READERSVOICE.COM: What sort of feature panel cartoons did you do for newspapers? Were they kind of like the NoodlePates cartoon?

KARL DIXON: I self-syndicated two cartoons for local papers in the 90’s and early noughties. The first was a daily editorial cartoon based on the national news while the second was a panel strip called Damien, about a little boy and the dark world of his mind. It was a bit like Just William updated to the modern world. It was gentle humour with a slapstick bent.

RV: Where do you live in the UK and what sort of routine would you have each day?

KD: I live in the beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales. I’m not Welsh; I was born in the Midlands and spent the first eighteen years of my life in Solihull.
My day changes constantly and is dictated largely on what has to be done that day. But I always keep two hours a day for the writing and creating of NoodlePates and two hours for writing—whether that be for Sleepy Hamlet, a children’s book or plotting a graphic novel. On Thursdays this work pattern only differs in the sense that I spend a large portion of it on building up my portfolio of cartoon watercolour paintings.
The rest of the day is spent either by working on paid commissions or marketing myself to present and potential new customers. Lately I’ve been working on a new version of my Diary of a Cartoonist blog. This will have more regular updates, a bigger and more extensive portfolio section and a shop to buy my prints, books and other merchandising. But as this becomes more of a reality, I will post about it on my present blog.

RV: What are some of your other plans for NoodlePates books, paintings, graphic novels or anything else?

KD: NoodlePates’s future will be largely determined by the reaction I get from sales of the first book collection, due out for Christmas. The paintings are building up nicely and I will be looking to do exhibitions and possibly find an art publisher to get them to a larger audience with some of my personal favourites being for sale on my new blog.
Like I said previously I have two graphic novel ideas in the plotting stage, I am working away through my second Sleepy Hamlet novel and am about to start producing the art for my second children’s book. And of course there’s the brand new blog/website to do, which will be bigger, brighter and better than my present one.
So busy times ahead.

– See NoodlePates at Karl Dixon’s Twitter @cartoonistdiary and some of his other art and stories at karl-dixon.blogspot.com.
– copyright Simon Sandall.