Gentleman Jim

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Needless to say he runs up against numerous persons in authority, and things don't work out the way he wants. His first three major works, Father Christmas, Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (both featuring a curmudgeonly Father Christmas who complains incessantly about the "blooming snow"), and Fungus the Bogeyman, were in the form of comics rather than the typical children's-book format of separate text and illustrations. I put this on my "kid graphic novels" shelf because of the format and the reading level, but I really don't know if kids will get the story. Unser Produktfoto entspricht dem hier angebotenen Artikel, dieser weist folgende Merkmale auf: Original in Folie.

The Slings and Arrows Graphic Novel Guide doesn't care where you've been, where you're going or where you're located. English illustrator Raymond Briggs is best known in Britain for his 'books without words', told entirely though full color illustrations. It's a fairly straightforward story, and it's not spoiling much to say that Jim dreams of pursuing a few professions, tries unsuccessfully to be a cowboy, and ultimately fails spectacularly in being a highwayman. Jim can’t afford the boots, and the gun dealer wants to see both his certificate and an export licence. However, Briggs continued to produce humour for children, in works such as the Unlucky Wally series and The Bear.First published in 1980, two years after The Snowman, Gentleman Jim has been unavailable for many years. The people he encounters in his doomed quest run the gamut from literally faceless bureaucrats to imposing police officers.

Given to fantasising about outrageous alternative careers, Jim eventually tries his hand at being a highwayman. I've also read a pretty awesome comic from him about his parents, and this seemed like the prototype for that, and was also a sweet, sad, exceedingly British story in its own right.

Jim is one of his most engaging characters - not especially bright, and with only a limited understanding of the world around him, but a romantic idealist who means well despite his behaviour. It also taps into British nostalgia for those long-gone days of purpose and personal fulfilment that characterised the years of the Second World War. Interesting introduction about whether Raymond Briggs was passed over as the first "graphic novel" creator.

Initially his attempts to seek adventure are amusing, but once you realise that he is such a simple man, the story becomes bittersweet: despite the gentle, positive personality of the protagonist, the reader is left feeling crushed on their behalf. It led to the much-loved animated short film, which is still broadcast on television every Christmas, and a musical adaptation which is staged almost as often. He created characters that are now icons for generations of children, including Fungus the Bogeyman, Father Christmas and, of course, the beloved Snowman. Now, I admit, it is a little sad towards the end and I can honestly say I've never felt truely sorry for a character in a book, apart from Jim. Inspired by the superhero comics he reads, and with the help of his dedicated wife Hilda, he nonetheless tries to accomplish his dreams.Jim is a middle-aged lavatory cleaner of limited intelligence, dissatisfied with his position, but feeling trapped due to his lack of education. 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. But the real world does not work like that, and increasingly he is subjected to an endless procession of petty officials marching into his life, and a succession of authority figures bringing all manner of threats, trouble and summonses. 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.