On meeting your heroes and Barry Chorizo

There is that famous saying, “don’t meet your heroes”, because you have built them up so much in your head that they are only bound to disappoint. And also, what would you even say to them when you meet them? Well, I have only ever met one of my heroes, and it was not quite everything I could have hoped for, and yet a bit more.

It was on a cold, wintry night that I managed to convince my friends Hannah (@hannahlockillustration) and Kim (@chinghuangillustration) to join me on an adventure to merry old London Town. We were going to the famous House of Illustration for an evening of drinks and sketching. Now that is all fine and dandy, but what made it especially exciting for me was that finally, I was going to meet the man, the myth, the legend - Chris Riddell himself.

By the time Hannah and I met up with Kim at King’s Cross, I already had a whole day to build up the adrenaline. I was going to meet Chris bloody Riddell. For real. We bought tickets and everything. It was happening. The receptionist pointed us to the gallery where chairs and tables have been set up for the event. We brought our sketchbooks along, but we didn’t need to since they’ve already provided us with paper and everything to draw. Lots of people were there as well. 

And then he entered the room, and it was like seeing Father Christmas. He was massive, easily doubling me in height. But I do remember my first thought was “He doesn’t really look like the drawings he does of himself! His legs aren’t twig-like enough!”  He sat down at the front with his doc camera, cracked a Brexit joke, and you could feel two dozen people relieved that they’re in the right room. 

So the evening began. Chris set us fun little drawing exercises, which for three students who’ve been under the mountain of mind-bending university assignments, was a welcoming respite. One of the exercises were to create your own new character in a minute - mine was Captain Braincog, from Cosytromania. Very original. Hannah made a fairy who hordes tealeaves. I don’t have a picture of her but she was delightful. 

Another exercise was to draw a character whose first name was your middle name, and surname was what you had for lunch. Barry Chorizo was what Chris drew as an example. If I recall correctly, I spent this whole exercise being confused because my middle name is “Cao Quynh”, and I was so nervous about this whole event that I skipped lunch, and breakfast. 

All through the evening, Chris’s pencil moved non-stop on the projected screen. I’ve seen him draw live in YouTube videos, but to behold it in real life was something else. At one point, he drew a hand in the exact same position as one that I’ve been struggling with for two hours in my uni work, and my mind was blown to smithereens. He also drew quick portraits of the people in the front, signed it and gave it to them, which made me regret our choice of sitting smack bang in the middle row, because we were cowards.

But by the end of the night, Chris was signing anything put in front of him, and giving out all the drawings he made that evening like free candy (he made more than a dozen drawings in the span of two hours). Because we’re in the UK, everyone clamoured orderly into a queue. Kim was ahead of me. She got given a Mournful Eye drawing and everyone was terribly jealous because that was the coolest one. And then it was my turn. My stomach was just doing its own thing, and yet through the cloud of nervousness, I managed to give him a copy of The Graveyard Book and squeaked out that this was the book that made me want to be an illustrator. He smiled and said, “I’m not surprised! It’s a wonderful book. After all, it is Neil.” Then he signed it, and gave me Barry to go home with. 

Now, I had a speech planned out. I wanted to tell him that my normal copy of The Graveyard Book was actually halfway across the world in Vietnam with my sister, so I ran out to Heffers that afternoon after uni to get a new copy (and that he once posted a drawing on Instagram saying he was in Heffers, but by the time I finished getting dressed to try to go see him, he already posted another one saying he was now in Stansted Airport). I also wanted to tell him that Neil Gaiman is indeed a living god whom we all worship and whoever does not is a heathen, but it wasn’t Neil Gaiman that got me to pick that book out in my tiny school library in Year 7. 

It was the cover. Amongst the rows of books, it just stood out, like there was a spell put on it that made it glow. I had never seen a cover like that - the pale blue, the black ink, the light blonde hair, the hand-lettered title - it was the tastiest book little me had ever seen and I was drawn to it like a moth. And when I sat down to read it, my tiny mind was shocked. It was the first time ever that illustrations in a book managed to capture exactly how I pictured a scene in my head. Down to a tee! The man Jack and his silent sharp blade, the mournful Grey Lady, Elizabeth Hempstock’s impish grin - they were all just in my head, and then suddenly they’re there! On paper! It was magic! And that was what I meant by this was the book that made me want to be an illustrator. I wanted to do magic, too!

To this day I still worry that he must have thought I was quite odd because I didn’t say any of that. I just lingered a bit and shifted about before catching my friends looking so I rushed to them. And that was that. We took the train back to Cambridge. Half the journey was spent marvelling at our new goodies, and the rest Hannah and I spent recounting the full plot of the series The Last Kingdom (“I am Uhtred, son of Uhtred!”) to a baffled but amused Kim. It was lovely! 

But I had an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach that whole ride home. It’s a weird one. It wasn’t excitement, but it wasn’t really disappointment, or maybe it was both. Like, imagine having desert after a full meal, so you only finished half the cake. And then for the rest of the night half of you was so happy you had the cake because it was delicious, but the other half was annoyed that you couldn’t finish it. It was that feeling.

Eventually, I made peace with it. Yes, I probably made a fool of myself and didn’t get to tell Chris Riddell how awesome he is or how his illustrations actively helped shape my life, but he signed my book. And he wrote “To Alice” on it, which means that for a brief moment, he connected that name with my face. And I got to tell him that I was studying to be an illustrator. 

And I now have Barry. I framed him, of course (I do wonder if Chris knew when he gave out those drawings he did in less than a minute that they were going to be framed). Barry now sits at pride of place at my desk, where he had been for two years now. His stern expression and speech bubble are strangely appropriate. Even when he’s hiding behind my over grown plant, he’s still there, staring out, making sure I always stay on track because “There will be consequences”. 

And let’s be real, a hand drawn piece of art that both motivates you with vague threats, AND reminds you that the day you met your hero, he had spicy cured meat for lunch beats a “keep calm and carry on” poster anyday. 

- Alice