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FROM THE ANNETTE MILLS GIFT BOOK , The Heirloom Library,
London undated c1955.
Muffin was a puppet who'd made it big as a TV character. Annette played
the piano while the badly jointed wooden figure jerked spasmodically on
the piano lid. Something of the ineptitude of the performance can be glimpsed
in the way Muffin had to be drawn in the Muffin Annuals.
The illustrator ( usually the great professional, Molly Blake), had to
draw the restrictions of the puppet rather than make the character come
alive. That was what viewers wanted to see - the recreation of the TV
image - the odd articulations of the rattling limbs, the bamboo like joints.
Even as a child, used to the papery thin qualities of children's TV -
patronising, sentimental with a strong class bias - I thought Muffin was
distinctly awful. Here Muffin had shrunk to a tiny size and meets a fairy
called Seedy who scours the landscape for.... seeds.
Every living thing in Muffin smiles (perhaps out of embarassment). Look,
even the worm has developed a smiling appendage. No fault of Molly who
had a really strong sense of composition and a sophisticated control of
atmospherics. Her depiction of Nature was particularly adept and always
beautifully drawn. Note the painterly control of butterfly wing and dragonfly
wing.
In 1996 the Conservative Government decided that it would not allow the
British Post Office to issue a commemorative stamp on the occasion of
the centenary of the death of that great Socialist writer and designer
William Morris. Instead, it was decided to honour Muffin the Mule. This
will for ever remain in my mind as pure essence of the vindictive. Molly
Blake cannot be held responsible. See how well she did - given the rattling
characterisation of the Shaking Mule.
This screen is dedicated to Molly Blake.
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