Ina Rubloff

Kiu Angiki

John Welding

Artist's Website

John Welding, The Goathland Diary # 1, 5th February 1997. © 2005 John Welding

"Goathland is the diary of a rural neophyte's life in North Yorkshire. It's creator John Welding having moved up from Milton Keynes. (Let's be thankful he didn't start the journal there, hey? Imagine trying to sell 'Milton Keynes; The Comic'.) And what a finally drawn comic it is. John has a lovely way with cross-hatching that justly captures the windswept moorland surrounding his cottage. It's a well-trodden path; the artist's daily life in all it's dull or fascinating minutiae. Goathland gives us John setting himself up as a self-employed artist, John feeding sheep, John suffering a migraine, John having another bad hair day. I could certainly empathise with John as he battled the elements in his £1.25 trousers from Help The Aged. So life goes on & no great events occur and there's none of the de rigueur depravity as seen in similar offerings from other comic artists. For example Goathland 10th February; "Rain, rain, wind, rain, bed". Joe Matt may well get a blow job from a sickly looking hooker whilst seated in a porn cinema, but I bet he can't boast (unlike John) that his living room featured in the popular TV drama 'Heartbeat'. A well trodden path, but a charming one."

(Carol Swain, Goathland #9, November 11, 2003)

John Welding, Awakefield Diary # 1, 7th August 2004. © 2005 John Welding

"I've mentioned John Welding's Awakefield Diary before. I met John at the weekend at the Readers' Festival in Wakefield and did a trade with him (I came off best from the deal) of my latest Sushi Sketchbook for his three latest Diaries. While I was writing today I read these three latest installments during my tea breaks; it's great to have such a swathe of strips to read through, to get immersed in the rhythms of the story. The drawings have a strong graphic quality, like energized woodcuts, which John is quite puritanical about maintaining; he'll agonise over which pen to use and cycle ten miles to stock up on his favourite calligraphy pen but there are a few glimpses into the darker recesses of his psyche with an unintentionally devilish self portrait and a migraine-inspired gothic view from the bathroom floor. It's a tough life being an artist/journalist. A favourite page for me is his bird's eye view in issue 3 of the coal yard where his house is situated. As I've probably said before, the house could have come from the pages of a Raymond Briggs story."

(Richard Bell, A Day without Drawing, Wild West Yorkshire nature diary, October 19, 2004)

"Hello Dr Podoll, Attached is a page from my diary that you might be interested in, drawn in pen and ink and manipulated to get the migraine 'skew'. The Awakefield page from 7th August 2004 is from me lying on the floor trying to recreate the feeling of the headache and the visual distortion [of all linear objects, i.e. metamorphopsia] that I experienced. My headaches have 'receded' over the last few months and suspect that this has something to do with giving up drinking Earl Grey tea and coffee and practising Kum Nye Yoga [Tibetan Relaxation] since the new year, although funnily enough, today, I do have a headache, (but I am blaming that on red wine and onions in the meal from last night). Regards, John Welding"

(Emails to Klaus Podoll, February 26, 2005 and March 3, 2005; additions in square brackets by Klaus Podoll)

"I consider myself a migraine sufferer but have had no confirmation of this from a doctor for a very long time. I went to a doctor once in the early nineties but was not convinced that I made myself understood, I never went back. I have a mistrust of British doctors based on several occasions (not all for headaches) where I have been viewed as a time waster. I tried a Homeopathy doctor who focussed on my emotional approach to life, which did highlight problems that I could work on. I feel very much that Migraine is mine and use it as an indication that I am thinking too hard about a thing, blowing situations out of proportion, binge eating on sugary foods and so on, so in that respect I see it as a positive thing in my life. A painful, positive thing in my life. Attacks are usually with me when I wake up in the morning and feel that I haven't slept well. I will have pain in the left side of my head. If I leave it without taking anything the head ache will develop over several hours building in intensity. On the few occasions that I have left the headache I get a fever followed by vomiting, followed by severe shivers and body shaking. The best way I have found of describing this is that I lose all 'compression' within my body and that I feel ice cold. A vein on my left temple throbs and protrudes. These are the times where I lose the day to being in bed. My partner Helen has noticed mood changes in me before an attack, I become 'monosyllabic and introverted', she also notices that I lose colour from my face and look ashen and pale."

(Email to Klaus Podoll, March 3, 2005)

Author: Klaus Podoll
Last modification of this page: Sunday March 13. 2005

Ina Rubloff

Kiu Angiki

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