Very fine tribute. As I mentioned when athenais reported his death, I was particularly fond of the drawing style as well as the wit of his artwork.
The only time I ever met him, though we hardly interacted, was at the Leeds Corflu. I remember him as wearing a large mac and standing off to the side of the room, glowering in a not-too-intimidating way.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, they say, and now that he'll never finish that piece on art and influence, do you think you could get permission to run the original letter? Writing had become difficult for him, he told you, but he seemed to have no trouble writing enormous letters, so it was probably a mental block at the thought of publication. (Comes of taking fanzines so seriously, perhaps.)
I do not know if it would have helped or hindered him for you to have reminded him that Tom Wolfe invented (if that's the word) New Journalism when, in despair over finding a shape for the piece he'd been assigned to write, simply sent a long impressionistic letter to his editor about what he'd observed and how he responded. The editor just stripped the salutations off the beginning and end and published it.
Yes, sometime in the next couple of months I'll transcribe the letter (which was typed on paper) and ask Hazel if it's okay to publish it, or if I should check with any of his kids. Fingers crossed!
The illustrations of Lord of the Ring are fascinating, by the way. They are cruder than his later work, and they were apparently printed on a device he made himself using a paint can as the drum, so even the printing seems crude. But several of the compositions are quite striking. I also had no idea until a few years ago that he had ever been a Tolkien fan, although the cover he did for the most recent Banana Wings is a LOTR joke, and Simon Ounsley, who published Lagoon, referred to the above cover as Helms Deep.
The only time I ever met him, though we hardly interacted, was at the Leeds Corflu. I remember him as wearing a large mac and standing off to the side of the room, glowering in a not-too-intimidating way.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, they say, and now that he'll never finish that piece on art and influence, do you think you could get permission to run the original letter? Writing had become difficult for him, he told you, but he seemed to have no trouble writing enormous letters, so it was probably a mental block at the thought of publication. (Comes of taking fanzines so seriously, perhaps.)
I do not know if it would have helped or hindered him for you to have reminded him that Tom Wolfe invented (if that's the word) New Journalism when, in despair over finding a shape for the piece he'd been assigned to write, simply sent a long impressionistic letter to his editor about what he'd observed and how he responded. The editor just stripped the salutations off the beginning and end and published it.
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The illustrations of Lord of the Ring are fascinating, by the way. They are cruder than his later work, and they were apparently printed on a device he made himself using a paint can as the drum, so even the printing seems crude. But several of the compositions are quite striking. I also had no idea until a few years ago that he had ever been a Tolkien fan, although the cover he did for the most recent Banana Wings is a LOTR joke, and Simon Ounsley, who published Lagoon, referred to the above cover as Helms Deep.
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