Ian David Marsden

At 16, Ian David Marsden sold his first cartoons to the Swiss satirical magazine Nebelspalter and soon after to Penthouse Germany – leading his father to proudly tell friends that his son was drawing for a magazine he wasn’t old enough to buy.

With a Swiss mother and British father, Ian grew up between languages and cultures; the dry humour gene clearly landed on the British side. His pen has since wandered from Zurich to Paris, New York, Los Angeles and back to a small town in the south of France.

Over more than three decades he has drawn cartoons and illustrations for publications including The New Yorker, MAD Magazine and Nebelspalter, as well as for books, comic strips and the occasional soft drink can. One odd distinction: he was the first-ever Google Doodle artist, spending a year creating the playful logos that appeared on millions of screens. In 2020 he published his first graphic novel, Marvin: Based on the Way I Was, about composer Marvin Hamlisch and his family’s escape from Nazi-occupied Europe.

Ian’s cartooning leans toward understatement rather than shouting the joke. He cites Sempé, Steinberg, Booth, Loriot, Edward Gorey, Ronald Searle and Tove Jansson among his influences, along with the writing of James Thurber, S.J. Perelman and early Woody Allen. Fluent in English, French and German, he tries to keep a quiet streak of humanism and optimism alive in a world that often seems stranger than any cartoon.

E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://marsdenillustration.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idmarsden/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarsdenIllustration