The Guide
October 2004
It was a cold and windy October week
When across the Heath I strode to seek
A man, an artist who is very clever,
He goes by the name of Axel Scheffler.
“You don’t know the name?” I hear you cry,
Well you can’t have kids is the reason why.
Axel is famous for drawing in ink
A monster famous for creating a stink.
Two million copies of his book he’s sold
Turning his brushes from bristle to gold.
Ask anyone, the nearest child will know
The name of the monster is the GRUFFALO!
Axel lives in a flat one floor up high
With wide open windows that let in the sky.
The floorboards are wide the walls are white
The whole place full of an autumn light.
While his girlfriend Clem potters in the den
He makes some coffee and I sharpen my pen.
So Axel, I start, You’re a millionaire?
“Perhaps,” he says, “I might be half way there”.
So what do you do with all this money?
Snort cocaine and smear virgins in honey?
“Actually no, because I like to doodle
It keeps me busy, and uses my noodle.”
But really I press, where are the signs?
Your Bentley, your stocks, your chopped up lines?
There’s nothing here, just a desk and a chair
You must want something to fill all this air.
“I’m an illustrator, of an artistic bent,
I’m 46 but what you see I rent.
I don’t see the need for cars and things
I ride my bike, it’s like having wings.”
I press on: It must be nice to do as you please?
He smiles a little, “I spend money on cheese”.
So tell me I say, what do you know
Of this woodland monster the Gruffalo?
“I had no idea when the job came to me
That the book would end up published history.
Written in rhyme it’s about a mouse in a wood
He goes for a walk and he’s looking good.”
“All the critters of the wood think he’s sweet
And all say the same thing: ‘He’d be nice to eat.’
But the mouse is smart and he tricks them all
With a story of a Gruffalo six-foot tall.”
“I won’t give it away but the story’s a hit
With kids of young age, those big enough to sit.
Children from two demand to be read
The story of the mouse and the Gruffalo in bed.”
“A writer called Julia who lives in Glasgow,
She came up with the word Grrrrrrr-uffalo.
She writes children’s books to earn her bread
And I illustrate the same, I draw what she’s said.”
“We’ve worked together on other things
She writes the words and I get the pictures to sing.”
Axel’s a German, born in Hamburg
He draws for a living, that’s his oeuvre.
He studied Fine Art but gave it up,
In England we’d say it wasn’t really his cup.
He came to Bath to study Art etcetera,
This was a place that suited him better.
He did very well and won an A-plus
Then got work in London without any fuss.
His tutors had told him ‘do all you can,’
So he did and he drew and it ran and ran.
Magazines, adverts, sometimes a book
All the work he could get he damn well took.
Then in ‘98 the book people Macmillan
Asked him to draw this woodland villain.
“I thought it would sell just a thousand or more,
But through word of mouth we sold over a score.
It’s the words on the page – such simplicity,
And my drawings of course, which, as you can see…”
“We split fifty-fifty but I must confess,
I think drawing takes longer, though I say it in jest!
A double-page spread like the one on the cover
Will take me two days, maybe another.”
“The whole process though will take a year
From getting the words to what you see here.
It’s a job for me and I can’t complain,
I’m doing what I love again and again.”
I flick through his sketchbooks one by one
The pages are covered with figures of fun.
But wait Axel I say, there’s a darker side
You draw devils and people with eyes open wide.
These people in here are faintly familiar,
Doodles from a brain perhaps slightly ulterior.
“Yes perhaps” he shrugs, over his coffee,
“What’s in there are my people, my cartoon family”
“What I draw for the books is part of the process
Of creating a book for children’s access.
It’s toned down a little, softer and cuddlier,
My gruffalo up here is quite a lot rowdier.”
“But that’s ok, that’s me, I’m a jobbing painter
They ask me to do it, I sketch, I’m an illustrator.”
Axel I say, you amaze me a lot
You’re the man of the moment and you care not a jot.
He shrugs, he smiles, he gives me his time,
But on my notepad I note I’ve writ not a line.
So like the Gruffalo in the deep dark wood
Axel walks me to the door, then turns and sighs, “Oh Good!”
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