Marcus and Julian Sedgwick: Our Blake

Brothers Marcus and Julian Sedgwick are the authors of Dark Satanic Mills, a graphic novel which tracks a young girl's journey from the flooded landmarks of London to the vast, scorched and abandoned hills of the North. Marcus and Julian were both inspired by the art and writing of William Blake and here they discuss the very personal relationship they have with Blake's work.

One of the things about the truly great creators is that they attract countless

interpretations of their work long after they’re gone. William Blake was such a man; his works have been the inspiration for many writers and artists, and perhaps this is his true legacy, as much as his own work; the immense ripple effect he had on creatives who came after him. Like a band such as The Velvet Underground, the true impact is not so much in the mainstream of culture, but on later generations of artists, and their work. These re-interpretations are often wildly diverse and even contradictory. Combing the literature you can find Marxist Blake, Religious Blake, Dissenting Radical Blake, Women’s Institute Blake and more.

‘Our’ Blake was filtered through the lens of our father, a self-educated (without chip on shoulder) thinker and doer from a naturally questioning and dissenting position. Electing to become a Quaker and by conscience a pacifist he was fascinated by a Blake of free and individual imagination who stated; “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.”

Our childhood was a strangely mixed one. Though our parents had very little disposable money, we grew up in a large, quirky house surrounded by an acre of semi-wild garden. Often left to our own devices, this was the perfect medium for eager imaginations as we made expeditions to far-flung places in space and time, though we rarely left home.

One of the central objects in that home, one that stimulated our imaginations, was a large, ornate and cloth-spined box on the bookshelves. Printed in gold on that spine were three words, JERUSALEM: WILLIAM BLAKE.

It was years before we knew what the thing was: a rare unbound facsimile of the visionary poet’s Jerusalem produced by the Trianon Press. This particular copy had once belonged to Blake scholar Joseph Wicksteed, and contained his own personal annotations. To Julian it seemed to have the authority of a family Bible. Marcus - being that bit younger – actually believed that ‘William Blake’ was God’s true name and that this was the book he’d written.

In slightly different ways, both of us had something imprinted on us by these pages. Impressionable and introspective children are frequently as made as much by their internal space as the external world. The interaction between the two is often confusing and even painful but is also a potentially massive wellspring to the creative mind.

Our Blake is not everyone’s but that’s the point about Blake. His work has infiltrated our work in many subtle ways, and is the seed for Dark Satanic Mills. The modern world is as diverse and conflicted as the times that Blake lived in and so now, as then, it’s vitally important that we allow to ourselves that we do not all have to believe the same things; that we permit doubt and belief to have equal weight, that we are tolerant and yet, paradoxically, intolerant of intolerance.

MS/JS 2015-01-10