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About Dogland Rescue - by the author
The idea for Dogland Rescue came more than ten years ago. It took a long time to develop because I was working as an engineer at the time. The inspiration came from many sources: the influence of my children and my own childhood, having basset hounds as family pets, a growing interest in graphic novels, etc.
The family bassets' pawprints are all over this book. Here are two of them - Bruno and Monty, doing their basset thing. I wish I could share a recording of their snores with you.
Influences
This book would not have happened without the help and encouragement of many people. Starting with my family: my long deceased great grandmother Alicia whose painting of a moonlit scene fascinated me as a little boy. Very importantly, my Aunt Pat used to take me to museums and art galleries in London.
As for comics two strips in the Eagle had a big impact: the Dan Dare space adventures with Frank Hampson's art work, and Harris Tweed - extra special agent by John Ryan. Likewise the Beano, especially the Bash Street Kids and The Three Bears. In fact it was the Beano who introduced me to the classic flying false teeth joke.
My art teacher Dennis Schofield was another inspiration. He also helped a classmate and I to join Saturday morning art classes in a local College of Art during my last years of school. The experience there has made a huge contribution to my life. Later, I grew to love my children's favourite authors and illustrators: Raymond Briggs, John Burningham, Judith Kerr, Shirley Hughes, Quentin Blake, Hergé, and many others.
As well as being a great influence, Steve Bell's brilliant If series contributed one of the book's characters, MacDuff. He is named after Steve Bell's late Black Labrador in whose memory there was a touching strip in the Guardian in 2013. The dog died on the same day as Nelson Mandela and it was good to see them depicted in heaven together. I think you will agree that heaven would hardly be heaven if it were without dogs.
My wife Annie Murray is an author (https://www.anniemurray.co.uk/) and has provided much helpful criticism. With her four children, she has been a wonderful source of encouragement throughout this project. Another family member to whom I owe much is my youngest daughter Rebecca. From the age of eleven she used her artistic talents to represent me as a basset hound and in this way planted the seed for this book.
The seed sprouted 25 years later during a graphic novel course at Chelsea College of Art. Matt, our teacher announced "By the end of the course I want a page of full colour, digitised artwork from you for your graphic novel". At that moment I neither knew what my graphic novel would be about nor how I was going to make it.
The following morning when I had to produce the first panel for the page of artwork I sat looking out of the classroom window, pencil in hand, mind blank, with no clue about what to draw. I relaxed and let my hand lead me, and what should appear but something like one of 'Becca's birthday cards: a Basset hound wearing my usual woollen slipover, seated at my desk in my old Windsor chair. That drawing has been through many changes but it's still in Dogland Rescue at the top of page 2.
The book contains some pretty obscure jokes as well as terrible puns and visual gags. As a boy I thoroughly enjoyed the feeling when you finally understand a joke after reading a book for the umpteenth time. Suddenly something clicks, and it goes off like a time bomb full of humour. I loved those moments then, and still do now.
Writing, Drawing, and Colouring the Book
Writing the text for the book took over a year. It went through many drafts and was still being edited quite recently - trying to make it more visual by redrawing panels to reduce the number of words.
Pencil drawing started in 2016. Two years later I had drawn about 400 panels and was concerned about the years it would take to produce their colour versions. Then one evening at a Polish language class, I heard a fellow student say in her nice Polish: "I write and illustrate children's books". It was Layn Marlow, who has done all the colour work in the book. I am truly glad to have had the opportunity to work with her.
Our collaboration has been a creative, and at times a hilarious pleasure. So, learn Polish, you'll never know what might happen. And here is a link to Layn's website: https://www.laynmarlow.co.uk/
I hope you enjoy the book.