This little piece was, as you may expect, drawn on a train. It came to me pretty much out of the blue once aboard the East Midlands Trains service between Norwich and Liverpool, which used to be the line I would have to take if I ever wanted to go home from Nottingham when I was at university there (or to go from home to Nottingham, naturally). Using the line quite regularly, I developed a love-hate relationship with it. On the one hand, I enjoyed passing through some of the Peak District area that lay between Sheffield and Stockport/Manchester and observing some of England's most stunning, unspoilt countryside (especially when covered in snow, or around early evening on sunny days in the warmer months). On the other hand, I also had to pass through a huge stretch of really ugly, monstrous places in between Sheffield and Nottingham (similar to the sights that you can see through the window in the picture) and there were times when the projection of passenger numbers and provision of carriages were so ridiculously poor that the journey became cramped and unpleasant. Moreover (and this is the case with any form of communal transport), some of the riders were so disagreeable that I came to the conclusion that they ought to be sent to a correction camp; I honestly feel sorry for the good-hearted train staff who have to serve such nasty creatures on a daily basis. I did a little sketch one time, which I may or may not share here at a later date, of a "loving mother", a type of rider whom I often found aboard the service - the overbearing and coarse matriarch who will shout and hit their children in public without thinking that she is making others around them feel uncomfortable (and so as not to appear misogynistic, I'll state that I've seen similarly awful fathers in public too). I drew two vignettes of this evil maternal figure and her offspring, basically of her terrifying her children as she threatens to murder them somehow for their insolence.
This picture, as I've stated, came into existence fairly randomly and has nothing to do with anybody or anything I ever saw aboard any train; if anything. It was probably a parody of first class services, mixed in with some imagery of Little Red Riding Hood. I can admit to having a morbid fascination with the classic story; it's really an unsettling yarn that part of me says I should hate, but there are so many vivid and fantastic aspects of the fairy tale that are a dream for anyone interested in the arts. It's no wonder that the visual potential of the tale has gripped so many painters, animators and illustrators, ranging from Arthur Rackham and Gustave Doré to Tex Avery and Friz Freleng. I prefer the Charles Perrault version (the first literary version of the tale, which ends with a dead Red), as the happy ending in the Grimms' version (aka the one used as the basis for most modern editions) always came across to me as unnatural and in some ways creepier than having the heroine and her grandmother dead for good. As far as getting a complimentary meal tailor made to my needs goes (by the way, I'd take the pasta or sandwich option as opposed to the storybook heroine), I never had the same success aboard East Midlands Trains as the Wolf may have done in this picture, but I observed enough personages and situations to inspire sketches in a dozen sketchbooks, all without having to pay any additional pennies. And that's fine with me.
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