Clare In The Community highlights book to be published
- New book The Clare In The Community Collection has been successfully crowdfunded via Kickstarter
- The publication will feature highlights from Harry Venning's long-running Guardian cartoon strip
- The social worker cartoon, which was also turned into a Radio 4 sitcom, has been running for 25 years now
Writer and illustrator Harry Venning is to publish The Clare In The Community Collection, a book celebrating twenty five years of his Guardian cartoon strip.
He took to Kickstarter to raise funds to make the highlights book based on his social-worker cartoon, and has already exceeded the target.
At the time of writing, with 15 days still to go on the campaign, fans have pledged over £12,000 to enable the project.
The campaign page explains: "Every week for 25 years, Harry Venning has provided The Guardian newspaper with the Clare In The Community strip cartoon, chronicling the misadventures of an empathy-free social worker. He also wrote the BBC Radio 4 spin-off sitcom of the same name, starring Sally Phillips.
"To celebrate Clare In The Community's silver jubilee, Harry is producing a book of her funniest cartoon moments juxtaposed with contemporary Guardian front pages as a limited edition, 200 silk-sheen page, hardback."
Fans of the character can pledge money via Kickstarter to get a copy of the book. A pledge of £15 or more will guarantee a signed hardback copy, with additional awards available, such as original full-colour artwork, to those who pledge more.
The Radio 4 version of Clare In The Community, which Venning wrote with David Ramsden, was one of the station's most popular sitcoms. Launching in 2004, it ran for a total of 12 series before bowing out in October last year.
Giving British Comedy Guide an update on his Kickstarter campaign, Venning says: "I've reached my target and the next part of the process is wading chest deep in nostalgia as I choose my favourites from the last twenty five years."
Talking about picking which strips to include, he jokingly added: "The format of the book requires around 300, or about a quarter of my total output. I'm desperately hoping one in four were funny and I didn't wing it too often."