Reimagining Scott

Summary of the Talk:

Greg Moody gave a highly engaging and humorous talk, reflecting on his career as a cartoonist, fine artist, and designer. He began by joking about his social status as “riff raff” and explained that although he wouldn’t focus much on Scott, the talk would show how their paths crossed through art.

Raised in Dundee, Moody’s early love for comics like The Beano and The Dandy led him to draw cartoons from childhood. He studied fine art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art but found himself more interested in storytelling through images than traditional painting. This passion for storytelling grew into a career using a blend of hand-drawing, collage, and photography—initially in a laborious analogue style, then digitally after the rise of home computers.

Moody’s design work spanned from TV graphics to accident reconstructions, but his long-running weekly cartoon strip—active since 2012—has become his hallmark. He shared examples featuring public figures like Nigel Farage, Prince Andrew, Gordon Brown, George Galloway, and Rishi Sunak, blending satire with a sharp visual style.

A pivotal moment came in 2016 when the landlord of his local bar, The Torphin Inn in West Lothian, commissioned him to create a series of murals inspired by Robert Burns’ Tam o’ Shanter. Moody used photographs of local regulars, projected them onto the walls, and painted cartoon-style scenes around them. This led to the book Borrowing Burns, a fictionalised backstory of how the murals came to be.

Inspired by the positive feedback, Moody began work on Cool Scots—a book of reimagined portraits of iconic Scots (e.g. Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark, Nan Shepherd), styled in humorous and modern ways. He often added contemporary or playful elements, like Jimmy Hendrix’s jacket or a selfie stick. Scott wasn’t included in the book initially but later appeared in other artworks.

He read aloud his portrait summary of Nan Shepherd, praised for its witty, irreverent tone. The Scottish Poetry Library’s request to use his Shepherd portrait for an event led to a solo exhibition. His artworks combine collage, screen-printing, and painting—often through laborious methods—featuring figures like Jackie Kay, Ivor Cutler, and Liz Lochhead (who apparently disliked hers).

His large group portrait, a satirical homage to Alexander Moffat’s Poet’s Pub, placed his reimagined writers in his local haunt, Bennett’s Bar. Walter Scott appears wearing a T-shirt of Moody’s own book and an eyebrow piercing.

The evening ended with Moody reading from his comic novel Six Degrees of Stupidity, part of a planned “Stupidity Trilogy”. The excerpt parodied Heart of Darkness, featuring absurd canal adventures and a chaotic alarm-clock invention.

 Main Themes:

• Satirical art and storytelling
• Influence of comics and cartoons
• Reimagining Scottish cultural figures through collage and humour
• Artistic process blending analogue and digital methods
• Robert Burns mural project leading to Borrowing Burns
• Launch of Cool Scots and subsequent portrait exhibition

Notable and Interesting Points

1. Reimagining Walter Scott: Moody’s portrait of Scott modernised the iconic Raeburn painting by giving Scott a T-shirt and eyebrow piercing—highlighting Moody’s belief that “if you remove the barriers, people might actually wonder who he is”.
2. Weekly Cartoons Since 2012: Without missing a single week, Moody has produced topical satirical cartoons for over a decade—a significant artistic commitment.
3. Tam o’ Shanter Murals: The community-driven mural project in a West Lothian pub not only revived Burns but transformed the venue into a local landmark of visual storytelling.
4. Cool Scots Book & Style: Each subject is a mashup of literary biography, satire, and visual homage. Nan Shepherd appears with a mountain in the background and a “sparking” choker necklace.
5. Humour and Accessibility: A key takeaway from the talk was Moody’s philosophy that satire and visual playfulness can be powerful tools to engage people—especially younger audiences—with historical or literary figures.
6. Art and Publishing Frustration: Both Nan Shepherd and Moody have struggled with publishers—Moody joked about formatting nightmares and Amazon taking most of the profits.
7. Recognition and Evolution: The Scottish Poetry Library’s interest helped elevate Moody’s work into an exhibition space. His style continues to evolve—from computer cartoons to more tactile mixed-media canvas pieces.