Jim makes a foolhardy attempt to make a juvenile dream a reality, and ends up hitting the crushing wall of reality.

Unser Produktfoto entspricht dem hier angebotenen Artikel, dieser weist folgende Merkmale auf: Original in Folie. If you know the name Raymond Briggs, it is likely to be the 1978 book, “The Snowman” which first springs to mind. Needless to say he runs up against numerous persons in authority, and things don't work out the way he wants.Raymond Briggs adopts a far wider palette of pastel colours whenever Jim dreams, perfectly illustrating his great ambitions and wild fantasies. Now, I admit, it is a little sad towards the end and I can honestly say I've never felt truely sorry for a character in a book, apart from Jim. Jim’s eccentricities are presented in poignant fashion, and the depictions of a balding round-faced man accentuate an innocence in the face of more knowing caricatures. Should he then become a cowboy - or a highwayman, just like the “Gentleman Jim” in one of his books, sitting astride his trusty steed, the charger “Black Bess”?

He yearns for a different career, and the initial pages are rather amusing as he fantasizes about possibilities (possibilities that are themselves no more than fantasies, since he has no idea of the realities involved in any of them), before deciding to become a highwayman.The book is clearly not sympathetic to the world of authority and law, but neither is it particularly sympathetic to Jim's ill-informed dreaminess. He tries so hard to make things good, is intentions are top notch but he isn't that bright has a few problems getting exactly what he wants. I've also read a pretty awesome comic from him about his parents, and this seemed like the prototype for that, and was also a sweet, sad, exceedingly British story in its own right. Later, the author was to feature Jim and Hilda Bloggs again as the main characters in his masterly, very dark book about about nuclear catastrophe, “When The Wind Blows”.

English illustrator Raymond Briggs is best known in Britain for his 'books without words', told entirely though full color illustrations. Jim sets out to bring these dreams to fruition by accumulating various accoutrements, only to discover that the life of an executive, an artist, or a cowboy is more complicated and costly than it appears. I'm fairly certain that I first found a copy of this graphic novel in my primary school library - exactly where this work could not be properly appreciated.He scours the small ads to find a new job opportunity, and is perplexed to see that all the jobs require “Levels” (schools leaving examinations in Great Britain) and wonders what they are. Gentleman Jim tells the story of a council toilet attendant who just can't seem to get ahead and dreams of a better life. This is marketed as a children's book, but the tale of a suburban dreamer mired into a very British labyrinth of bureaucracy is more likely to resonate with adults. It's a fairly straightforward story, and it's not spoiling much to say that Jim dreams of pursuing a few professions, tries unsuccessfully to be a cowboy, and ultimately fails spectacularly in being a highwayman. Never forgetting he’s producing a children’s story, Briggs takes his first tentative steps at also appealing to adults as the bigger picture addresses the failures of British social systems, and the manner in which everyone is assigned a place and not expected to rise above it, still common in the late 1970s.

A brilliant picture book for adults, in the same vein as 'Ethel and Ernest' and 'When the Wind Blows'. Considering what he along with Hilda would endure two years later makes this an interlude to tragedy. Either that, or “Father Christmas”, which followed the next year, and featured his popular creation of a curmudgeonly Father Christmas, complaining endlessly about the “bloomin’ snow”.As he begins to infringe more seriously on the law, the city workers and their speech boxes become increasingly angular, much like the rigid rules and regulations restricting his sincere quest. He’d already produced The Snowman , but it would be several years before the animated version accorded him national treasure status. His walls are lined with books like "Out in the Silver West," "The Boys' Book of Pirates," and "Executive Opportunities," which provide fodder for his ruminations on career change.