SECRET PLANS, VOL. III by Tami Knight – Guest post and Giveaway

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I’m guessing you told stories! Stories of drama, excitement, hilarity, silliness; stories where you made the summit and stories where you failed spectacularly because, oh, I don’t know, you were chased by a bear, you forgot your ski poles, or you paddled up the wrong lake.

I have paddled up the wrong lake. My friend and I eventually learned why locals gave us really strange looks when we put our canoe into the water and tossed in large mountaineering backpacks with ice-axes strapped to the back.

The stories we told one another nearly always became more and more preposterous as we one-upped one another with ridiculous tales that, by evenings end, were cartoonish in all dimensions.

Now, I loved reading books about climbing however nearly every one was very dramatic and while I learned a ton from them, there was something missing. The funny stuff was missing! I asked around about books with stories like what we told around the campfire. There just weren’t many.

Since I found drawing easier than writing and I always loved comic books and funny magazines like Mad Magazine, of course what else was I to do? I started drawing cartoons about climbing. And I was never able to stop.

It must be said, however, that the first cartoon I drew about climbing wasn’t about climbing. It was the story of a young climber who crashes a motorbike.

Tami Knight started drawing cartoons about climbers when the glaciers were a lot larger. C’mon in and enjoy Knight’s rats and humans as they get up to mountains of mischief! This book may even help you re-work yer primal scream!

And, dang, Jon Krakauer wrote the forward.

Enjoy an Excerpt

In 1981, Knight started to draw cartoons inspired by the absurdities of climbing. She found a wealth of material simply by observing the fanatical, oddball climbers she hung out with. In her cartoons, they were depicted as rats with long tails, beady eyes, and pointy noses. The rats were usually wearing climbing harnesses and chalk bags, but no clothing. Like Knight’s real-life friends, the rats were dirty, smelly, constantly broke, totally obsessed with climbing, and excessively fond of beer and single malt Scotch whisky. Many of the rats were surprisingly charming.

Knight had found her calling. She saw herself as the climbing tribe’s court jester, keeping inflated egos in check with affectionate ridicule. Her demented cartoons became a hugely popular feature in the most widely-read climbing magazines of the day. For North American climbers, she was our Charles M. Schulz, our Gary Larson, our very own R. Crumb.

Over the decades, Knight published six books of climbing cartoons. In this book, her seventh, almost every cartoon she’s created since 1981 has been collected in a single magnificent volume that provides a grimy window into our peculiar, alarmingly-addictive sport.

About the Author: Tami Knight has been drawing cartoons and illustrations about climbing since 1981. Her work is a regular feature in Alpinist Magazine but has appeared in climbing media all over the world. She was the 2003 recipient of the American Alpine Club literary award. Knight lives in Vancouver, Canada.

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