Raymond Briggs

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For the British general, see Raymond Briggs (British Army officer).

Raymond Briggs
CBE
Strips, schrijvers, kernwapens, Briggs, Raymond, Bestanddeelnr 932-5852.jpg
Briggs (right, 1983)
BornRaymond Redvers Briggs
(1934-01-18) 18 January 1934 (age 87)
Wimbledon, London, England
NationalityEnglish
Area(s)Artist, writer, cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator
Notable works
Awards
Spouse(s)
Jean Briggs
​
​
(m. 1963; died 1973)​

Raymond Redvers Briggs, CBE (born 18 January 1934) is an English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author who has achieved critical and popular success among adults and children. He is best known in Britain for his story The Snowman, a book without words whose cartoon adaptation is televised and whose musical adaptation is staged every Christmas.[1]

Briggs won the 1966 and 1973 Kate Greenaway Medals from the British Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject.[2][3] For the 50th anniversary of the Medal (1955–2005), a panel named Father Christmas (1973) one of the top-ten winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation's favourite.[4]

For his contribution as a children's illustrator Briggs was a runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1984.[5][6]

He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators.[7]

Early life[edit]

Raymond Briggs was born in Wimbledon, London, England, to parents Ernest Redvers Briggs (1900–1971), a milkman, and Ethel Bowyer (1895–1971), a former lady's maid-turned-housewife, who married in 1930. His other known relatives are: an adoptive paternal grandmother (his father's step-mother), his maternal grandparents, and two maternal uncles who died during childhood.

He attended Rutlish School, at that time a grammar school, pursued cartooning from an early age and, despite his father's attempts to discourage him from this unprofitable pursuit, attended the Wimbledon School of Art from 1949 to 1953 to study painting, and Central School of Art to study typography.[8]

From 1953 to 1955, he was a conscript in the Royal Corps of Signals at Catterick where he was made a draughtsman.[2] After these two years of National Service, he returned to the study of painting at Slade School of Fine Art at University College, London, graduating in 1957.

Career[edit]

After briefly pursuing painting, he became a professional illustrator, and soon began working in children's books. In 1958, he illustrated Peter and the Piskies: Cornish Folk and Fairy Tales, a fairy tale anthology by Ruth Manning-Sanders that was published by Oxford University Press. They would collaborate again for the Hamish Hamilton Book of Magical Beasts (Hamilton, 1966). In 1961, Briggs began teaching illustration part-time at Brighton School of Art, which he continued until 1986.[9][10] He was a commended runner-up for the 1964 Kate Greenaway Medal (Fee Fi Fo Fum, a collection of nursery rhymes)[11][a] and won the 1966 Medal for illustrating a Hamilton edition of Mother Goose. According to a retrospective presentation by the librarians, The Mother Goose Treasury "is a collection of 408 traditional and well loved poems and nursery rhymes, illustrated with over 800 colour pictures by a young Raymond Briggs."[2]

The first three important works that Briggs both wrote and illustrated were in comics format rather than the separate text and illustrations typical of children's books; all three were published by Hamish Hamilton. Father Christmas (1973) and its sequel Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (1975) both feature a curmudgeonly Father Christmas who complains incessantly about the "blooming snow". For the former, he won his second Greenaway. Much later they were jointly adapted as a film titled Father Christmas. The third early Hamilton "comics" was Fungus the Bogeyman (1977), featuring one day in the life of a working class Bogeyman with the mundane job of scaring human beings.

The Snowman (Hamilton, 1978) was entirely wordless, and illustrated with only pencil crayons.[12] Briggs said that it was partly inspired by his previous book, "For two years I worked on Fungus, buried amongst muck, slime and words, so... I wanted to do something which was clean, pleasant, fresh and wordless and quick."[13] For that work Briggs was a Highly Commended runner-up for his third Greenaway Medal; no one has won three.[11][a]

An American edition was produced by Random House in the same year, for which Briggs won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, picture book category. In 1982, it was adapted by British TV channel Channel 4 as an animated cartoon, which was nominated for the annual "Oscar" and has since been shown every year (except 1984) on British television. On Christmas Eve 2012 the 30th anniversary of the original was marked by the airing of the sequel The Snowman and the Snowdog.

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. When the Wind Blows (1982) confronted the trusting, optimistic Bloggs couple with the horror of nuclear war, and was praised in the British House of Commons for its timeliness and originality. The topic was inspired after Briggs watched a Panorama documentary on nuclear contingency planning,[10] and the dense format of the page was inspired by a Swiss publisher's miniature version of Father Christmas.[14] This book was turned into a two-handed radio play with Peter Sallis in the male lead role, and subsequently an animated film, featuring John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft.[15] The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman (1984) was a scathing denunciation of the Falklands War. Briggs continued to produce humour for children, in works such as the Unlucky Wally series and The Bear.

Personal life[edit]

His wife, Jean, who suffered from schizophrenia, died from leukaemia in 1973, two years after his parents' death. They did not have any children.[16]

As of 2010, Briggs lived in a small house in Westmeston, Sussex;[17] because of the clutter and lack of light, he kept a separate home from his long-term partner, Liz, her children and grandchildren. Liz died in October 2015 after suffering from Parkinson's disease. Briggs continues to work on writing and illustrating books.[18]

Briggs stated that he used to be a staunch supporter of the Labour Party, although he lost faith in the party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.[19]

Awards and honours[edit]

Briggs won the 1992 Kurt Maschler Award, or the Emil, both for writing and for illustrating The Man, a short graphic novel featuring a boy and a homunculus. The award annually recognised one British children's book for integration of text and illustration.[20] His graphic novel Ethel & Ernest, which portrayed his parents' 41-year marriage, won Best Illustrated Book in the 1999 British Book Awards. In 2016, it was turned into a hand-drawn animated film. In 2012, he was the first person to be inducted into the British Comic Awards Hall of Fame.[21]

In 2014, Briggs received the Phoenix Picture Book Award from the Children's Literature Association for The Bear (1994). The award committee stated: "With surprising page-turns, felicitous pauses, and pitch-perfect dialogue, Briggs renders the drama and humour of child–adult and child–bear relations, while questioning the nature of imagination and reality. As a picture book presented in graphic novel format, Briggs's work was ground-breaking when first published and remains cutting edge twenty years later in its creative unity of text and picture."[22]

The biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award conferred by the International Board on Books for Young People is the highest recognition available to a writer or illustrator of children's books. Briggs was one of two runners-up for the illustration award in 1984.[5][6]

He has also won several awards for particular works.[13][23]

Fee Fi Fo Fum (1964) and The Snowman (1978) were Commended and Highly Commended runners-up for the Greenaway Medal.[11][a]

Ug was silver runner-up for the 2001 Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.

Briggs was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to literature.[24] A book about his life's work entitled Raymond Briggs: The Illustrators was written by Nicolette Jones and published in 2020.[25]

Selected works[edit]

Adaptations[edit]

(1982) Sony Video Software: 50QS 4011(Betamax)/50ZS 4011(VHS)
(2006) DVD NR, UPC 043396164369, Director Diane Jackson, approx. 29 minutes
The Snowman (1993) 29 min; and
Father Christmas (1997) 25 min (including material from Father Christmas Goes on Holiday)

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Today there are usually eight books on the Greenaway Medal shortlist. According to CCSU, some runners-up were Commended (from 1959) or Highly Commended (from 1974). There were 99 distinctions of both kinds in 44 years including three for 1964, three 1978. There were 31 high commendations in 29 years including Briggs alone for 1978.
    • Only Chris Riddell has won three Greenaways. Among the fourteen illustrators with two Medals, Briggs is one of seven with one book named to the top ten (1955–2005) and also one of seven with at least one Highly Commended runner-up (1974–2002), led by Helen Oxenbury with two Medals and four Hc.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Wroe, Nicholas (18 December 2004). "Bloomin' Christmas". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
  2. ^ a b c d e (Greenaway Winner 1966). Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 14 July 2012.
  3. ^ a b c (Greenaway Winner 1973). Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 14 July 2012.
  4. ^ "70 Years Celebration: Anniversary Top Tens" Archived 27 October 2016 at the Wayback Machine. The CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children's Book Awards. CILIP. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
  5. ^ a b "Hans Christian Andersen Awards". International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). Retrieved 28 July 2013.
  6. ^ a b "Candidates for the Hans Christian Andersen Awards 1956–2002". The Hans Christian Andersen Awards, 1956–2002. IBBY. Gyldendal. 2002. Pages 110–18. Hosted by Austrian Literature Online (literature.at). Retrieved 28 July 2013.
  7. ^ "Association of Illustrators". Archived from the original on 12 July 2016.
  8. ^ Raymond Briggs Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2009. Archived 1 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ Briggs, Raymond – MSN Encarta. Archived 1 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ a b read yourself RAW – Profile: Raymond Briggs Archived 19 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ a b c "Kate Greenaway Medal". 2007?. Curriculum Lab. Elihu Burritt Library. Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). Retrieved 25 June 2012.
  12. ^ "Guardian book club: Week two: Raymond Briggs on Father Christmas's terrible job ...". Raymond Briggs with John Mullan. The Guardian. 20 December 2008.
  13. ^ a b "Raymond Briggs". Puffin Books Authors. Puffin Books. Confirmed 4 December 2012.
    • Biography; Interview; Bibliography "Published by Puffin Books"
  14. ^ "Why I'd like to be a proper author: Strip cartoons are a botheration for Raymond Briggs". Raymond Briggs. The Guardian 1 November 2002. Confirmed 4 December 2012.
  15. ^ When the Wind Blows at IMDb. Confirmed 4 December 2012.
  16. ^ Jordan, Justine (21 December 2019). "Raymond Briggs: 'Everything takes so bloody long when you're old'". The Guardian.
  17. ^ Emily Walker (24 December 2010). "Snowman author says: "I hate Christmas" (From The Argus)". Theargus.co.uk. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
  18. ^ "Big kid, 'old git' and still in the rudest of health". Rachel Cooke. The Observer. 10 August 2008. Confirmed 4 December 2012.
  19. ^ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/24/raymond-briggs-interview-the-snowman-ethel-and-ernest
  20. ^ a b "Kurt Maschler Awards". Book Awards. bizland.com. Retrieved 6 October 2013.
  21. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 11 March 2016. Retrieved 11 March 2016.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  22. ^ a b ChLA Newsletter Archived 14 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Vol. 20, Issue 2 (Autumn 2013)]. pp. 6–7. Retrieved 2014-07-12.
  23. ^ a b "Raymond Briggs". British Council: Literature. Retrieved 4 December 2012.
  24. ^ "No. 61962". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 June 2017. p. B8.
  25. ^ "The grumpy genius of Raymond Briggs". spectator.com. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
  26. ^ Ring-a-ring o' roses. Library of Congress Catalog Record. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
  27. ^ "Fungus the Bogeyman: Timothy Spall Leads All-Star Cast". Sky. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
  28. ^ "Fungus The Bogeyman Series 1". Sky. Retrieved 2 January 2016.

Further reading[edit]

  • Elaine Moss, "Raymond Briggs: On British attitudes to the strip cartoon and Children's book illustration", Signal (1979 January)
  • Richard Kilborn, The Multi-Media Melting Pot: Marketing 'When The Wind Blows' (Comedia, 1986)
  • D. Martin, "Raymond Briggs", in Douglas Martin, The Telling Line: Essays on Fifteen Contemporary Book Illustrators (Julia MacRae Books, 1989), pp. 227–42
  • Nicolette Jones, Raymond Briggs: Blooming Books (Jonathan Cape, 2003) —extracts from the published works of Briggs with text commentary by Jones
  • Barbara Baker, The Way We Write, (London: Continuum, 2006) ISBN 978-0-8264-9122-0
  • Anita Silvey (editor), The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators (Mariner Books, 2002) ISBN 978-0-618-19082-9

External links[edit]

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