Ethel & Ernest

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Ethel y Ernest es un retrato personal, sí, pero también lo es de una clase social: la de los ingleses de clase trabajadora que experimentaron las penurias de dos guerras mundiales y sus consecuencias.

And as the times are changing, you get to see Ethel and Ernest not liking a different political party in government, men growing long hair, women wearing shorter skirts, and how quickly the world they grew up is changing especially having a women in Parliament. Lord once made the mistake of confessing to a dislike of dogs in the presence of Briggs, thereby immediately committing himself to becoming the recipient of all manner of canine-related gifts on subsequent birthdays and Christmases. The reissue of Briggs' award winning illustrated story of his parents, issued by Jonathan Cape the year after the book was first published. The absence of the author from the pages is intriguing to me, the way he keeps himself very peripheral to his own story and really focused in on his parents, their particular way of moving through time, working, delighting, worrying, arguing and making up.Both Ethel and Ernest are on the old side for married couples in those days, I think, but certainly Ethel who is, I believe, in her mid to late thirties. His graphic novel Ethel and Ernest, which portrayed his parents' 41-year marriage, won Best Illustrated Book in the 1999 British Book Awards. The characteristic that the journalist John Walsh described in a 2012 interview as a very English “strenuous curmudgeonliness” had become in later years a stereotype that Briggs embraced, exemplified by his column in the Oldie, Notes from the Sofa, collected in book form in 2015, where he would rail against sundry incomprehensible aspects of modern life. They met during the Depression — she working as a maid, he as a milkman — and we follow them as they court and marry, make a home, raise their son, and cope with the dark days of World War II. It has various artistic elements to it which are commendable: in other words, I really liked the art style!

Zo'n leven lang samen en alles wat daarbij aan liefde, leed en geschiedenis passeert maakt het verhaal ook wat melancholisch, maar op een fijne manier. After writing Fungus the Bogeyman, Briggs had the desire to create something very different in tone and style. Creo que no me equivoco si digo que casi nadie sería capaz de recordar demasiado del argumento de la película ‘Up! It didn't surprise me though, because the rich illustrations reminded me of books I'd read as a child. For Robin Shaw, who has directed a number of animations based on Briggs' books, there was a clear impact on his work.

Her death from leukaemia in 1973, and the deaths of his parents, led Briggs to throw himself into his work. But immediately when he started invading Europe and sending Jews to death camps, they realize that he needs to be stopped or he can conquer and destroy England. Raymond Briggs’s Fungus the Bogeyman displayed an extreme version of the author’s own tendency to be outspoken and impatient.

While reading it I discovered that this book is really about life, love, and how quick times are changing when it comes to history and technology. I loved the art and colors in this one, and was delighted by the clear affection the author has for his parents.The latter could be seen most directly in When the Wind Blows (1982), Briggs’s examination of an elderly couple’s attempts to follow government guidelines as nuclear war breaks out; and The Tin-Pot General and the Old Iron Woman (1984), a thinly disguised General Leopoldo Galtieri and Margaret Thatcher. Unusually for a children's story, Fungus is having an existential crisis about his purpose as an individual, thinking thoughts which question the meaning of life, like "Not to reason why.

Briggs continued to work in a similar format, but with more adult content, in Gentleman Jim (1980), a sombre look at the working class trials of Jim and Hilda Bloggs, closely based on his parents. Pues, ahora que he leído esta novela gráfica, me resulta difícil creer que quienes escribieran aquella escena no se inspirasen en este librito: como mínimo coincide que ambas historias son las postales que resumen una vida a lo largo de las décadas y están contadas desde una nostalgia dulcísima y un humor lleno de ternura. More Hamburger icon An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon.Briggs’s portrayal of how his parents succeeded, or failed, in coming to terms with the events of their rapidly shifting world — the advent of radio, television, and telephones; the development of the atomic bomb; the moon landing; the social and political turmoil of the sixties — is irresistibly engaging, full of sympathy and affection, yet clear-eyed and unsentimental. The love Ethel and Ernest have for each other is epic and perhaps even more so given that Briggs is focusing on the mundane, every-day stuff of life (even during wartime).