KIDS' NIGHT OUT: Drawing on his imagination

Words and image by Scott Neville

From dancing bums full of baked beans to vomiting comic kids, children’s book illustrator Gus Gordon says the grosser it is, the better.

“I just love drawing silly pictures, and it’s my job.” Gordon was one of seven illustrators and children’s book authors entertaining hundreds of children, and their parents, at Sydney Town Hall on Tuesday as part of the Kids’ Night Out activities.

For Gordon, 33, of Warriwood, drawing snails and piles of pigeon poo is a dream come true. He has illustrated over 40 books, recently completing author Jeni Mawter’s fifth book, So Festy! The book has fantastic tales of bodily functions and food mishaps happening to everyday kids.

It was Gordon’s first time in Town Hall and he was not sure what he was going to do, besides drawing some cartoons. “I’ll just be drawing like a nutter and we’ll have some fun.”

He quickly turned indecision into inspiration, sketching some snails while Mawter spoke about their collaboration. “The first book we did together, we had never spoken. The book signing came and we sat down and looked at each other and I said ‘Oh you’re Gus’,” she said. “It was hard to believe you could do so much without knowing each other. Now we’re great mates.”

Gus also started a comic strip called Mungbean, based on three surfies, Mungbean, Jack and Scruffy who live in the surfer’s paradise of Bingle Bay. However, Gordon said that competition with syndicated American syndicated comic strips made him set Mungbean aside for children’s books.

Gus now illustrates for six publishers, but he said the road to success hasn’t been smooth.

Growing up in northern NSW, he ignored encouragement by parents and teachers to study cartooning and went to work as a jackaroo, travelling around the countryside working cattle stations. He was in advertising college by the time he realised he wanted to be a cartoonist.

“I just wanted to draw silly pictures because that’s what I was mostly doing at college,” he said.

It took him years to get his early work published, but he was determined. Australian Business Monthly bought a clichéd “fish in a bowl gag” from him, and it’s been full-steam ahead since then.

Now, with a one-year-old son, Gordon said the biggest thrill will be when he reads his child a bedtime story that he’s both written and illustrated. “As he gets older, Oliver will be a good sounding board for my work, so I look forward to that.”

His wife Alison said it might have been his first appearance at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, but he’s easy-going and teaching in schools and hospitals has helped him with public appearances. “He just says funny things all the time,” she said.