Woodrow Phoenix facts for kids

Woodrow Phoenix is a British artist who creates comics, writes stories, draws pictures for magazines, designs graphics, makes fonts, and writes children's books.

He is famous for his book Rumble Strip, which came out in 2008. This book looks at the problems caused by how much society relies on cars. A newspaper called Times said it was "an utterly original work of genius."

His Amazing Comics

Woodrow Phoenix has created many of his own comic stories. Two of his well-known works are The Sumo Family and The Liberty Cat.

The Sumo Family first appeared in Escape magazine. It was then published every week in the Independent on Sunday newspaper in the UK. Later, it appeared monthly in Manga Mania magazine and Germany's Instant magazine. The Liberty Cat was published in Japan by Kodansha in Morning magazine.

He also wrote important essays about comics for art shows in London and at the University of Sussex.

Unique Books and Projects

Woodrow Phoenix has written several interesting books:

• Count Milkula: A Tale of Milk and Monsters! This is a fun children's book.
• Plastic Culture: How Japanese Toys Conquered the World. This book explores Japanese toy designs from after World War II until now. It shows how these toys influenced imaginations and markets in the West. It also looks at their impact on design and pop culture trends.

In 2011, Phoenix helped create and edit a special comic book called Nelson. This was a very unique "collective graphic novel." It had 54 different artists and writers who each created a part of one long story. This way of telling a story was praised a lot. Nelson was named Graphic Novel of The Month by The Guardian newspaper in November 2011. The Times newspaper called it the Best Graphic Novel of 2011. It was also nominated for an Eisner Award and won Book of The Year at the British Comic Awards in 2012.

In 2012, Phoenix wrote and designed Felt Mistress: Creature Couture. This book, like Plastic Culture, looks at design and pop culture. It focuses on the work of two artists from Wales, Louise Evans and Jonathan Edwards.

In 2014, Phoenix finished a new graphic novel called She Lives. This book is very unusual because of its size and how it is made. It is a 96-page book that is one meter square. It is handmade and handbound. The cover is black with large raised letters. Each page inside has images drawn by hand with India ink, not printed. This means the whole book is a one-of-a-kind piece of art. Phoenix decided not to print this work. So, you can only see it in person when it is shown at exhibitions. This special book was first shown at the British Library's Comics Unmasked exhibition from May to August 2014.

How He Started

Woodrow Phoenix grew up in Brockley, a part of south London. His parents, Joe and Sybil Phoenix, moved to the UK from Guyana around 1958.

He studied typography at university. In the 1990s, he worked as a letterer for many UK comic publishers. These included Escape, Fleetway, Dark Horse UK, Toxic, and Acme Press. He also lettered graphic novels for Gollancz and Methuen.

During this time, he also published some of his own comics. He was part of the Fast Fiction group, which was started by Paul Gravett. After this, he became a professional artist and writer for comic companies in the UK and the US.

Working with Others

Phoenix's first team-up was with Glenn Dakin on Sinister Romance. They both wrote, drew, and edited this funny comic. Four issues were published. Since then, Phoenix has worked with many other artists and writers. Some of them include Andi Watson, Matt Wagner, Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, and Grant Morrison.

With writer Ian Carney, Phoenix created a comic series called SugarBuzz. It was published by Slave Labor Graphics and had more than 50 characters. The most popular character was Pants Ant, who even had an animated cartoon on The Cartoon Network. Another series, Where's It At, Sugar Kat?, was considered for film and TV by Walt Disney inc.

Woodrow Phoenix was one of the first Western comic creators to have his work in Kodansha's weekly manga magazine Comics Morning in Japan. He created a mystery detective comic called The Liberty Cat for them. His art has also appeared in many other collections and books. These include Grendel: Black White and Red (with writer Matt Wagner), The Big Book of Death, and The Big Book of Weirdos.

Phoenix shares a studio in London called Detonator with two other comic artists and writers, Ed "ILYA" Hillyer and JAKe.

His Art Styles

Woodrow Phoenix's art is very creative and fun. He is known for trying out many different ways of drawing. He uses so many different styles that his comics sometimes look like they were made by three or four different artists!

For example, the bright, sharp drawings in The Sumo Family are completely different from the soft, moody style of The Liberty Cat. The smooth lines in Sherlock Holmes and The Vanishing Villain are another style entirely. They look nothing like the many SugarBuzz! comics he made. His book Rumble Strip is his most different work. In it, he even removed characters, leaving only backgrounds.