The Thief of Bad Gags

 

About ten years ago , I contributed a few cartoons to a book which was to be titled “Ell Oh Ell. You Have To Laugh…It Says So”

The editor liked them so much that I was invited to illustrate the entire book , which was a compilation of humorous stories , poems and cartoons.

I tried to add a humorous picture to every other piece , so as not to overload the text with imagery.

I believe that writing should allow readers to use their imaginations , but an odd illustration can effectively break up solid walls of text , which can be tiring to read.

There was one story that I was particularly taken with. Written by a gentleman called Eddie Summers , it introduced us to the haphazard adventures of a couple of hopeless detectives named Bennett and Perry.

Set in a familiar cop show London , they were constantly being sent off to look for clues and meet people in long vanished parts of the old East End. This was the root of Eddie’s message , one which will resonate with many more people in the 2020’s…London ain’t what it was , and every year more remnants of the old communities and traditions fall foul of the developers. 

Bennett and Perry could never lay their hands on the culprits , but they leapt off the page for me , reminding me of Jasper Carrott and Robert Powell , mixed up with Groucho Marx’ quick fire corny gags.

I liked them so much that I contacted Eddie directly and offered to illustrate any future Bennett and Perry stories he produced.

He posted these on a blog for a little while and I contributed a new cartoon which he added to the story.

Great fun, but one day the blog disappeared and we lost contact. Most of the drawings went down with the blog , but I came across two the other day and thought I would commemorate the collaboration.

Both pictures hint at the sometimes surreal quality of the stories , derived from Eddie’s love of American writers S.J.Perelman and Stephen Leacock.

The jokes were frequent and leaned deliberately towards the groan , to the extent that I encouraged Eddie to collect the stories and my illustrations together in a slim volume. He liked the idea of that , but we never got there. I never got to tell him that my proposed title of the collection would be “ The Thief Of BadGags”…I think he would have liked that too…

                                                          “ Leacock Hurls A Question…”