Non-Fiction Reviews
Designing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
(2024) Paul Kidby, Transworld, £30, hrdbk, 255pp, ISBN 978-0-857-52948-0
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A long time ago I bought a book by an unknown author purely because I liked the cover; it included cartoonish characters and promised to be fun. And indeed it was fun. It was The Colour of Magic and it soon became Terry Pratchett’s first big seller and introduced the world to the Discworld. It also proved the value of artwork when it comes capturing an audience. Said artwork was by Josh Kirby and I was later to hear talks by both Terry and Josh on the difficulties of an author creating characters and an artist interpreting them, especially if the artwork has to work on a book cover. Josh became the artist for all the Discworld book covers, as well as some interiors, but he was approaching the end of his long career and his last book cover appeared in 2001, the year he passed away.
Meanwhile, the much younger >Paul Kidby had introduced himself to Terry in 1993 and had been invited to add to the Discworld artwork and so, when Josh left us, Paul took over painting the book covers. As with Josh, Paul had many discussions (some of them doubtless Discussions!) with Terry about the needs of the author and the practicalities of the artist. Unlike the whimsical look of Josh’s work, Paul stuck much more closely to the characters as described in the books and much more as Terry envisioned them. Paul’s characters have a certain reality to them, grubby though it might often be (well, Ankh-Morpork is certainly not the most salubrious of cities).
Although he has produced much artwork over the years, such as calendars, books associated with the Discworld, and several books just of artwork, in this book Paul talks about how he started working with Terry and takes us through some of the trials and tribulations of a working artist over those years.
Following on from Colin Morgan’s Foreword (Colin narrated some of the Discworld audiobooks), the chapters are: 'Making It Up As I Go Along', 'Journey Into Discworld', 'Crafting A Universe', 'The Wizards', 'The Witches', 'The Ankh-Morpork City Watch', 'Death And What Comes Next', 'Tiffany Aching And The Feegles', 'Gods And Heroes', 'Moist Von Lipwig And Ankh-Morpork', 'Far-Flung Lands (forn parts)', 'Over The Edge', 'The Studio Environment', and 'Perchance To Dream'. Lastly, there is an Afterword by Rob Wilkins (Terry’s personal assistant).
Each chapter starts with a two-page painting but every page contains art. Most pages contain text by Paul, illustrations, odds notes, and often a quotation from one of the novels, and all in a very pleasantly laid out way. It is a delight to read and, of course, to linger over.
He describes how his paintings have evolved and tells of some of his earlier ideas, and that sometimes paintings just have to be slightly different to the text in order to work, such as depicting the Discworld on the back of the elephants on the back of Great A’Tuin as it flies through space.
As Paul points out, Terry took inspiration from real life and he himself takes inspiration from other artists and artwork, such as his portrayal of the portrait of The Mona Ogg by Leonard of Quirm.
He describes many of his inspirations from other works of art, photographs, posters, etc., and explains his appropriations of them. For a painting commissioned by a French publisher, Paul depicted Terry playing chess with Death, a parody of a scene from The Seventh Seal (one Terry’s favourite films).
He describes how he sees the characters in his mind and how he commits those thoughts into paintings; like Terry, he has a very definite idea of each character’s personality, background, and, of course, appearance. As just one example, in Guards! Guards! Terry describes how Sam Vimes apprehends an assassin and, all but quoting ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan’s line that his .44 magnum could ‘blow your head clean off’, points out that the swamp dragon he is holding could ‘burn your head clean off’; Paul’s painting has all the menace of Clint Eastwood’s performance (even the lips show the same distain).
At times Paul would include real people in his paintings, perhaps as a tribute (such as Colin Morgan portrayed as Bilious, the God of Hangovers) or possibly because they had paid in a charity auction (such as on the cover of Night Watch).
I could go on about painting after painting but you really do need to see them for yourself to fully appreciate them. Consulting my bookshelves, I find that I have now accumulated five books of Paul’s Discworld artwork. As with the others, this is a book to be picked up and read slowly, perhaps one chapter then a break before the next. There is no need to rush as this is not a novel with an ending to be excitedly reached; this is to be savoured and gently enjoyed.
All in all, this book is thirty quid very well spent, and I cannot say fairer than that.
And it has dragons!
Peter Tyers
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