Oh, what would I do without my library? Where else would I have found a book like Frogcatchers by Jeff Lemire? Dark, surreal, scary, moving - it’s all of the above. Seeing all those frogs (they are by turn malevolent and benign) reminded me of a project Dad and I worked on at some point.
He loved drawing frogs and toads (and, yes, was a Wind in the Willows fan) and together we invented a character called Phillip-Phillip who spoke in double-doubles. Dad did quite a few drawings - of Phillip-Phillip winning a fly-catching competition down in the bog-bog, for example. I believe he was trying to catch the bulging eye of some froggy maiden, but the details are a bit foggy.
Because I couldn’t think of where those frog drawings might be, I drew a few of my own.
And then I had a brainwave and thought, “I’ll look in that box” and, voila, the first file in the box was marked Carnillo and Frogs. The Battle for Carnillo was a fantasy novel I wrote years ago for which Dad did some lovely drawings (I’ll share some of those another day), and tucked behind those, were the frog experiments I had remembered.
It’s interesting to see the progression from the first observations of frogs and Dad’s notes about the numbers of digits on webbed feet, etc.
From there, he quickly started to develop characters…
The characters became more developed…
With the addition of colour and exaggeration of froggy features, these are developing into pretty cool cartoons/illustrations. From here, he started inserting the various characters into a setting…
He kept playing, doing more detailed drawings, watercolours, and at some point also experimenting with some digital tools (not sure what he would have been using…)
One of my favourites in this series, though, was the filmmaker he scribbled in the margin and never went back to…
A classic French filmmaker frog… Frederique Fellini?
Looking at these, I wish now we had persevered and continued to work on the project. Alas, after a number of false starts and some challenges coming up with quite the right storyline, we put this aside and never got back to it.
Perhaps I’ll take another look at some point and create a zine inspired by Phillip-Phillip, the frog with the onomatopoeic name.
If I do, you will be the first to know.
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I am favouring Thug Frog, bottom left among your collection of frogs. 🐸 good & surly
Your frogs are a big variety of personalities, well done!! My favorite of your dad’s is the One running with his prize ribbon 😁