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Harry Harrison
Cartoonist and illustrator Harry Harrison has put pen to paper documenting and satirizing everything from Hong Kong elections to the war in Iraq to Chinese zodiac signs for the South China Morning Post and other publications. He talks to Hana R. Alberts about backpacking with his portfolio, which politician is easiest to draw and life on Lamma.
I was born in England, but my dad was in the Air Force so I lived abroad. I lived in Libya and Singapore and various bits of Britain.
I tended to draw things from my head—pirates, soldiers and dinosaurs, usual boy stuff.
I pretty much left school at the end of the fifth form, [when I was] around 16 or 17. I started working in a supermarket. The supermarket offered me management training, which scared me into looking for something else. I ended up a sign-maker doing shop signs.
I didn’t know how you could earn a living through art. Where I come from [in northwest London], most people end up as builders.
I met some guys at an interior design company. They were quite impressed with the way I could draw, and they offered me training. Actually, I was rubbish at it. It was just a step [closer] toward what I wanted to do.
I reached a bit of a crossroads when I was tired of my job and my girlfriend gave me the elbow. I went to Australia and took a load of cartoons that I’d done. I was backpacking, but I took [them] just in case.
I went through Indonesia and Thailand and Malaysia. I wasn’t really keen to go back to the UK. I arrived in Hong Kong with 30 pounds.
I did a bit of advertising work here. I did film-extra work and I also taught English in Mong Kok. I liked Hong Kong, but when I left [for the UK] I had no idea I would actually come back.
I actually met my wife in Hong Kong the first time. I lived in a hostel in Tsim Sha Tsui and she was living in the same hostel. Garden Hostel is to blame.
[In 1994] we decided we’d like to go to India, just for six months, so we got an onward flight to Hong Kong because we’d met here. We thought we’d stay about 6 months maximum, and we’ve been here 17 years. We’ve got two kids and a house.
When I first got here I got the Yellow Pages. It was pre-internet, so you had to do it the old way. I went to see people and showed my portfolio. It was a lot of slogging around to agencies and magazines.
I’m drawn to contradictions and hypocrisies. I like the local political scene. It’s a non-political scene, really. I’m pro-democracy, but I find the democracy movement here quite disappointing, so I’m not averse to having a go at it. The only platform the democrats have is democracy. After that they don’t have anything else—any policies. Now what?
I used to love drawing Tung Chee-hwa. He was a gift. Donald Tsang’s not that easy, but of course he has a bow tie so you can focus on that. I’m really hoping Henry Tang gets in next because I’ve been drawing him for a while. C.Y. Leung is quite difficult at the moment. I don’t think he’ll get in anyway. Politically I don’t think there’s a lot of difference. Obviously they just do what Beijing tells them to do—as long as they’re easy to draw.
My [role model] is Ronald Searle. He has a scratchy pen-and-ink style that I quite like. He’s about 92. He was a POW in the Second World War and he nearly died, and he is still drawing. His experience gave his stuff quite a dark edge.
I have been confused with [American sci-fi author Harry Harrison]. I did some work for the Guardian, and they put your byline underneath the cartoon. One week the editor [that I normally dealt with] was away. They did a Google search and put in that I was a science fiction writer most famous for inspiring the film “Soylent Green.” They had to write a retraction.
I like to think I’ve got a quirky sense of humor and tend not to go for the most obvious route.
To be successful I’d love to try to encapsulate what’s bugging [a reader] about an issue in an offbeat sort of way.
There are some issues about which there’s nothing to say. What can you say about earthquakes? You can try to have a go at the authorities that handle it badly.
I moved my studio to be with a photographer called Richard Jones. He’s famous for getting punched by Mrs. Mugabe [wife of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe]. Apart from us and one other office, all the other offices are brothels. It’s in Central, believe it or not, in one of those little lanes where the market stalls are.
I’m in a country band, the Yung Shue Wan Curs, as well. Sporadically we play on Lamma, now and again at The Wanch.
Lamma is great. It’s laid-back. You know everyone. You see them on the ferry all the time. You go to buy sugar and it can take two hours because you keep bumping into people.
Most people would spend their free time drawing if that was their hobby. But for me, I’ve sort of had enough.
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