TOM DAVIES
- Illustrator -
dishpig: a life in the sink
Dishpig: A Life In The Sink takes you into the world of a Kitchen Porter, detailing the mayhem, the mess and the monotony of low-paid kitchen work.
I took up agency work after university, and over the span of a couple of years, worked as a dishwasher in over forty restaurants. What was meant to be a bit of beer money turned into a deeply formative time in my life, as I learned to work and grind, and slowly built my artistic portfolio on the side. This comic tells that tale as one over arching story, punctuated by multiple incidents and experiences that have to be read to be believed.
When you work on a project for a long time a key issue is that the style can change.
Below is a ten panel section of the comic. I like the style but it's extremely time consuming, and so precise that i don't believe it conveys the organic chaos of the kitchen.
click and scroll!
Dishpig is a big book, and not an obvious sell, but it follows in the footsteps of great comics about manual work, like ‘Trashed’ by Derf Backderf or ‘Factory Summers’ by Guy Delisle. I intend to get this book professionally published.