Ingrams says: "Ethel & Ernest is supposed to be a book about his parents. But it's really more of an autobiography of himself. He is the central character in it. You get the importance that he attaches to the world he was brought up in, the world of his parents, is a completely different world to the one people live in now." stato un fumetto che ho amato fin dall’inizio. Sono stata catapultata in un’altra vita, un’altra epoca, e percepivo il cambiamento a ogni decennio. Ho provato molte emozioni diverse: mi sono divertita, mi sono affezionata a questa dolce e simpatica coppia, ho avuto paura con loro e per loro, e mi sono sentita terribilmente triste, quasi svuotata, quando tutto è finito.

Ethel and Ernest follows the lives of Raymond Briggs' parents throughout the decades, with each section divided into 10 year chunks. The story opens when they first meet, Ethel is a ladies maid and spots Ernest on his bike; he looks up and notices her at the window, and the rest, they say, is history. Ethel leaves her job and they set up home together. He contends: "There's never been a book like it. It's a perfect book because it's so expressive, it's the sort of book that moves you to tears because it's so intense but so simple, in the same Raymond way. It has deadpan, offbeat humour, but he is depicting those two people he loved so dearly. It's one of the most moving books I've ever read." As with all Briggs’s subsequent titles, the book is full of autobiographical elements and references. His own childhood home and Loch Fyne holidays appear regularly and he himself pops up in the follow-up, Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (1975). The story takes place in London, England from the 1920s through 1971. We meet Ethel who is a maid who one day she sees a man from the window who is riding a bike. He waves at her and she blushes that a man is paying attention to her. He tells her that his name is Ernest and then asks her out to go watch a movie. After that encounter they become a couple and soon enough they get married. She quits her job and becomes a house wife while Ernest works as a milkman. We enter the 1930s and the times are rough during these period because of high unemployment, recuperating from WWI, and economic depression. Briggs is a very famous British children's author, which I didn't realize until after I finished reading this graphic novel. It didn't surprise me though, because the rich illustrations reminded me of books I'd read as a child. They were fabulous! A tribute to his parents, this is their love story.

Lo stile di Raymond Briggs non rientra nei miei preferiti, ma devo dire che più andavo avanti con la storia, più questi disegni tondi e pieni con questi colori pacati mi sembravano adatti, anzi, perfetti, per la storia autobiografica raccontata dall’autore. On the other hand, I loved Ernest - he was a passionate man who liked to rub his wife up the wrong way at times, just to see her reaction. He always knew where he came from and in this respect, he was a completely grounded character who warmed my heart. Whilst the story was heart-warming and quite tender in places, I couldn't help but notice the political discrepancies between them. Ethel was a Tory and Ernest was Labour. My problem with this was how Ethel came across: she came from a working class family (she had about 8 other siblings) and yet she looked down on what she referred to as 'commoners'. I understand that she wanted what was best for her son but too many people in this world try and forget their roots, and they're ashamed of them, when they really shouldn't be. I am working-class and I always will be. I just feel that Ethel sometimes came across as someone who thought she was better than others which diminished the affinity I had with her. Ya está Raymond Briggs haciéndome llorar. Este hombre es, para mi corazoncito, el equivalente del niño cabroncete que siempre venía a tirarme de las coletas en el colegio. Solo que con Briggs luego me quedo con la sensación de que me han hecho un favor enorme, un regalo de una delicadeza inmensa. Ethel y Ernest es sutilmente vertiginoso, como la vida, que pasa con tanta rapidez y sin que te des cuenta. Es como esos álbumes de fotos antiguas en que ves a tu padre y a tu madre tan jóvenes y guapos, y se te pone un nudo en la garganta. Briggs admits it was a difficult book to write, particularly the parts that depicted the deaths of his parents in hospital.

His final book was consciously intended to be just that. Compiled across several of his last years, Time for Lights Out (2019) is a poignant, funny and deeply honest exploration of the experience of ageing and reaching the end of life, in the form of a collage of verse, drawings and random thoughts. Briggs says: "[The couple are] somewhat like my parents but I like to think my parents weren't quite as dim as they are. But they have to be dim to follow Protect and Survive." I adore this fictionalized true story. Briggs shows us scenes from his imagination of his parents’ lives: how they met, raised a family during a destructive world war, and lived through the cultural roller-coaster ride of the 20th century. Briggs’s illustrations are full of humor, marvelous detail, and obvious love for the people who inspired the title characters. Nevertheless, the children of his long-term partner, Liz Benjamin, provided inspiration and source material for other projects, notably The Puddleman (2004), which grew from a remark made by one of the young children on passing a puddle while the family were out walking in the countryside. The book, first published in 1978, feels as if it was drawn by a child as Briggs drew with coloured pencils. It went on to form the basis for an animated film of the same name that was released in 1982, although there is no reference to Christmas in the book. (Briggs initially saw this addition as "corny and twee" but he admitted " it worked extremely well".)El ilustrador Raymond Briggs hace un homenaje gráfico a la relación de sus padres y cuenta la historia del matrimonio desde que se conocen hasta el fallecimiento de ambos. Y, mientras tanto, sucede el siglo XX. Ethel y Ernest es un retrato personal, sí, pero también lo es de una clase social: la de los ingleses de clase trabajadora que experimentaron las penurias de dos guerras mundiales y sus consecuencias. Entre tazas de té nos narran los avances de la sociedad y, con un humor muy británico, ironizan sobre la modernidad, las revoluciones sociales y los inventos que fueron llegando a los hogares para hacer las vidas más fáciles. En esta historia también se habla mucho sobre la paternidad: sobre volcar las ilusiones en los hijos y que después sus sueños sean distintos a lo que se proyectó para ellos, sobre crecer posicionándose en contra de todo lo que se mamó. Ethel e Ernest è un fumetto che sa di casa in ogni pagina; si possono sentire le risate, le discussioni, i rumori dei lavori, il profumo del cibo, l’acqua che scorre, le risate di un bambino.

Ogni capitolo è scandito da decenni (‘30-‘40; ‘40-‘50; ‘50-‘60; ‘60-‘70) per poi giungere al capitolo finale, che comprende solo il 1970-1971. Met deze strip sloot ik de cyclus van de vier graphic novels/strips, die autobiografisch of sterk autobiografische elementen bevatten, af: The Snowman, Gentleman Jim, When the Wind Blows en deze. Poignant, funny, and utterly original, Ethel and u0026 Ernest is Raymond Briggs’s loving depiction of his parents’ lives from their chance first encounter in the 1920s until their deaths in the 1970s.Ethel and Ernest were solid members of the English working class, part of the generation that lived through the most tumultuous years of the twentieth century. They met during the Depression — she working as a maid, he as a milkman — and we follow them as they court and marry, make a home, raise their son, and cope with the dark days of World War II. Briggs’s portrayal of how his parents succeeded, or failed, in coming to terms with the events of their rapidly shifting world — the advent of radio, television, and telephones; the development of the atomic bomb; the moon landing; the social and political turmoil of the sixties — is irresistibly engaging, full of sympathy and affection, yet clear-eyed and unsentimental.Briggs’s illustrations are small masterpieces; coupled with the wonderfully candid dialogue, they evoke the exhilaration and sorrow, excitement and bewilderment, of experiencing such enormous changes. As much a social history as a personal account, Ethel and u0026 Ernest is a moving tribute to ordinary people living in an extraordinary time. Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs – eBook DetailsThere is so much humor and tenderness in this book. The love Ethel and Ernest have for each other is epic and perhaps even more so given that Briggs is focusing on the mundane, every-day stuff of life (even during wartime).

As various narrative texts came his way, he realised that not all of them were of the highest quality, and took to writing himself. In 1961 he wrote and illustrated two books, Midnight Adventure and The Strange House, for the publishers Hamish Hamilton, with whom he would have a lasting working relationship.She says: "I think he makes it real because it's set in domesticity. It's the tiny little details, even when awful things are happening to them. When Jim is bleeding Hilary says, 'Oh no, on your nice shirt'. The mundane details make it very real and very touching. He's wonderful at dialogue." But perhaps the most powerful motivation was a hatred of injustice by authority toward the powerless and naively respectful common man. The latter could be seen most directly in When the Wind Blows (1982), Briggs’s examination of an elderly couple’s attempts to follow government guidelines as nuclear war breaks out; and The Tin-Pot General and the Old Iron Woman (1984), a thinly disguised General Leopoldo Galtieri and Margaret Thatcher. He was born in Wimbledon, south-west London, to Ethel (nee Bowyer) and Ernest Briggs. Their first meeting is beautifully described in the wordless opening sequence of the book devoted to their story. Ethel, a young parlour maid in a Belgravia house, had been innocently shaking out her duster from an upper window as Ernest passed by on his bicycle and confidently returned what he took to be a friendly wave.