Lodging

The very first of the cartoons drawn for the Student Press letters page is also my least favourite, quite simply because I’d never done quite so large an illustration in such a short space of time (I was still at university at this stage, and typically the main stories were collected and written just a few days before deadline, so they’d be as up-to-date as possible - the obvious drawback to this was that it left me with even fewer days to illustrate one of them, and given that I still had to attend lectures and do other academic things, I could usually only get anything done on them in the evenings), and I ended up rushing it somewhat. As a result, the perspective is wonky, the linework’s not particularly strong and the text is far, far too large (I knew they’d be reducing it on the page and so didn’t want it to be rendered unreadable, but I overdid it a bit. It’s rather like having someone shout at your eyeballs).

That said, it does represent the associated story quite well - it was all to do with an exposé of unscrupulous landlords charging students a fortune to live in astoundingly horrible conditions, and the feedback I got was all positive, so clearly my arty worries went unnoticed. And I do like the expression on the student’s face.

Matthew Smith

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