Michi Mathias. illustration & comics.
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Sailing vs Cycling

29/1/2023

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Holding and his three companions on the cycling adventure are very experienced sailors as well, having spent much time together all over the British isles for many years. So as part of their time in Ireland they'd naturally taken a couple of their sailing canoes as well - both, incidentally, designed by TH Holding himself. 
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It's rare that one sentence gets an entire page to itself but it seemed right for both of these, and for this to be a double-page spread of contrast. 

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​Originally, I was just going to show the four figures cycling off into the distance, quite small, a bit like in this draft:  ------>>>

But no, I realised it simply had to look like fun or it would make no sense, it wouldn't work! Cycling had to look at least as appealing as the idea of sailing on a lake, which meant an awful lot more drawing! 

I also tried spacing the lines at the top to give more sense of... freedom? randomness? but I'm not really sure if that's worked so might possibly put them back as here in the draft. 

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Next, we discover that two of the bicycles just aren't really fit for purpose...


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talking about churches

18/1/2023

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Not just an experienced expert at camping, sailing, and cycling but knowledgeable about history and all sorts of things including old churches. He comes back to the subject later in the book; this is just an aside, filling time in Foxford whilst waiting to start the trip properly. 
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introducing the "cuisine"

13/1/2023

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There's a lot of odd language in this book. Which is one of the things I love about it. Occasionally it needs a footnoted explanation, but wherever possible I'm hoping I can draw my way out of any possible confusion. 

Here as the four of them set up a camp from their bicycles for the first time ever, Holding is explaining all the processes and necessities after the tent goes up, including his camp stove:
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I looked up that word 'cuisine' and found its archaic meaning was indeed kitchen. Merriam Webster says Etymology: French, literally, kitchen, from Old French, from Late Latin coquina.  Whether or not anyone else was using it to mean a portable kitchen like this I have no idea; probably not many were talking about such things anyway!  Toward the end of his book (and mine, too) the interior workings of this apparatus are shown in full detail - two wicks, a water bath to avoid overheating...  It's quite something!
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    What's this all about??

    I'm making a true-story graphic novel called
    ​Two Shilings a Day.


    Touring and camping with a bicycle is a common activity today but imagine the first time this was attempted, in the late 19th century, when cycles were heavy steel with just one gear, roads were unpaved, batteries and nylon and zippers didn't exist, and even outdoor activities were undertaken in woolen three-piece suits!

    Travel back in time to meet the master tailor Thomas Hiram Holding, a keen cyclist and camping enthusiast. He combined these two pastimes in 1897 when he invented a lightweight portable tent and embarked on a pioneering cycle-camping tour with three friends in Ireland.

    This graphic novel is a faithful adaptation of Holding's own book Cycle and Camp, bringing to life a time of horse-drawn mailcars, kitchens with peat fires for cooking, and farmhouses shared with cattle. Part travelogue round rural west Ireland and part how-to manual - including sewing ones own tent - his adventure is re-told entirely in his own idiosyncratic and rather opinionated words. 

    Holding’s fervent wish that anyone could now enjoy a holiday in the country without exorbitant cost proved so popular that he started a cycle-camping organisation, an organisation that became today’s Camping and Caravanning Club.

    (And, if you'd like to support this and receive ridiculously detailed behind-the-scenes updates: join me on Patreon)

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Michi Mathias     illustration & comics    

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