Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Special Guest Ursula Murray Husted (!!) Presents Lulu and the Flying Babies by Posy Simmonds

A special guest!

By gum we haven’t had one of these since our own mother came on the show. Today it is my infinite pleasure to present to you the fantastic author/illustrator/cartoonist Ursula Murray Husted of, amongst other things, the marvelous book A Cat Story. She’s a fan of the podcast and so it seemed only fitting to ask her to suggest a title for the show today. Her choice? A book that honestly I’ve never seen before. Lulu and the Flying Babies is an obvious homage to, say, The Snowman by Raymond Briggs, and its creator started out by making comics before she made books for kids. And as it just so happens Ursula started out that way too! This is an absolutely fascinating example of a picture book working with this level of comic book paneling. And, of course, at some point we do include the line, “I had no idea how easy it was to decapitate a cat.”

Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, PlayerFM, or your preferred method of podcast selection.

Show Notes:

You can check out some of the range of Posy Simmonds’ when it comes to her darker adult comics here.

So Lulu came out in England in 1990 and we’re just loving the natural way in which the dad taking the kids out is viewed as natural. No big deal is made about it.

Look at how marvelously Simmonds is able to indicate movement and time by bringing in classic comic book conventions into a picture book format. Sequential art showing the passage of time in a visual medium.

Today an artist might make the choice to cite these artists and paintings. But in all actuality, it’s kind of nice not to necessarily mention who they are here.

We bring up the question of which Posy Simmonds books are available for purchase in the states. If you’re only interested in her children’s books then besides this title check out Lulu and the Chocolate Wedding and Fred. It’s not a lot but it’s what we got!

Ursula Recommends: The King of Confidence by Miles Harvey

Kate Recommends: Songfinch, Putt Shack, and the new Bob’s Burgers movie.

Betsy Recommends: Making a birthday cake based on Erin Hunter’s Warriors series.

And finally, it is my very great pleasure to present to you a piece of art Ursula created for us, in which Kate and I are presented as cats. You can figure out which one of us is which yourself:

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