{"id":19329,"date":"2018-12-01T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T09:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=19329"},"modified":"2018-11-30T16:04:14","modified_gmt":"2018-11-30T16:04:14","slug":"father-christmas-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2018\/12\/01\/father-christmas-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Father Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\"
\nBy Raymond Briggs<\/strong> (Puffin)
\nISBN: 978-0-24135-153-6 (HB)\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 : 978-0-72327-797-2 (PB)<\/p>\n

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Proper Christmas Tradition Revisited\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 10\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153BLOOMING CHRISTMAS, HERE AGAIN!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Our industry seems to cheerfully content to neglect Raymond Briggs’s graphic narratives, which have reached more hearts and minds than Dennis the Menace<\/strong> or Judge Dredd<\/strong> ever will, yet his books remain among the most powerful and important in the entire field. This one for instance was awarded The Library Association’s Kate Greenaway Medal.<\/p>\n

Father Christmas<\/strong> is a slim, slight children’s book from Briggs that has become a perennial delight. With its animated adaptation and book sequel (and there are editions available with both tomes combined into one package) it reveals a warm-hearted yet crustily-curmudgeonly Santa who is gruff, plebeian, curt, complaining, competent, dedicated, and reliable – in fact the very image of the British worker from a time long gone by.<\/p>\n

Released in 1973, in the last moments of Britain’s post-war recovery, and before the infamous \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Winter of Discontent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d permanently tainted the image of the working man, this typical granddad mutters and putters but still gets the job done right and on time. The old duffer wakes up, realises the date, feeds the animals (dog, cat, chicken, reindeer); has a spot of breakfast and resolutely gets down to it.<\/p>\n

He lives alone in a brick two-up, two-down, (with attached stables, naturally – and apparently based on Brigg’s childhood home) and once the sleigh is loaded up, he’s away!<\/p>\n

Grumbling about the weather he drops off all the presents, stopping for a packed lunch – at the appropriate time, of course – and when his day is done heads home, nodding off a bit, with frozen feet, job sorted for another year.<\/p>\n

The bright expansive and welcoming art is a seductive device that keeps this fantasy day-in-the-life thoroughly grounded in the everyday, and the total lack of saccharine and schmaltz is still a refreshing antidote to the paternalistic, condescending oaf today’s Christmas Industry foists on us.<\/p>\n

A true classic, the book was remastered and released this autumn in a splendid mini-hardback (178 x 146 mm) gift pack and includes a letter from Briggs himself, but if you can’t find that the somewhat larger (232 x 285 cm) 40th<\/sup> anniversary paperback edition from 2013 is still readily available<\/p>\n

This is such quirky, deceptively subversive and beautifully understated fun that you must deck your shelves with this cracker.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 1973 Raymond Briggs. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Raymond Briggs (Puffin) ISBN: 978-0-24135-153-6 (HB)\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 : 978-0-72327-797-2 (PB) Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Proper Christmas Tradition Revisited\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 10\/10 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153BLOOMING CHRISTMAS, HERE AGAIN!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Our industry seems to cheerfully content to neglect Raymond Briggs’s graphic narratives, which have reached more hearts and minds than Dennis the Menace or Judge Dredd ever will, yet his books … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Father Christmas”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,125,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-british","category-humour","category-kids-all-ages"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-51L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}