It has been an absolute pleasure over the last couple of months to spend time with my buddy Eamonn Clarke researching the work of the cartoonist Giles. Eamonn initially challenged me to this task after we’d really enjoyed working on Episode 158 about Ronald Searle. I always know that when either Eamonn or our other buddy Alan Henderson challenge me to a subject we’ll travel a great and long distance finding out facts, stories, anecdotes and artwork. Our work on Giles may be the deepest excavation so far!
The episode has just been released and you can listen to it here at this website, here at the Podbean page or here on Spotify.
Eamonn and I talk in depth about this British institution of a cartoonist. His work, life, influence, friends, style and downright refusal to do interviews or take anything seriously. A true great! He is described in the book on him by Peter Tory ‘Giles: A Life in Cartoons’ as follows:
‘…an often appallingly crotchety man, a joy when inspired and wonderful company when in full merry flow at a party, a funny, fascinating and charming observer of the way of the world…a sometimes snarling beast, he enjoys an occasional shout of rage, a sudden burst of bad language and a genius.’
Giles, in a rare moment of self-reflection, or maybe just outright sarcasm to a reporter, referred to himself as:
‘I’m a Bentley driving socialist.’
Both statements and more are true for a man who created the cartoons that we all read on the train, in the pub, over our fish and chip suppers and in the dentist and barber’s waiting rooms. Those familiar landscape shaped collections keep coming. I just bought the 2025 annual and it is a joy!
Giles is the Thrice-Weekly DaVinci of British life. His pencils, inks and occasional colours portray our horse racing, cricket playing, three-day weeking, revolutions, wars, seaside donkeys, punk granmas and a spectrum of life elsewhere on these islands and occasionally in Europe. For a man who saw his own side of the World War Two, evidencing death and torture at two Concentration Camps, his work never strayed into sentimentality or tragedy. Whilst lampooning our lives there was also a warmth about his inks. They were relatable to us. They are also culturally important and our history.
So, myself and Eamonn began our research. You’ll hopefully hear the podcast today, but we also hit the road. Thanks to the University of Kent ‘Carl Giles’ Trust Collection and the brilliant curator there Christine we travelled to Canterbury. They hold a breathtakingly extensive collection of around 6500 original pieces of art as well as reference files and books. Shelves and shelves of them!
When Giles died in 1995 his entire studio and related materials got passed to a group of trustees. This all stayed in storage until 2005 when it was transferred to the British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent. Coincidentally housed next to Giles Lane (we are still not sure if that is a coincidence or not!) And thanks to Christine, myself and Eamonn had a good few hours to look through and hold the original art and all the rest of the things Giles kept.
I can’t tell you how much of a honour it was to hold and examine these priceless (to us anyway) pieces of art and slices of his life. Have a listen to the end of the podcast to catch an interview we did with Christine on her great work at the archives. The temperature controlled basement of the collection is somewhere us comics collectors could only dream of having.
Giles is greatly missed. A man of wit and rebellion. He has the glint of a rascal and a humour we rarely see anymore. I’m glad that Christine and her colleagues are here to keep this art safe.
More soon. Enjoy the podcast and let us know your thoughts. We have one more illustrator lined up in the new year.
There’s a raft more information on Giles at the University site here. Much of it informed our chat on the podcast.
You can also catch up with Eamonn and his excellent Mega City Book Club podcast right here.
Many thanks for reading.
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