Dull Margaret

She could plunder in front of hell and return unscathed. – A Flemish proverb An extraordinary collaboration between the actor Jim Broadbent and the acclaimed cartoonist, DIX (the artist behind the newspaper’s series Roll up! Roll up! and Klaxon with Si Spencer), Dull Margaret transforms a figure of ancient folklore into the subject of an innovative graphic novel exploring themes of loneliness, isolation and selfishness. A whole life drawn from a single, striking image, Dull Margaret is inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s visually arresting 16th-century painting, titled Dulle Griet (Mad Meg). A figure well-known in Flemish folklore, Griet is a disparaged archetype of a strong, determined woman, undaunted by the world around her. In Bruegel’s painting she appears of a figure of action, marching headlong into hell with a sword in her hand whilst - in scenes redolent of Hieronymus Bosch - those around her are viciously tortured. Broadbent and DIX take this single, striking image as a launching point for a story that explores, with black humour, what the rest of the character’s bleak existence may have been like. Asked about the inspiration for the graphic novel in an interview for the Guardian, Broadbent replied “I come from Lincolnshire and have long been fixated on the flat coastal marshes… The story began to unfold from there, incorporating images from more of my favourite artists: Goya’s witches, Daumier’s pictures of travelling players, Rembrandt’s flat, low country landscapes.” United with DIX’s combination of humour and twisted imagination, the result marks out Jim Broadbent as a bold new talent in the field of the literary graphic novel.