Hereford College of Arts   2009/2010

Andrew Dixon

I have a dark sense of humour, which I’m afraid I can’t suppress. It’s the result of growing up as a Vicar’s son in rural Wales. When your memories are sullied by toothless old women in slipped wigs singing Hymns mixed with low-browed farm labourers in stained trousers muttering indecipherables at you – it’s bound to come out in some form or other. Drawing has always been like therapy for me... except I never get better.

I’m happiest producing work that is a marriage of words and pictures. I’m not entirely sure whether this is because I’ve worked in comics or whether this love of the two steered me in the comic direction. I’m driven equally by both media and consequently, animation seems like a very natural and very obvious progression.

The animated series’ I remember from my childhood in the 1970’s were quite magical. There was nothing polished about them. They gave an overall sense of being handmade -less than perfect. This is something I’m hoping to recreate in my own dark little way with a 15 minute black and white animated film.

It’s Dylan Thomas meets Ivor the Engine meets Eraserhead. I first used the idea for a newspaper strip in The Guardian a few years ago. It was very loosely based on “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”, by Dylan Thomas. There was less poetry but more laughs...

It’s Christmas Eve and young Idris discovers he has a brother living in a jar next to the pickles and the meat product pies in their mother’s pantry. Follow Idris and Illtyd on their fabulous, hilarious adventures in “A Boy’s Buggering Christmas in Wales”.

If this is the success I think it could be, every child’s going to want an Illtyd in a jar next Christmas.

Andrew Dixon (Dix)