While Andy Griffiths is now a global phenomenon for the wildly popular and hilarious books he writes with illustrator Terry Denton, it took years before his work reached an audience.
Nick Cave was a particular inspiration. “He’s been lucky to do his own thing. And that’s probably what I value the most about him as an artist,” he says. “Because I realised when I started writing ‘seriously’ that I wasn’t like other writers … I just couldn’t write a sensible novel. In the end, everything I did was derailed by the anarchic Devo punk rock energy.”
Early on, he made a conscious decision to stick with his own offbeat style … even if it meant not having a recognisable career. Artists like Nick Cave “don’t bend over backwards to get to their audience,” he says. “They go, ‘This is what I do, and this is what I have to do,’ — and then they do it. And I loved the courage of that. So, I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’m an outsider artist in my heart.’ I probably am, dammit.”
“Nick Cave, Andy Griffiths and the $10,000 suit: how Melbourne’s Crystal Ballroom launched a scene” – Kirsten Krauth, The Guardian 9/4/2020
Almost A Mirror by Kirsten Krauth
Nobody is looking 