THE MAGIC INTERVIEW...

CHEAPO CARD COMPANY'S WIL WALKER

MM: Actually, if I’m honest, when we left the old place in June 2012, we STILL hadn’t finished the kitchen completely! I can’t tell you how relieved we were to find a new house with a fully fitted modern kitchen already in place. So what was it that first inspired you to take up cartooning and who / what are your great heroes / favourite strips in the field?

Wil: Cartooning is cheap and cheerful to do, so that became my first real creative outlet. It was also something I could practise during school lessons, as I sat there, not listening to teachers reading aloud from textbooks. I never enjoyed doing useless 'doodles'... but wanted to create something which had a purpose. Other than Rolf the Great (paint be upon Him), I don't think I had any favourite cartoonists, in particular (as I made up my own style)... but, I did have a couple of favourite cartoons. There was the classic, one Hippopotamus says to another "I keep thinking it's Tuesday" (which shows up our human 'civilisation' for the arbitrary shenanigans that it is)...

MM: It SO does!

Wil: And another, with a radio actor at the microphone, reading his script, and holding a boiling kettle poised over a sleeping kitten, as he says "Suddenly, Janice gave a scream like a scalded cat..." (I harbour no ill will against moggies, at all, but loved the idea that you had to work out the gag for yourself). I did, also, like the idea of having my own recording studio... Blue Peter would visit Peter Gabriel or Mike Oldfield, occasionally... but my pocket money didn't extend to the semi-detached house-price needed to afford a 4-second sampler, at the time.

MM: I gather you take a similar approach to music, rather tongue-in-cheek and very British humour, evident on the track that made you an M&E legend; “The Magi Crap”, as currently featured on our SoundCloud page. It became a kind of official theme tune on our sampler cassettes, appearing on 10 M&E Audiozines and the “Decadion” compilation, amusing and irritating the masses in varying proportions. It’s very cleverly put together, we thought, how did you do it? Why did you do it? If we send you money, will you promise never to do it again?

Wil: So, where's my platinum "M&E Legend Lifetime Achievement" trophy..? That track was a computerised "re-mix" of your ditty, put together on my 486-PC, using very early basic multi-track editing software... again, ahead of my time and totally unappreciated... I could call myself a modern-day Cassandra, but no-one would take me seriously. For any and all 'Britishness' some of the most (only..?) appreciative comments Cheapo has received, tend to come from Germans... go figure.  Notably, I haven't done it since... so, you probably owe me a fair amount of moolah already. You're not alone in this, though...

MM: So who is Wil Walker? I recall you once providing an anagram of “Magic Moments At Twilight Time – White Hawk Atomic” as “I might welcome that shite twat Magic to wank Mimi.” Though the young lady in question flatly refused, denying she even knew you, before slapping me and running off crying, I couldn’t help but think it must have taken aeons to work out and wondered what kind of man would do it. So tell us, what kind of man did do it and don’t you think he should have asked her first?

Wil: For starters, Wil is the kind of chap who imagines he might make himself look a bit more artistically interesting than he is, by answering in the third person... only to realise, instantly, such would be a naff move. Actually, just about any and everything I do, which might be considered "creative" or "clever"... as in--- "oh yeah... you do that (PAUSE) 'clever' stuff, don't you---" is done at an exceedingly rapid rate, in order to leave the necessary time free to stare at a blank wall for days on end, wondering why I bothered to do it in the first place. As for Mimi herself, I've yet to hear a single thank-you emanate from the parallel dimension that exists, solely because I created her out of thin-air... some pseudo-people have no gratitude.

MM: So, there you were providing a cartoon for the New Year 2001 UWU Newszine, ferociously extracting the urine over the decorating without end of our kitchen. Thinking about it, you did another cartoon four years earlier on exactly the same subject for our 1997 M&E Yearbook! What exactly were you implying?

Wil: Nice creative use of the word "implying" there, Mr M... as in, one might 'imply' that two plus two equals four... or 'imply' that the family Ursidae are prone to defecating in areas of natural forestation. It is the lot of many cartoonists, to take on the role of social observer/commentator... though, being ahead of my time, I missed out on being able to turn the affair into a daytime-telly house renovation/decorating series... so "PJ & Duncan Fix Your Kitchen Calamity" never made it to air.  

before Ricky Gervais used my show theme song in episode 2 of his original chat show, back in 2000, he was a jumped-up nothing, in a leather jacket. After playing it, he became a multi-bulti-billionaire...  but where's my suitably-stuffed brown envelope..? In the imagination... that's where.

MM: I recall that you first approached us in the latter half of 1993. I really wasn’t sure about your music in the beginning, but you sent me some marzipan, some dried apricots for our Sammi and some Whiskas for Tilly The Space Cat, so we decided to give it a go. The first release was “When Lost Plants Recall” (M&E 245 – Jan. ’94), which my review described as “Imagine the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band in space? Stormclouds in a fish finger factory?” What actually were your musical influences and in what way did they affect the work you did with the Cheapos?

Wil:  Everything we experience plays a part in influencing us, so this is a bit of an impossible question to answer, with any true accuracy. My first 'official' favourite record was "Tiger Feet" by Mud, purely because it was a nice bouncy fun tune. Later, I got more into Motorhead, and then The Jam, because they were noisy and loud, without having to have punky-green hair.... but that was all about being a fan. It was only when John Peel started playing some of the German NDW bands, in the late 70s/early 80s (Der Plan, DAF etc), that I felt I had to start making stupid noises myself (not counting the natural bodily ones... actually, did The Natural Bodily Ones have a Peel session..?), and began saving up for the cheapest little mono synthesiser around at the time (a Roland SH101, tech-nerd fans).

MM: I have an SH 09!

Wil:  I started putting together odd tracks, under the Cheapo banner, around the mid-80s... but the whole thing took off (in a Wright brothers kinda way) in the early 90s, with tapes and live gigs (featuring Val on live percussion and odd video-tech bits), and the occasional release on ne'er-do-well-hippy