illustration USED WITH PERMISSION OF PRIVATE EYE MAGAZINE. MORE SCENE & HEARD REPORTS IN BOOK FORM AT
DAVIDZIGGYGREENE.BIGCARTEL.COM
we know, photojournalism is inherently subjective and also, in this post-truth age and with the prevalence of fake news, the rise of the reader and citizen journalism, there is now a place for more diverse ways to report.”
Embury sees scope for training artists to recognise their journalistic responsibility in terms of researching before drawing, and of becoming acclimatised to a location. “I think it’s an emerging area and we need to more
fully equip illustration students with the kinds of skills journalism students are routinely taught, such as interview technique, ethics, issues around confidentiality, data protection,” he says. This could perhaps prepare what Greene sees as a
more reluctant British audience. Greene, whose work first found a home in French publications, has dealt with criticism and praise, from receiving hate mail to people asking to buy the original artwork.
He said: “At the start, the bad mail
outnumbered the good. The general public vibe was ‘What is the mess? It’s not funny like the other cartoons! Why is this rubbish getting printed?’ I would take time to reply, explaining the intention of the reports. The UK really isn’t used to this style of using drawings to talk about serious stuff sometimes. “As the years have gone by, either I have changed to suit their tastes or they have started to come around because the reaction now is almost always good. I get jokey complaints that I drew a nose too big or I didn’t draw them skinny enough but almost all the time people think it’s great to be a cartoon in such a bigmagazine. “There is very little of myself in Scene and Heard. I’m just someone who draws in order to channel other people’s opinions or knowledge for the readers.”
Interviewing and eavesdropping
I INTERVIEW or eavesdrop for things around me, writes David Ziggy Greene. Depends on the kind of topic or event. Interviews can be pre-planned or spontaneous. There is no set rule or pattern in how I
work on a report. I do try and get the quotes as exact as I can to capture accents or personalities in the speech. That goes for the drawing of the person too. Unless they wish not to be drawn or to
remain anonymous, then I will alter the drawing a little so it is vaguely like them but not recognisable. When it comes to what topics to cover, I spend days hunting for things online then I send the editor a handful of suggestions I think could work and he picks the one he likes best. I hardly research about a topic at all before going into the field
because I want the people there to give me all that information. I may have a short list of questions to get my interviews started but I mostly ignore them and things all turn into casual conversations. My kit is pencil/pocket
notepad/camera/Dictaphone/ sketchpad. In the very beginning, I thought I would
just sketch everything as I go but after a while I accepted that you couldn’t interview someone, take down their quotes, observe the surroundings, note things about their features to draw later and sketch on the spot all at the same time so now I take reference photos and record interviews or atmosphere audio too.”
18 | theJournalist
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