|
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/10/simone-lia-interview-the-secret-time-machine-and-the-gherkin-switcheroo The Observer’s comic-strip artist on her new children’s book, her obsession with invertebrates, and how a prayer for a superior hotel room transformed her life “Whenever I was between projects,” says Simone Lia – comic-strip cartoonist in the Observer and author of a new children’s book, The Secret Time Machine and the Gherkin Switcheroo, about the unlikely friendship between a bird and a worm – “I couldn’t stop painting worms. I didn’t know why.” As I walk into her house in south London, I notice a huge painting in her hall with a caption in shaky capitals: “WORM HARMONY”. The worms look like demob-happy frankfurters. They have floaty bodies, dazed smiles. She knew enough, she goes on, to know she should pay attention to this obsession. And, with a laugh, she explains she realised how much she admired the character of the worm: “They’re very humble, live in the ground, do good work, get on with it.” These qualities, she says, “I’d like for myself.” If this sounds like a Christian aspiration, it will not surprise Lia’s many fans. In 2011, she beguiled readers with the book that made her name: Please God, Find Me a Husband! The belief in God was no joke. But the book was very funny. In one irresistible sequence, Lia, whose boyfriend had just ended their relationship by email, walks disconsolately across Leicester Square. She hears the lyrics of INXS’s Need You Tonight playing from a bar and believes God is communicating with her. Before long, in her mind’s eye, she is dancing friskily with God – a bearded, bespectacled bloke in a pale blue, calf-length dress. Her story leads her to a religious order in Wales (“I’m so not going to find a husband hanging out with nuns”) and to Australia, where she meets a handsome horseman who, in the way of handsome horsemen, disappears over the horizon. Continue reading...
|