Do you consider yourself to be an artist or a cartoonist?
That’s something that I’ve always kind of puzzled over really, I quite like cartoonist because it sounds sort of unpretentious. As a cartoonist I’m not that into making gags, I prefer trying to say something about life…but I suppose that is quite pretentious!
Do you think that cartoons still have to carry a message or meaning?
I like them to personify, I like there to be a level of truth or some information about the world.
Is this something you’ve always wanted to do? How did you start getting recognised?
I always had an urge to make and create things, build things even when I was a kid. I suppose I accidentally stumbled into being a cartoonist because I always used to write and draw illustrations for other people, so it was kind of perfect for me really, as illustrating children’s books wouldn’t have allowed me to cover the subjects that I have done. I always liked artists that created their own world and I think that’s what I’ve tried to do, but reinvent the world into a more wonderful place.
You have been described as: “doing disconnection so well”. Is there an intention to bring a kind of disconnected feel to your work or is it something that just comes naturally?
I think it all just comes naturally and I think it’s really important to do what comes naturally. When I or anybody tries to artificially lean their work in a certain way it becomes less good.
Do you think pieces of work should be about the artists themselves ?
I personally think that work, whether cartoons, art, whatever, should come from your own obsessions rather than an attempt to do something that might sell. Obviously it’s great if it is going to be successful, but then the people who are really successful often do what they love. As for disconnectedness, I do kind of think that we are all islands and we can never know what another person really thinks or is, so I suppose it makes sense to make art that little bit personal.
How do you know when you have finished with one world and can move on to another? Are there still times when you think of extra things that could be added to that world?
Oh definitely yes I do! The most obvious examples of things that I’ve done are Captain Star which was originally in NME and then the Observer and then became a TV series. It was only one series with 13 episodes but it could have been ten series. Once the characters live in their world and come to life, then really they can have as many experiences as you like. The other that comes to mind is Small Birds Singing which had about eight years in The Times and which my cousin is now making animated films of, so that’s continued even though it had finished its course in The Times. Both of those things finished because the publisher or the television company didn’t want any more rather than I just wanted to stop. It does make you move on though, which is good.
What inspires you?
I’m inspired by writers, for example Philip K. Dick, themes that went through his work that I indentified with, were things like that nothing is what it seems to be, for example androids that appear to be human and that kind of uncertainty. I do find that to be true, nothing is what it seems to be and when somebody says something that isn’t always necessarily what they think. Additionally, I like people like Charles Adams the cartoonist who invented a whole world with the Adams family. Things with a dark side appeal to me, especially the idea that everybody has their secrets and a strange darkness somewhere.
If there was a step by step guide on to how to draw like Steven Appleby, what would it say?
Don’t worry about whether it looks wrong or right, it’s all about whether it conveys the idea.
You mentioned ‘Small Birds Singing’. In this, why did you decide to choose the medium of plastesine, rather than something more modern such as CGI?
I think the medium was perfect for it and still is. My cousin and I used to make marionettes when we were kids and do marionette shows so stop motion animation is kind of an evolution of that. We do use CGI a bit for effects but there’s a kind of old fashionedness to a lot of my stuff which I guess is because it’s routed in childhood and I find that most of my inspiration to some extent comes from when I was a kid and what I was interested in then. Captain Star was about spaceships, but in a kind of retro, 50s sort of way, and then Small Bird Singing is like a Evelyn Waugh country house world twisted about, as well as having my obsessions with getting older and dying and all sorts of things.
If you weren’t painting or drawing cartoons, what would you like to be doing?
I find it very hard to imagine doing something that isn’t creating things in some way. I’d like to be doing more paintings, I’m working on an installation at the moment. I’d like to do more writing, so I guess if I wasn’t currently drawing, I would probably be writing a novel.
What was the decision behind bringing out your previous series of books?
Well I’ve always loved books. They’re a lovely kind of object, they are a complete unit, they have a certain number of pages, so they’re a complete thing, which I like. I’m proud of some and not so proud of others.
Is there a reason that you’re not so proud of others?
Going back to what we were saying earlier, they wasn’t enough of me in them. Sometimes they have themes that the publisher suggested, which is unfortunate because one must balance having enough money to pay the mortgage and creating something very personal! You’ve probably already discovered this wierd kind of a-symmetry at university!
What’s next for you?
I’ve had a couple of years where I’ve not been very well, so I’m just getting started on things again. Basically I want to carry on making work more edgy and uncompromising work. I think it’s really important as we get older not to mellow out. I want to remember that it’s better to follow your intuition and do what feels right, however alarming it might be!