Woodrow Phoenix is a British comics artist and writer who also works in the fields of editorial illustration, graphic design, font design and children’s books. He is known for his experimentation with illustrative and graphic styles, offering up an incongruous mix of the cute and the sinister. His graphic story ‘End of the Line’ first appeared in The Brighton Book, a mixed-media anthology published by Myriad in association with Brighton Festival. Phoenix is the author of the much-acclaimed Rumble Strip (Myriad, 2008), a graphics book exploring the complicated psychology of the relationship between people and cars. He is co-editor of Nelson, a collective graphic novel with 54 creators, published by Blank Slate, for whom he is also Art Director. In spring 2014 Phoenix completed a new graphic novel, She Lives, unusual for its size and dramatic presentation: a single-copy, handmade, handbound book that is one metre square.
Interviews and Features
Woodrow Phoenix talks to Gill Roth for the Virtual Memories Podcast, episode 389
Who’s driving whom? With Crash Course [published in the UK as Rumble Strip by Myriad Editions] British cartoonist, artist and designer Woodrow Phoenix examines what cars do to us: physically, mentally, and environmentally.
In Virtual Memories podcast episode 389, Gil Roth talks to Woodrow about the evolution of Crash Course, the stint in LA that inspired it, the visual and design choices that make it a haunting piece of art, and how he reconciles driving his Mini Cooper One.
Woodrow also discusses growing up in South London, what being Black means in the UK and US, his compulsion to experiment with styles, why he sticks with pencils and inks, and his typography and design background and how they inform the semiotics of Crash Course.
Make It Then Tell Everybody with Woodrow Phoenix
Woodrow Phoenix returns to Dan Berry’s creative podcast, Make It Then Tell Everybody, to talk about commercial art, teaching, narrative storytelling and cars. Listen on Spotify now.
Woodrow Phoenix and The War on Cars Podcast
With its stark and beautifully hand-drawn images of roads, traffic symbols, cities and highways, Crash Course [published in the UK as Rumble Strip by Myriad Editions] takes aim at the ways in which cars have shaped the built environment, politics, and even the human psyche, largely for the worse.
Crash Course unpacks the term “road rage,” explains why traffic accidents are anything but, and dispels the notion that people can be neatly separated into categories such as motorist, cyclist or pedestrian. It also examines the dangers of SUVs, the perils of driverless cars and the recent and growing trend of vehicles being used as weapons against demonstrators in places such as Charlottesville, Virginia.
In this episode of podcast The War on Cars, Woodrow Phoenix talks to Doug Gordon about the unique combination of artistry and journalism that makes Crash Course an effective polemic, one that will hopefully persuade people to think carefully about their responsibility when they get behind the wheel of a car.
Woodrow Phoenix exhibits some work
Woodrow recently exhibited extracts from his graphic novel, Rumble Strip, at an exhibition called Sequential City, which is part of this year’s London Design Festival. The exhibition was held at the offices of Baxter & Bailey, a design firm in Hoxton Square. There is an interview with Woodrow talking about London and the effect the city has had on his work, which you can watch here.
Woodrow Phoenix discusses on Podcast
Listen to Woodrow Phoenix discuss graphic medicine with authors Nye Wright (Things to do in a Retirement Home Trailer Park), Hannah Eaton (Naming Monsters) and Nicola Streeten (Billy, Me and You), along with Myriad Creative Director and Graphics Editor, Corinne Pearlman.