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Happy Easter to all those Ragged Trousered Philanthropists on zero hours contracts for whom there is no work - and no money - over this long weekend.

Bank Holidays are great for people on salaries - less so for people paid by the hour and/or with childcare struggles.

#Easter #EasterHolidays #GraphicNovel #Comics #bookstodon

A panel from our graphic novel of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. It’s a bright day, with blue sky and fluffy clouds. It’s 1910 and we’re in the road outside Rushton’s builders’ yard. There are some posters for Carters fair pasted to the wall (we both used to work for them!), and a man taking his chestnut and white greyhound for a walk in the foreground. The site foreman, Hunter, stands with his fancy Humber bicycle (with white tyres!) and bowler hat, speaking to a small group of workmen wearing ragged clothes. They say, “Can we work on Good Friday and Easter Monday, sir? We’ve had enough time off during the winter, so would rather not lose two days’ pay if there’s work to be done.” Hunter replies, “No, no, things are slack, and Mr Rushton has decided to cease all work from Thursday until Tuesday.”

Rickard Sisters boosted:

Cat: has claws at the end of its paws.

Comma: has pause at the end of its clause.

Bonne journée de parution! Today The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists graphic novel is coming out in French! They’ve done a beautiful job. https://www.editions-delcourt.fr/bd/series/serie-les-philanthropes-aux-poches-percees/album-les-philanthropes-aux-poches-percees

#GraphicNovel #BandesDessinees #Comics #Drawing #IllustratedBook #TheRaggedTrouseredPhilanthropists #PhilanthropesAuxPochesPercées

The cover of the new French edition of our graphic novel of Robert Tressell’s famous original book about the impact of capitalism on the working classes. The cover has a large decorative Edwardian style panel with ribbons carrying the words Les Philanthropes aux Poches Percées (which translates as The Philanthropists with Pierced Pockets). Below the panel are three characters from the book - sitting on the floor reading the Chronicles of Crime is Crass in his bowler hat, then apprentice boy Bert passing a cup of tea to the standing figure of Frank Owen, who is admiring his signwritten art.

Our graphic novel No Surrender is an adaptation of the original book by suffragette Constance Maud. The book ties in real-life events with a fictional tale of a group of young women in the midst of the battle to gain the vote, and those who are standing against them.

#TrafalgarSquare #Demonstration #London #NationalGallery #Lion #GraphicNovel #Comics #ComicArt #Suffragette #Protest #Edwardian #EdwardianStyle #RightToProtest #PoliticalBooks #Equality

A drawing from
No Surrender shows a huge demonstration in Trafalgar Square c1908. We are up on the level of the enormous bronze lions, looking down and across the square which is full of hat-wearing women carrying banners and placards. In the background there’s the large stuccoed edifice of the National Gallery. In the foreground there are two suffragettes, one wearing a sash saying “votes for women”. Someone has tied a scarf around one of the lions’ necks in the colours of the Women’s Social & Political Union, green, white and purple. I loved drawing the lions, but I was beginning to run out of enormous crazy Edwardian hat inspiration!

Rickard Sisters boosted:

#OnThisDay, 3 Apr 1913, Emmeline Pankhurst is sentenced to three years' penal servitude, and announces she will go on hunger strike.

#WomenInHistory #BritishHistory #VotesForWomen #Histodon

Emmeline Pankhurst in around 1913. She is a white woman with dark hair.

Look out! Here comes “new woman” Selina Crompton and her smarmy brother Charles. She’s a mountaineer and adventurer, she drives a *car*, but she thinks giving women the vote is a step too far.

Meet Selina, Charles, their friends and nemeses in our graphic novel of Constance Maud’s suffragette classic No Surrender, available in all good bookshops and online (or direct from us https://rickardsisters.com/product/no-surrender/ )

#VotesForWomen #EqualRights #WomensRights #HumanRights #Comics #GraphicNovel #Illustration

A page from No Surrender shows a speeding Edwardian car in three panels. It’s a cream Gobron Brillèe with dark green lining around the door panels, open-topped and with thin wire wheels. Behind the upright windscreen we see Selina and Charles, determinedly hasting to their destination. Selena is matter-of-fact in driving goggles and big leather gauntlets. She’s wearing an impractically wide brimmed hat tied down with a billowing cream scarf, and a large beige driving coat. Charles, in the passenger seat in brown coat and goggles, is tight-lipped against the wind and his sister’s brash driving style. His blond wavy hair is pushed back from his face with the speed, and his brown scarf is flowing behind him. He’s less keen on cars but his sister insisted on driving.

Thank you so much to everyone at the magical Gladstone’s Library for a wonderful writing residency. I have learned and developed so much and made some lovely friends. I’ll be back!

We would urge any writers to check the criteria and apply next year. The process is not onerous and the offer is generous. In a world where time and space feel increasingly unaffordable, this scheme is an oasis - https://www.gladstoneslibrary.org/news/volume/the-search-for-2024-writers-in-residence 📚

A photograph of a collection of Victorian books from the shelves of the Reading Room at Gladstone’s Library. They are all leather-bound and have library labels at the base of their spines. The central one is thicker and has decorative patterns on its brown hide, with a stripe of intense red on which THE CAT is written in gold.

Here’s a little scene from the fictional Lancashire town of Oldroyd, from our first graphic novel Mann’s Best Friend.

The building at bottom left with columns was based on my primary school memory of going swimming at Hyndburn Baths in Great Harwood with primary school. It was a traumatic experience, but the grand building clearly impressed me!

(It doesn’t look like this in real life, but I was about 6 so I remembered the steps and the columns and invented the bit above my head).
#comics

A colour illustration looking town towards a small town from just above the rooftops. There are rows of terraced houses, a small row of shops with a van parked outside, a mill which has been converted into fancy offices. In the background is a boring square office block built in the 70s, and beyond that green hills. A row of brick terraced houses rises up steeply in the background. In the foreground is a grand stone building, we can only see it’s triangular carved portico and heavy stone columns because it’s cropped below that.

A photo of the real-life Mercer Hall in Great Harwood, which is still a leisure centre (weirdly). It always felt oddly magical walking up those steps to our watery doom. It’s a stone building, very square in appearance, with four sets of two columns along the front over wide steps. On either side there’s a section with a tall window which stands forward slightly. The pediment is square, with a couple of steps up in the centre to make a sort of Art Deco triangle, like an old garage. There’s a cornice around it. It has a feeling of modernity about it (I think it was designed in the 1910s but building was interrupted by the Great War). It always smelled of bacon in the portico when we were children, which felt somehow inexplicable at the time.

If you’ve been wondering how low pay has been presented as a ‘cost of living crisis’, or why the essentials of life are getting less affordable , we’d like to recommend ‘the Money Trick’ in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists 🍞

#TheRaggedTrouseredPhilanthropists #GraphicNovel #CostOfLiving #CostOfLivingCrisis #EnoughIsEnough #Economics #Comics #Capitalism #Socialism #StrikeDay #Striking #TimeForChange

A hand holding a copy of our graphic novel adaptation of Robert Tressell’s important work on the evils of capitalism (and what can be done about it). The book is open and shows a double page spread of comic art showing “the money trick”, in which Tressell’s characters use bread from their lunchboxes to show how capitalism screws us all over 🍞

Solidarity with all striking workers this week ✊

If you are inconvenienced by industrial action, remember to blame the bosses not the workers. If people had proper pay and working conditions there wouldn’t be a need to strike in the first place.

#strikes #strike #StrikingWorkers #EnoughIsEnough #IndustrialAction #TUC #Drawing #Illustration #TheRaggedTrouseredPhilanthropists

An illustration from our graphic novel adaptation of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Rushton, the boss of the building company, local councillor and shareholder of the gas and electric companies, is lying back on the ragged workers he employs. He’s a corpulent figure in yellow trousers, a red waistcoat, dark blue jacket and top hat. He’s smiling smugly towards us as he smokes a cigar and drinks brandy. Under his feet is our friend Philpot, tired and hungry. Beneath Rushton is Paine, with a hole in the elbow of his jacket. Holding up Rushton’s shoulders are Harlow and Wantley, looking thin and exhausted. Next to them are Newman’s three barefoot children, with messy hair, dirty faces and ragged clothes. One of them sucks his fingers because he’s hungry.

If you’re lucky enough to live in or near North Wales, we’ll be sharing some insights into our work and our creative process on 21 March at Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, Flintshire.

If you’re unlucky enough *not* to live in or near North Wales, you can watch it online too.

🎟️ https://www.gladstoneslibrary.org/events/events-courses-list/the-rickard-sisters-the-likes-of-us-who-reads-old-ideas

#GladstonesLibrary #LlyfrgellGladstone #Comics #GraphicNovel #AdaptingBooks #TheRaggedTrouseredPhilanthropists @bookstodon

The incredible reading room at Gladstone’s Library. It’s a neo-gothic room c1880s, open to the rafters, with a wooden gallery around the sides held up by large carved wooden pillars. The walls are covered in books and there are tables and chairs in the centre. The whole place glows like honey because of the warmth of the wood, and there are large gothic windows at the far end letting in a bath of light.

The front cover of our graphic novel adaptation of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell. It’s green with a red decorative panel, on which the title is written in an Edwardian style. Below it, three of the characters on a tea break - Crass, on the left, is sitting on the floor cross-legged reading The Chronicles of Crime. In the centre, apprentice Bert, learning the decorating trade, passes a cup of tea to signwriter Frank Owen, who’s standing, palette in hand, admiring his paintwork, and probably thinking about how to take down capitalism.

The front cover of our graphic novel adaptation of No Surrender by Constance Maud. It’s dark blue, with a group of women carrying a large fabric banner with the title of the book in a decorative Edwardian style. The women are wearing sashes which say Votes for Women and are all wearing Edwardian dresses and hats, except for two who are wearing Lancashire shawls. From left to right we have Alice (blonde, in yellow and green), Mary (red hair, in dusky blue), Jenny (dark hair, in a red shawl and carrying a megaphone), Keziah (a Black woman in a blue shawl), and Mrs Wilmot (an older woman with grey hair, in lilac)

A panel from No Surrender shows women smashing windows in prison to protest at their treatment by the government c1910. A reminder that nothing changes without action.

No Surrender was originally written by Constance Maud about women’s struggle for the vote and equality. Our graphic novel adaptation is available in all good bookshops and libraries ✊

#GraphicNovel #Comics #Histodons #Suffragette

The sky is grey with clouds, and we’re looking up at an imposing dark stone prison building. There are four floors of windows, like a factory, and the very top ones have been broken. Shards of glass are falling towards us.

Well, this week’s been a media-studies case study hasn’t it?

It’ll be interesting to interpret the impact of one sports presenter’s words (and the outrage at his treatment) in the context of kids drowning, going ‘missing’ and 1,000+ asylum seekers indefinitely detained in camps.

A colour illustration from our graphic novel No Surrender, about the struggle of the suffragettes for the right for women to vote. In the foreground, our friend Jenny Clegg is addressing a large crowd of mainly men. It’s c1910, and it’s dark. The men’s faces are partially lit by a street lamp, and a couple are standing in the glowing doorway of a pub across the road, listening. Jenny says, “You know bits of it, distorted by the press, but some day the full truth will be read by your children and your grandchildren.”

Working on our graphic novel adaptation of No Surrender taught us both so much more about the suffragettes than we’d learnt at school.

It shows both sides of the argument for the right of women to vote too, which is such an odd concept from our privileged position in the UK a hundred years later. It’s hard to imagine what anybody would have had against it now, especially women!

#GraphicNovel #Comics #Illustration #Drawing #Suffragette #Suffrage

A drawing from our graphic novel shows a crowd of people being held back by policemen (circa 1910), heckling a couple of blokes wearing sandwich boards which read “Women do not want the vote!” There’s a suffrage flag in the crowd (green, white and purple) and the people are saying things like, “Chuck it in, mate, the game’s up my boy!” and “I’ll paint you a fresh board - ‘Men do not want supper’ - t’would be about as true!”

Our graphic novel of Constance Maud’s suffrage classic - written by an active suffragette during the struggle - is available from all good bookshops, libraries or direct from us at RickardSisters.com ✊

It’s not until you actively record the process that you realise how many teeny tiny microdecisions are made when you’re writing or adapting a book, even when thinking about locations. Some make the plot run smoother, others are for mood, or to help with character development. They’ll probably be mainly imperceptible to the reader, but will work together to tell the story.

Doing a spot of location scouting in 1912 for our next graphic novel. This also includes doing some colouring in, obvs. Who needs green space? We’re going to pave over this recreation ground and build a pub between the mills 💪

#GraphicNovel #WritingBooks #Writing #WritingProcess #Locations

Sophie’s finger is pointing to a 1912 Ordnance Survey map of the Lancashire town of Great Harwood, where our next book is based. There’s a long rectangular park, which we’ve coloured in green, surrounded by seven large mills, which we’ve coloured in purple. Rows of terraced houses are laid out to the south of it, and open fields to the north.

But these two sides are not equally powerful. Laws are defended by the state machinery (what the criminal justice system exists to do) and also by establishment ‘soft power’: the press, education, employers and even medical interventions. This dynamic hasn’t changed either.

#HumanRights #Equality #Justice #Education #VotesForWomen

A panel from our graphic novel adaptation of No Surrender by Constance Maud shows the interior of a magistrates’ court, c1910. A pale-skinned blond policeman with a rosy nose and a receding hairline is giving evidence against our suffragette friends to a gallery of disinterested parties. Raising a big gloved hand, he says, “she tried to bite my hand, and her language was awful. There was ‘undreds cheering them as we led ‘em off, a regular riot they set up.”

A panel from our graphic novel No Surrender shows a red-faced prison doctor with glasses and curly strawberry-blond hair looming over us. He’s wearing a black suit and tie and he has a stethoscope around his shoulders. He’s saying, “you need a taste of the punishment cell, young woman, to teach you to obey the law and hold your tongue.”

So for people who feel strongly that laws are plain wrong, and things are being done in their name that they find morally abhorrent, there is a struggle to know where to begin. We get sick of hearing *ourselves* complaining.

#EnoughIsEnough #activism #ChangeTheWorld #ClimateCrisis #ChooseLove