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Posted in: Comics, Current News, Pop Culture | Tagged: beano, chris riddell, Nicola Jennings, phoenix, quentin blake, Ralph Steadman, refugees, Ros Asquith, terry gilliam
Terry Gilliam, Ralph Steadman & Quentin Blake's Refugee Colouring Book
Colouring book contributors include Quentin Blake, Ralph Steadman, Chris Riddell, Ros Asquith, Nicola Jennings, Terry Gilliam & Guy Venables.
Two months ago, Bleeding Cool pointed out that Britain was undergoing another crisis largely of its own making. In which refugees were travelling by small boats across the English Channel to the UK to claim political asylum, organised by smuggling gangs, to a country that has a long backlog of cases, and a seemingly continual array of incompetence or maliciousness, depending what side you pick. And it was in that context that Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick came under severe criticism for something relatively minor, ordering that cartoon murals at Dover's Kent asylum intake unit, a reception centre for unaccompanied child asylum seekers, be painted over at a cost of £1500, so as to deliberately seem less welcoming to kids. Another kids-aimed mural at a separate detention camp had also been painted over at a cost of £1,500.
In response, the Professional Cartoonists Organisation has created a colouring book aimed at refugee children coming into the country, entitled Welcome to Britain, including nicer aspects of British culture, including Loch Ness monsters, London buses, seaside donkeys, the royal family, cake, Highland cows, Mr Men, Welsh dragons, breakfast fry-ups, wet weather. and football-playing animals. The 62-page book will be distributed via refugee charities and support groups.
Contributors include Sir Quentin Blake, Ralph Steadman, Chris Riddell, Posy Simmonds, Ros Asquith, Nicola Jennings, Terry Gilliam, and Guy Venables of the PCO, who states that not one cartoonist approached declined to contribute, with The Beano, Viz Comic and Phoenix offering their help. With 38 Degrees raising funds and organising printing and distribution, a first print run of a thousand books will be followed by a second print run, sold to the public ahead of Christmas, to raise money for connected charities.
Guy Venables was quoted in The Metro, but they cut his quotes down rather. He has allowed Bleeding Cool to publish them in full.
A Shoulder to Crayon
It all started, as I imagine these things often do, with a throwaway remark. Robert Jenrick was inspecting a children's refugee centre in Dover, saw a Disney style mural and casually said something along the lines of, "That won't do, paint over it." This started a series of events that ended up so breathtakingly positive it has brought grown men to tears.
There is perhaps one thing worse than bullying children and that is bullying vulnerable children. Angered by the casual censorship (of actual cartoons!) I got in touch with the refugee centre offering to get a bunch of us national cartoonists (from the Professional Cartoonists Organisation or PCO) together to come down and repaint it. I sent out a tweet saying as much and we were bombarded with offers of tea, cake, free paint, crowdfunding and lots of mural artists. However the political tripwires and access permissions of the centre made it unworkable so I wrote an open letter about the whole thing and we at the PCO got out heads together. It's important to state that the PCO is a politically neutral organisation. As cartoonists, it's best to stand in the middle and shoot outwards, exposing wrongs rather than toeing any particular party lines. This project would be just for the kids. Amy Amani, our treasurer, came up with the idea of a colouring book. It was perfect. A page each by every top cartoonist in the country. I would go on a recruiting drive, the PCO committee would make the big decisions and Clive Goddard and Amy would put the book together as they'd got form in this area. If fifty percent of the cartoonists said yes, we could put together a small token of fun and distraction for a few, probably distressed children. Unexpectedly everybody said yes. Absolutely everybody. Some, like Chris Riddell, did five pages. Most contributions came with notes of congratulation and offers to contact other artists from previously unconsidered areas. So far it was just the newspaper cartoonists and a few from Private Eye and the The Spectator, but avenues from children's illustrators, comics and magazines came pouring in. Famous names like Terry Gilliam, Posy Simmonds, Ralph Steadman and Quentin Blake contributed. Viz got on board, then the Beano and The Phoenix. Every day more joined in. Then we were emailed by 38 degrees, the charity behemoth offering to take distribution and funding under its wing and we were set. 38 Degrees, as they put it "campaign for fairness, defend rights, promote peace, preserve the planet and deepen democracy in the UK".They also knew some things that we didn't, namely how to distribute books and worked closely with the Refugee Council. We knew they were the right people for us when during a zoom call meeting Hannah said the immortal words "It shouldn't be controversial to be nice to children."
As I write, the first book is on its way to the printers. This will be the first print run, to be handed out to children at refugee centres all with a little pack of colouring pencils. The second, larger book, will be sold to the public at Christmas to raise money for refugee charities. For the child it is a colouring book. They might one day discover that it had a backstory of an entire country's cartoonists rallying in support behind them. Or they might not and it will remain just a colouring book. For the public, who have sent us overwhelming support it has become a symbol of goodwill where they often felt hopeless to act for change. It has been such a positive force that, the outpouring of support from the public has been utterly overwhelming. For us, the cartoonists, it has become an assembly of like-minded outrage that had been building up for years, and between us we found a way of countering the casual cruelty of a government in humanitarian freefall. Although I am the face of this project, I merely got the ball rolling and it is with the PCO that the praise should lie, who noted that I'd put my head above the parapet and stood up together, in one saying "They do not speak for us."
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