Randall Writing has just celebrated its second birthday! I love doing this because a supportive community of readers has developed around the site, and over the past year we’ve grown a great deal. There’s been two and a half times more website traffic in 2019 than in 2018 – so thank you to those of you who have been reading since the early days, and I hope the new visitors stick around!
Since last year’s Roundup, there has been a lot of new content and a website revamp – let’s look back at what’s new.
Stories With Drawings
I’ve had a huge amount of fun this year with my illustrated true stories. Featuring a long-dead scheming eunuch, a creepy massage, a rollercoaster mishap, way too much watermelon and way, WAY too much cheese – I hope they make you chuckle. I’m very intrigued about which of these stories people enjoyed the most, so if you have a favourite, do let me know…
Cartoonist for Hire
2019 was the year when my sideline as a cartoonist really took off. My main focus is as a wedding cartoonist – or perhaps I should say, as the wedding cartoonist, because after a year of going to wedding fairs and talking to brides, grooms and professionals, I still haven’t found anyone who does what I do. I’m not limited to live-drawing weddings, though:
These Oxfordshire Wedding Cartoons fit the standard package, in which I go to a wedding and draw what I see…
…and the time I ended up as Artist in Residence at a Jesuit charity gala is pretty much the same service…
…but I’m also happy to be sent photos and descriptions of cartoons to draw at home, as I did with this wedding present…
…and I’ve even been commissioned to come to someone’s house and draw them there!
Improved Navigation
It’s now much easier to find what you’re looking for on Randall Writing, thanks to a fresh set of menus. The new site map looks like this:
Simple!
Film and TV
The end of Game of Thrones featured a fair bit in my TV writing this year – in particular A Song of Ice and Disappointment, my rather brutal autopsy about why the show failed. My other critical piece was an evisceration of Battle of the Bastards from Season 6. When I was feeling less grumpy, I also had some fun with my Ice and Wire mashup, a Deleted Winterfell Scene I drew, a tribute to Dolorous Edd, and a joke about the end of the United Kingdom. For a show I complained about so much, I wrote about it quite a lot…
I also posted my Masters degree thesis about the theme of moral responsibility in modern TV, specifically The Sopranos, The Wire and Breaking Bad. It’s one of my favourite pieces of work I’ve ever done.
And along the way I found time to mash up Rogue One with Life of Brian, creating Rogue Brian, and to do a satirical piece on Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.
Cartoons
In between all of this, I squeezed in some extra cartoons. I posted five of them together, but my personal favourite of the year was called Cash.
Book Summaries
Then there’s the part of my website which is a little bit separate to the rest, but which actually brings in the most traffic: summaries of some classic works of world literature. I started it in March as a nerdy side-project, and it’s been doing extremely well so I’ve slowly been expanding it. So far, I’ve posted:
Three Kingdoms: China’s greatest epic
…and that’s a wrap for 2019!
I hope you’ll have a browse and find something you like. All my earlier content can of course be found in my Roundup of 2018. Happy New Year, and if you have any feedback, I’d love to hear from you!
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