Art For Art’s Sake #306: As Any Fule Kno – Ronald Searle’s Molesworth – Chiz!
by Richard Bruton
It’s Art For Art’s Sake, a quick guide to some lovely things to put your eyeballs on this week —
We’re going to end this week with a favourite of mine, the incredible Ronald Searle, and this particular character…
But first…
Margaux Motin – ‘Queens’
Barry Windsor Smith – Conan
Steve Bissette – Constantine
Meghan Hetrick – Ultimate X-Men #6 – oh, the joy in the faces!
Mark Chiarello – Batman: The Long Halloween
Jamie Smart‘s Looshkin
Dan Mora
Tom McWeeney
John McCrea – Hitman omnibus art
Goran Parlov – Modesty Blaise
Nick Derrington
Travis Charest – Catwoman
Des Taylor – Medusa
John K Snyder III – Spy Vs Spy commission
Jerry Paris‘s fabulous Molesworth tribute to Ronald Searle
And that took me to a deep dive of Ronald Searle’s Molesworth art – never, ever a chore.
Molesworth was a book series of diaries written by Geoffrey Willans and illustrated by Searle, following young Nigel Molesworth and his life at the typically terrible English prep school St Custard’s. Nigel’s spelling is as atrocious as his school, but his adventures were wonderful, ridiculous, anarchic things, initially appearing in Punch, an alternative, if you like, to Searle’s other schooldays scribbling about the girls of St. Trinians. They were published in book form as Down with Skool! (1953), How to be Topp (1954), Whizz for Atomms (1956) and Back in the Jug Agane (1959).
I came to Molesworth late, despite having an abiding love of all things Searle from a very young age thanks to dad’s bookcases having a couple of St. Trinian’s books. But it’s always a particular treat to revisit the place.
So, once more, the particularly peculiar and fabulously funny work of Ronald Searle, as we join the ‘goriller of 3B’ and explore all things ‘st custard’s which is the skool i am at’:
