Crippen Cartoons cartoons at the cutting edge of disability

Having received new commissions or requests to use existing cartoons from all over the world, I thought it would be a nice gesture to create my Christmas card this year with the greeting printed in some of the different languages.

I didn’t have room for all of the countries I’ve provided artwork for, so I’ve picked a random cross section. However, I do regret not having heard from the Cherokee Nation this year as I would love to have included their very picturesque greeting of ‘ᎤᏬᏢᏗ ᏓᏂᏍᏓᏲᎯᎲ’.

In contrast Afghanistan is a real mouthful with ‘De Christmas akhtar de bakhtawar au newai kal de mubarak sha’ whereas my friends over in Eire use the Gaelic ‘Nollaig Shona Dhuit!’. It’s ‘Merii Kurisumasu!’ to my Japanese colleagues (accompanied with a bow) and finally ‘S̄uk̄hs̄ạnt̒ wạn khris̄t̒mās̄!’ to all those in Thailand.

Finally, I’ll leave you with my Yule toast ‘Wes þu hál!’, which simply means “Be well” in Anglo-Saxon.

PS: My wife Helen, who provides the audio description for my work is going to love translating some of these greetings (not!).

Description of Christmas card for those using screen reading software

A caricature of Crippen can be seen through a window sitting at his drawing board wearing a Santa hat and with ‘Father Cripmas’ printed on his t-shirt. He is holding a red pen and has other pens and pencils in a mug marked with DAO. There is a small, decorated Christmas tree on the desk and behind him are several cartoons pinned to the wall. Outside of the window it is snowing, and snow and icicles are gathered on the window frame and sill. Around this image, printed in different colours, is ‘Merry Christmas’ in a variety of different languages.