I'm a fan of Ralph Kidson

Sad Animal. Giant Clam. Envelope & Stick. Two To Beam Up. Captain Dolphin. And now Animal Job Centre. Ralph has been producing small press comics (some really small) for roughly thirteen or fourteen years is it? A mutual friend sent me one of Ralph's early comics and I was so impressed with the bone dry wit, the humanity and the rubbish-not-rubbish drawings that I had to send him a letter (a letter! I didn't have 56k at home at that point) which said, almost word for word "dear Ralph, I love your work but could you confirm for me whether your use of hand drawn frames are some kind of statement or are you lazily fannying around?" I was overjoyed when I received the next comic some months later to find that he had printed my letter with the reply "lazily fannying around". I was relieved because I would hate to think that Ralph's way of working is anything other than straight up funny comic book writing and drawing.

Ralph doesn't do irony - when a clam swears at a squid or an envelope gives a stick the silent treatment it's because it's what they do, as we do, as we all do. Ralph has managed to avoid in-jokes, games and knowing nods to the side of the stage. His work is a bit sweary in places - there was the time when a commissioned strip of his wasn't used in an overseas indie comic due to its explicit content, well, as explicit as 'badly' drawn animals can be - and when I asked him about, whether he was disappointed, frankly, he didn't give a monkeys and not in a pretending-to-not-give-a-monkeys way, he was really non-plussed. Just y'know, "...another pint?", a bit like, some people don't get it, then fair do's.

The blurb on the back of his other recent release - Doctor's Waiting Room - says "ooh look, Ive made a wuvvly, fwuffly ickle dickle mini-comic, aaah... hand made itty bitty frou-frou inky-dinky wittle comic, bless... maybe I should go to craft fairs and sell them in a wickle hand made basket, all in different colour covers, wouldn't that be darling. Have them next to the till in poncy fucking brighton gift shops that smell of incense and hand-made frigging soap. Ooh yes, that'd be wuvvly duvvly... actually I might do that..."

I've resisted the temptation to compare Ralph's work to that of more in/famous published souls of recent years but to cut to the chase, can someone who works for a grown up publishing house and distribution empire get it sorted that all of his back catalogue is put together in one great big compendium with a range of greetings cards, animated shorts on E4 and t-shirts please. Everyone should have Ralph Kidson's work in their lives as well as their soap baskets. Ta very much.

all images © ralph kidson 2010
Animal Job Centre and Doctor's Waiting Room are both available to buy from Ralph c/o 3 Langridges Close, Newick, E.Sussex, BN8 4LZ