Crowdfunding Comics: Discussing ’50-Odd Years Of Big Noses’ With Hunt Emerson

UK comic book creator, cartoonist, satirist and all-round legend of the medium, Hunt Emerson, is celebrating fifty years of working in comics with 50-Odd Years of Big Noses, a collection of his more obscure and rare work from across the decades. I’d like to consider Hunt something of a friend, so it was great to finally get the opportunity to interview him about his work. You can check the interview below, and the Zoop crowdfunding campaign here. You won’t be disappointed. 

Olly MacNamee: Illustrator, satirist, teacher, iconoclast. I could go on. You seem to have touched on so many areas in your illustrious career, Hunt and all celebrated in 50-Odd Years of Big Noses, currently crowdfunding on Zoop. But where to start when trying to take in such an illustrious career, Hunt? So, I guess we’ll start at the beginning. What were your early influences as you started to break into underground/indie comics in the 1970s?

Hunt Emerson: My introduction to the comix world was seeing the early Zap comix, and other US undergrounds, and their UK equivalents, Cozmic Comix and Nasty Tales. I wasn’t a comics aficionado before then, but I knew the MAD artists from childhood – Jack Davis, Will Elder and Wally Wood — and they were a big influence on me. Then I got to know and love Herriman and EC Segar’s Popeye. My favourite of the Underground artists was and is Gilbert Shelton. I was never much interested in mainstream comics.

MacNamee: A lot of the time, you’ve always found a home with Knockabout Comics. Was it a meeting of minds when this relationship first came about? A publisher who relished your irreverent humour?

Emerson: Knockabout were friends from when I first started. They encouraged me to do what I did, and we struggled through publishing in a pretty unstructured sort of way.

MacNamee: As a teacher of literature myself, I’ve loved your takes on such classics as Dante’s Inferno and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Can we assume work from these books will be included? In fact, what can we expect from a creator who’s worked for the likes of Fortean Times, The Beano and .. ahem … Firkin the Cat? 

Emerson: 50-Odd Years of Big Noses isn’t a collection. I’ve included a half dozen Firkin strips, some Phenomenomix, and some pages from other stories I’ve done, but most of the illustrations are more obscure odds and ends that most people won’t have seen. I’ve really enjoyed putting the book together; I think it’s entertaining! If people want to see Dante and the rest, they’re still on sale!

MacNamee: As this is a crowdfunding campaign, what are some of the goodies people can grab besides the book, of course?

Emerson: There’s the usual signed and Remarqued books (that’s a word that means I do a sketch), and then there’s some prints and quite a lot of original pages and illustrations. I have a lot of work on my shelves! They include colour painted illos from Fiesta, which are probably outrageous, but also funny! There’s also a Mystery Reward, which is a sealed envelope with a small original drawing in it – you don’t know what it is, I don’t know what it is, Zoop don’t know what it is. People can keep the envelope sealed for the future, when the drawings will be worth a fortune, but I’ll be gone by then. High-tailed it.

MacNamee: With five decades of drawing under your belt, what have been some of the highlights and some surprises that have made it into this collection?

Emerson: It’s been fun rediscovering some of my oldest comix – Mee and Yow, the Black Country Cats, for example, which appeared in the early 1970s in Birmingham’s alternative magazines. There’s still a lot of people in Brum who only remember me from Mee and Yow; I still get asked if I’m still drawing them. Maybe I should revive them, but I’d have to be a lot more attentive to the Black Country accent in this day and age. It’s not going to happen.

MacNamee: And for any budding cartoonists or satirists out there looking at their first year in comics, what sage advice would you give ‘em?

Emerson: I try to avoid that. My career, as such, has been haphazard and fairly random. The best advice I can think of is to learn to network, which I have never been any good at.

MacNamee: Cheers, Hunt, and all the best with the campaign. 

Emerson: Thanks, Olly! See you in the Brasshouse bar sometime!

50-Odd Years of Big Noses is crowdfunding now.