Okay, okay, I admit it! I’m hungover and exhausted as I try valiantly to put these words on the page. It’s been a busy weekend. After the grand reopening of Cinema Lautrec on Friday night, it was all hands to the deck again for Saturday afternoon. Not only did we have a book signing for The National’s cartoonist Greg Moodie in Gallery Two but we also launched the animated – and deviancy filled – MoodieVision in the cinema – as mentioned in part 2. And as we always want to do something a bit extra, Independence Live came in to do an interview, which can be seen along with Greg’s current troubadour, Tommy Reckless, in the link below.
artist Greg Moodie and juliane Dost
Greg started his political cartooning through National Collective, as I believe he thought the wish tree phenomenon wasn’t going to convert many people. As he states in his first book – Greg Moodie Versus the Union: “one minute I thought it would be funny if Johann Lamont and Margaret Curran were sipping Cosmopolitans on a beach, the next I was getting indignant tweets if I hadn’t come up with the next strip by Sunday lunchtime”. I would like to take this opportunity NOT to apologise, because we all know he’s a terrible slacker who wouldn’t do anything without us demanding it.
That book takes us through his toons until just before IndyRef, and even sneaks in a preview of one of his novels, which he assures us will be published eventually. As I’ve stated in previous pieces, the IndyRef result was disappointing (slight understatement) and it was his #EveryoneCanFuckRightOffDay on the 20th that helped me, amongst others, pick myself back up again.
Unlike the now defunct National Collective, Greg has gone from strength to strength. He continued his toons on the website Bella Caledonia, and then started up one of his trademark nagging campaigns directed at Scotland’s new daily newspaper The National. He included roughing up a demo page and encouraged his mob of unruly deviants to take up said nagging campaign until the newspaper finally gave in and gave him a job. It’s because of this enormous increase in Greg’s workload – that he never shuts up about, the poor lamb – that has resulted in a completely huge book.
Annoyingly enough, this new book, Election Dissection, does not sit level with the first on the bookshelf. Yes, I’ve said it, it’s annoying and god help anyone with OCD. Apart from size (and the damned weight!) it’s a great record of the election campaign in Scotland, though I doubt even he could have predicted just how insane some of the campaigning would be (yes I am talking about the #EdStone, or how severely the UK parties would be wiped out). And if anyone has pulled together a montage of the moments when Scottish seats were being declared, I’m pretty sure he’d be grateful.
It is no secret that Greg crowd sources his ideas for the toons – what with him being a professional slacker – though it is only when you get a group of his fans together you find out the full extent of his laziness. Yet no matter the vast pool of talent he taps for his ideas, they always end up with his signature humour. And be warned if you do follow him on Twitter, you will be expected to contribute, as he says #ComeForTheToons #StayForTheAbuse.
As to the man himself, well he portrays an image slightly more debauched than Lord Byron but is he mad, bad and dangerous to know? Well, you’re just going to have to come to the next signing to find out.
Be warned though. There will be T Rex playing. A lot of T Rex.
Greg Moodie: @GregMoodie and at his website click here
Tommy MacKay: @TommyReckless
Art Village: @_ArtVillage_
Independence Live: @LiveIndyScot
Greg Moodie Interview: http://livestream.com/accounts/6163639/events/4075873
Simone Charlesworth