Tom Gauld (born 1976) is a Scottish

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

and

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...

. His style reflects his self-professed fondness of "deadpan comedy, flat dialogue, things happening offstage and impressive characters". Others note that his work "combines pathos with the farcical" and exhibits "a casual reduction of visual keys into a more rudimentary drawing style".

Career

Gauld is best known for his comic books ''Goliath'' and ''Mooncop'' as well as his collections of one-page cartoons. He has also authored a number of smaller-scale books such as ''Guardians of the Kingdom'', ''Robots, Monsters etc.'', ''Hunter and Painter'' and his cartoon ''Move to the City'', which ran weekly in London's ''

Time Out Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an enginee ...

'' in 2001–2002. Gauld studied illustration at

Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

, where he first started to draw comics "seriously", and the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

. At the Royal College of Art, he worked with friend

Simone Lia Simone Lia is an English cartoonist and author. Early life and education Born to Maltese parents, Lia grew up in Haverhill, Suffolk. She studied art in Ipswich, illustration at the University of Brighton, and did an MA in communication in ar ...

. Together they self-published the comics ''First'' and ''Second'' under their Cabanon Press, which they started in 2001. (The two volumes were subsequently published together by

Bloomsbury Publishing Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a U ...

in 2003, as ''Both''.) As part of commercial projects, Gauld has done some animation work; in an interview, he commented that "Comics are a lot of work but animation ... was too much.") His books are now published by

Drawn & Quarterly Drawn & Quarterly is a publishing company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, specializing in comics. It publishes primarily comic books, graphic novels and comic strip collections. The books it publishes are noted for their artistic content, ...

and he regularly produces cartoons and illustrations for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' (including cover art),
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' and ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...

''.

Influences

In a 2011 interview, Gauld listed his "Cartooning heroes":

William Heath Robinson William Heath Robinson (31 May 1872 – 13 September 1944) was an English cartoonist, illustrator and artist, best known for drawings of whimsically elaborate machines to achieve simple objectives. In the UK, the term "Heath Robinson contr ...

Gary Larson Gary Larson (born August 14, 1950) is an American cartoonist, environmentalist, and former musician. He is the creator of ''The Far Side'', a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to more than 1,900 newspapers for fif ...

Roz Chast Rosalind Chast (born November 26, 1954) is an American cartoonist and a staff cartoonist for ''The New Yorker''. Since 1978, she has published more than 800 cartoons in ''The New Yorker''. She also publishes cartoons in ''Scientific American'' and ...

Richard McGuire Richard McGuire (born 1957) is an American illustrator, graphic novelist, children's book author, and musician. His illustrations have been published in ''The New York Times'', ''The New Yorker'', and ''Le Monde''. His short story ''Here'' is a ...

Ben Katchor Ben Katchor (born November 19, 1951) is an American cartoonist and illustrator best known for the comic strip ''Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer''. He has contributed comics and drawings to ''The Forward'', ''The New Yorker,'' ''Metropoli ...

Daniel Clowes Daniel Gillespie Clowes (; born April 14, 1961) is an American cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter. Most of Clowes's work first appeared in '' Eightball'', a solo anthology comic book series. An ''Eightball'' issue typical ...

Chris Ware Franklin Christenson "Chris" Ware (born December 28, 1967) is an American cartoonist known for his ''Acme Novelty Library'' series (begun 1994) and the graphic novels ''Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth'' (2000), ''Building Stories'' (2012 ...

and Jochen Gerner.

Personal life

Gauld grew up in the countryside in northern

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, and has said that he had always wanted to be involved with something creative related to drawing. He now lives in London with his wife, artist Jo Taylor, and his children. While his full-length book ''Goliath'' is based on the eponymous biblical figure, Gauld is not religious.

Bibliography

*''First'' (with

) (2001) *''Guardians of the Kingdom'' (2001) *''Second'' (with Simone Lia) (2002) *''Three Very Small Comics vol. 1'' (2002) *''Both'' (with Simone Lia) (2003) *''Move to the City'' (French) (2004) *''Three Very Small Comics vol. 2'' (2004) *''Robots, Monsters etc.'' (2006) *''Three Very Small Comics vol. 3'' (2007) *''The Hairy Monster: a guide'' (2006) *''Hunter and Painter'' (2007) *''The Wise Robot Will Answer Your Question Now'' (2008) *''The Gigantic Robot'' (2009) *''12 Postcards'' (2010) *''Goliath'' (2012) *''You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack'' (2013) *''Endless Journey: a myriorama'' (2015) *''Mooncop'' (2016) *''Goliath'' (2017) *''Baking With Kafka'' (2017) *''The Snooty Bookshop: Fifty Literary Postcards'' (2018) *''Twenty-Four Cartoons'' (2019) *''Department of Mind-Blowing Theories'' (2020) *''The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess'' (2021) *''Revenge of the Librarians'' (2022)

References

External links

*
Tom Gauld
at DrawnAndQuarterly.com
Ahora: Interview with Tom Gauld
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gauld, Tom 1976 births Living people British comics artists Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art The New Yorker people People from Aberdeenshire