The Evening Telegraph in the UK profiled Brendan Keeley, 21, who is having a show of his work at London's Bankside Gallery this month. The story is quite problematic in its over-emphasis of Keeley's Asperger's syndrome possibly preventing him from going to London for the opening. (Thankfully someone has already commented about some inaccuracies about autism and Asperger's in the article on the newspaper's Web site.)But the story does allow Keeley to explain his creative process, which was interesting.
Keeley had his first cartoon published in a newspaper at the age of 14. Called Couch Potato, it focused on a “rotund man” commenting on the world from his sofa. The article says:
Brendan's bold black and white drawings have been influenced by early woodcut illustrations, such as those of Hablot Knight Browne, known as Phiz, who was the illustrator for, among other authors, Charles Dickens.
And he said his fantasy subject matter, such as the elves in his strip Our Wizard, had been inspired by his condition.
He said: “I'd struggle to draw strips about more real-life subjects because I don't know too much about them.
“What do people do when they go shopping? What do they look like when they do it? I don't know.
“But if I draw a cartoon strip about goblins, for example, no-one can turn round to me and say 'Well that's not what a goblin does.'”
Brendan, who is paid to draw regular comic strips for national magazines, including Wargames Journal, Smallholder and Ancient Warfare, said his goal for the future was to turn his art into a full-time, stable, job.
