'You Will Be Found' - prints for Papyrus and The Trussell Trust

The response to the illustrations in the newly-published You Will Be Found has been unexpected and overwhelming. When I was working on this for five months last summer, I could never have foreseen how resonant they were going to be at the time of the book's release. 

I mean - no-one saw this coming, did they?

The book-of-the-song's themes of mutual support, reaching out, rallying around and looking after the vulnerable, worried and isolated among us have taken on a context that wasn't in our minds when Sasha, Farrin, Benj, Justin and I were working on it.

I'd planned to make selected prints from the book quite early on, but I've brought the idea forward, and am donating half of all profits from those sold to Papyrus, an organisation I've been working with for the last year that works to prevent suicide in young people - the event at the heart of Dear Evan Hansen, from which the song is taken.

The new prints go live at 6pm, Friday 20th March.

And for the foreseeable future, half the profits from all of my other prints are going to The Trussell Trust, the UK's national food bank network.

Now more than ever, we need to believe we're all going to be OK, and we will be, if we look after each other.

You can browse all the prints at shop.inkymole.com

Thank you!

x

51st New York Society of Illustrators Show, New York City, March 6th 2009

- My friend Ed attended the opening of the Advertising show at this year's 51st New York Society of Illustrators Show in New York, in which I had two pieces for the first time ever. Ed had a vested interest in seeing the show, as he wrote the words for 'Sky High', one of the chosen illustrations, he also wrote the story inside this years Christmas cards.

Here is his report:

It was bright and hot in there at 6. As the two floors filled up and we milled around it became obvious that all the entries were extremely good. The soundtrack for the first hour went between dub and Bob Marley via some rowdy tunes skipped soon after they started by whoever was controlling the player, possibly so no-one started bouncing. The food, in a word, was Jesus. The bar, in a word, was free. Relaxed happy folk murmured and mingled until 7 when the gallery director introduced John Cuneo to the podium. John had appeared at the events for the other 2 categories earlier in the year and started with the line "I'm gonna say the same stuff I said last time only faster." He then babbled and blurted and stumbled and stuttered until everybody's ice was broken. We learned he was asked to do the Call For Entires posters only after R.Crumb refused. We learned his mother hasn't liked his stuff since he stopped drawing people with big feet. His people with big heads are just not enough for her. He told us how extraordinary a thing it is to be selected for the show, especially as the Advertising and Uncomissioned category was the largest this year. The jurors had stayed up until midnight deadline day deciding what made the selection and what didn't. It was, apparently, "a gruelling process".

The medals were then accepted by the artists with charming degrees of happiness, nerves and bemusement. Some didn't realise they had to speak. Some expressed relief at finally being able to crawl from their caves and meet their fellow illustrators. Sometimes the desk is a lonely place. Takahisa Hashimoto got the biggest laugh of the night by starting his speech with "Hello New York!".
After all the awards had been received and everyone had applauded everyone else, the mingle-chatter was louder and technical talk floated around on clouds of mutual respect. Eyeballs went up close to pictures. More drinks went down. The bar staff were great. And just before it was time to leave we were served trays of creamy apple crepes. Next year there should be a medal for the food. And maybe a medal for Best Entry featuring a Fictional Creature, which this year was certainly Michael Wandelmaier's "Harpooning The Wooly Whale". I'm not an illustrator but I'll be back there next year. I hope.


- Me too Ed. Thanks for going!

Michael Wandelmaier - Harpooning The Wooly Whale - Best Entry featuring a Fictional Creature medal

Rene Milot - Screaming Rabbit

Richard A. Goldberg - Bon Voyage

The Factory Shop

Working in Factory Road, where factory sales with stacks of ripped boxes of tights, socks and legwarmers are a regular occurrence, we thought it only right to open up the forecourt ourselves and get our merch out on sale.

Who's the 'we'? Well, I've had a shop for a long time, on my exhibition site writeofftheworld.net, but this is a proper stand-alone store which will eventually be reachable from the new inkymole.com site and my other site, factoryroad.net, which I run with my partner in crime.

It's not quite 'bring a binliner and fill it for a fiver', like the tights warehouse across the street, but there are lovely things to be had, with more to come.

Try it out! I'd appreciate your feedback, and reports of any glitches, before it gets properly hooked into the national grid and the queues at the tills are massive.

click: The Factory Shop