Sketching feasts and medieval grub with a cartoonist's eye

For a cartoonist who grew up reading The Dandy and dreaming of dragons, drawing a medieval banquet is more than a technical exercise. It is a chance to smuggle a few jokes into a roasted swan and to invent characters who argue over the last slice of manchet bread. The genre offers a perfect blend of texture, absurdity, and appetite, whether the spread is being laid out in a great hall or on a scrubbed wooden bench in a peasant cottage.

Food in fantasy comics does heavy narrative lifting. A single pie can hint at a character's trade, a goblet's contents can betray a hidden motive, and the way a lord chews his pheasant can tell the reader everything about his temperament. Working on strips like George vs Dragon and Bad Grandad has taught me that the smallest kitchen still life can carry as much story as a sword fight, provided the linework is loose enough to invite the reader in.

Sourcing visual references from old recipe books

Before a single brush touches the paper, the hunt for visual reference begins. Illuminated manuscripts, Luttrell Psalters, and the carvings on church misericords provide a library of plates, loaves, and ladles that have survived the centuries intact. Public collections like the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney hold digitised copies of these treasures, which makes hunting for a believable pie crust or a squashed turnip surprisingly convenient for an Australian artist working at the kitchen table.

It helps to photograph any costumed re-enactment within reach. Events in and around the Hunter Valley often include living-history camps where the cooks are only too happy to pose alongside their cauldrons. Cross-referencing these snapshots with printed herbals keeps the drawn meals grounded in something that a hungry peasant could actually have eaten, rather than a Hollywood spread of grapes and drumsticks.

Building textures that look good enough to eat

Ink, brush pen, and a fresh pot of coffee for staining the page tend to do most of the heavy lifting on my desk. Crusty loaves come alive with a tight crosshatch, while a glistening joint of beef asks for bold black shapes and a few well-placed white highlights scratched back in with a craft knife. The trick is variety: too much detail on every dish flattens the gag, so the eye needs somewhere to land.

Many Australian cartoonists sketch in cafés to catch the light and the lazy movement of real diners. A few hours at the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne offers a free education in colour and weight, from pyramids of apples to stacked trays of dim sims. Stealing those rhythms, even subconsciously, lifts a fantasy scene and stops it from feeling like a museum case.

Letting a feast carry the joke

A banquet panel is a gift for visual comedy. Picture a grumpy Bad Grandad refusing to share the gravy, or a wide-eyed Boo! character staring down a chicken leg the size of his own head. The page becomes a still from a sitcom, with the food itself standing in for the punchline. Plotting who eats what, who spills what, and who stares at their neighbour's plate lets the artist steer the gag without resorting to a speech bubble.

Crowding the table is half the fun. A medieval great hall would have hosted jugglers, dogs, wandering minstrels, and the occasional bishop, all elbowing each other for the best cut. Filling the background with that controlled chaos means the reader's eye wanders happily from one vignette to the next, finding new jokes with every visit to the strip.

Tools that earn their keep on a deadline

Working in single panels for The Dandy taught me to keep the kit simple. A dip pen with a flexible nib, a couple of brushes, a bottle of sumi ink, and a stack of cheap photocopy paper get the roughs down fast. Watercolour washes go on afterwards, with a rigger brush reserved for the thin highlights on pewter tankards and candle flames.

Australians working under the Australian Consumer Law's product safety rules should also keep an eye on the labelling of any art supplies that get imported, especially solvents and fixatives. Most stationers around Brisbane and Adelaide stock lines that already meet local standards, which saves a long argument with a courier at the door.

Putting a finished feast in front of readers

Once the inking is done and the colours have dried, the artwork needs somewhere to live. Posting process shots on social media rewards patient followers, while the finished page can be sent off to small-press anthologies or local zine fairs around the country. Conventions in Perth and Sydney have become generous hosts for cartoonists pushing experimental strips, and they offer a friendly crowd for a medieval-themed gag.

Studios that run group sessions, like the cartoon workshops on offer through my own site, are a good place to swap reference books and laugh at each other's terrible first drafts of gravy boats. Beginners quickly learn that the medieval feast is forgiving: anything edible drawn with a bit of charm tends to land, even if the historically accurate lentils are technically a disaster.

If the idea of doodling a contented dragon hunched over a bowl of pottage sounds appealing, the best advice is to grab a sketchbook and head to the nearest farmers' market for a quick study session. Bring a thermos, stay loose, and let the feast assemble itself on the page. There is always room at the table for one more cartoonist, and the bread rolls draw themselves once the coffee goes in.