst.
This slim collection of full colour animal drawings, criminally out-of-print (but mercifully readily available and inexpensive from a number of internet-based retailers) is one of his dark, sardonic and manic best.
Featuring such visual delights as ‘Imbecile rodent confident that it has a foolproof claim against the Disney Organization’, ‘Loquacious parrot convinced that it is teaching man a basic vocabulary’, ‘Aggressive chicken applying Kung Fu to a Peking Duck’ and ‘Baby seal under the impression that clubs are centres of social activity’ these thirty-two masterpieces of edgy madcappery could make a brick laugh out loud.
© 1980 Ronald Searle. All Rights Reserved.