(1934- ) UK illustrator and writer, active in both capacities from about 1958, and best known for several tales told in Comic-book format, including Fungus the Bogeyman (graph 1977) and the related pop-up book Fungus the Bogeyman Plop-Up Book (graph 1982). Both are arguably Equipoisal with sf, in which the meticulously worked-out topsy-turvy world of the melancholy Underground Bogeys, opposite to humans in every way (and often gleefully repulsive), serves to illuminate life on the surface. The Snowman (graph 1978), a limpid fantasy for children, is perhaps his most famous single work. Much of his later work can be understood – not entirely convincingly – as Equipoisal, though the underlying dynamic that drives his graphic art is a deeply thought-through interplay between mundane reality and fantasy. The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman (graph 1984) is a savage allegory which targets the then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and her Falklands War.
His one true sf work is When the Wind Blows (graph 1982), a singularly unrelenting Satire on the true worth of civil defence in the event of a genuine nuclear Holocaust. The two protagonists – naive and trusting "ordinary" people not dissimilar to Briggs's own parents, whom he depicted in Ethel & Ernest (graph 1998) – follow government instructions to the letter, preparing for World War Three with the same cheerfully determined spirit they brought to the Battle of Britain, and die slowly in horror and bewilderment; by implication, from radiation sickness. This story was adapted as the animated film When the Wind Blows (1986). [JC/DRL]
Raymond Redvers Briggs
born Wimbledon, London: 18 January 1934
died
works (selected)
links
Previous versions of this entry