In the late seventies, when I was struggling along, I got a call from a cooking school. The school had a booth at a food show. The idea was that I'd be at the show and draw on-the-spot pretty pictures of food on a large piece of paper and give it to people as a promotion.
The name and telephone number of the cooking school was printed on the bottom of each poster. I thought about it and decided to put a little different spin on it.
The owner was horrified when I started drawing a goofy little chef and outrageous visual puns. But she suddenly realized people were crowding around the booth and standing in line for the pictures.
To make a long story short, it led to licensed products on a line of kitchenware. And that led to a syndicated cartoon strip, Le Grand Chef Pierre. After a couple of years the strip died and the kitchenware sales slowed, so I put Pierre on the shelf.
But, recently, an executive chef in British Columbia contacted me and asked if I'd like to dust off Pierre and collaborate on a book... so here we go again. Here are a few of the visual puns.
Original watercolours and prints are available.
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