When the Wind Blows
"When the Wind Blows" is a graphic novel by British author Raymond Briggs, published in 1982, that explores the naive responses of a retired couple to an impending nuclear attack. Set in the English countryside, the story follows Jim and Hilda Bloggs as they receive government instructions on how to protect themselves. Despite their well-meaning efforts, their simplistic understanding of the situation leads them to make comical yet tragic mistakes in preparing for the disaster. The narrative juxtaposes the couple's lighthearted discussions and black humor with the harsh realities of nuclear war, highlighting themes of misplaced trust in authorities and the unimaginable horror of such an event. The artwork, characterized by bright watercolors and a familiar style, contrasts sharply with the gravity of the storyline, enhancing the emotional impact of their plight. Briggs's unique blend of comedy and tragedy offers a poignant commentary on the absurdity of official guidelines and the vulnerability of everyday people in the face of catastrophic threats. "When the Wind Blows" has received critical acclaim and is noted for its adult themes, marking a significant departure from Briggs's earlier works aimed at children.
When the Wind Blows
AUTHOR: Briggs, Raymond
ARTIST: Raymond Briggs (illustrator)
PUBLISHER: Hamish Hamilton
FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1982
Publication History
When the Wind Blows, by British comics creator and children’s author Raymond Briggs, was published as a hardcover simultaneously by Hamish Hamilton in Great Britain and by Shocken Books in the United States in 1982. It was then published by Penguin Books as a paperback in 1983. The book was reprinted each following year during the 1980’s. When the Wind Blows has also enjoyed publication in several languages, including Chinese, Finnish, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Thai. The book’s title was taken from the nursery rhyme and lullaby “Rock-a-Bye Baby.”
Plot
On one level, the plot of When the Wind Blows seems deceptively simple. A retired couple, living somewhere in the English countryside, learn about an imminent nuclear attack. They follow government instructions about how to protect themselves and then the attack comes. The couple misunderstands the seriousness of their situation as they gradually succumb to radiation sickness. However, the strength of Briggs’s work is in the subtlety of characterization of his two protagonists and the tension between the comedic elements and the bleak, almost unimaginable horror of the story.
The story opens with the retired Jim Bloggs returning to his wife Hilda at their house “Jimilda,” full of news of impending war. They discuss the situation, revealing their naïveté when Jim thinks that the problems are being caused by “the ultimate determent” and when Hilda complains about a “preemptive strike” as if it is some kind of industrial action. Part of the black humor of the story comes from the fact that the various seemingly ridiculous precautions they then take—following these instructions blindly—were all taken from actual official leaflets. These include instructions to paint windows white, conflicting advice from government and county councils about whether to hang material on them, and instructions to get into a large paper bag before the bomb drops.
Jim goes to the local shops on his bike to try to buy a protractor to ensure that their shelter, made of house doors, is located at the correct angle to the wall. He and his wife reminisce about World War II and struggle to finalize their food and toilet arrangements, continuing to make simple mistakes. Jim believes that his hero from the war, Field Marshal Bernard “Monty” Montgomery, is still alive, and Hilda is writing a letter of complaint to the head of the KGB, who they think is named B. J. Key. Brief mention is made of other characters, such as the couple’s son, Ron, who confuses them with his fatalistic view of the imminent attack, and Mr. Willis at the local shop, but they never make an appearance.
After the bomb drops, Jim and Hilda are surprised to find that they have no power and water, and having left their shelter, they begin to feel increasingly unwell. They mistake the signs of radiation sickness for ailments that can be treated by a trip to the drugstore. On the final page, in twenty-four monochrome panels showing only the dark shelter where they are hiding, they attempt to pray, and Jim, rambling, attempts unsuccessfully to recite the Alfred, Lord Tennyson poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854) as they die.
Characters
•Jim Bloggs, addressed as “James” by his wife, is a portly, retired man. He is similar to, if not actually the same as, the title character of Briggs’s earlier Gentleman Jim (1980). The reader learns that he was a child during World War II, a period he looks on with nostalgia as a simpler and more carefree time. He has a simplistic view of the world and trusting attitude toward authority. His life revolves around his wife, Hilda, and trips by bus to the public library or the shops.
•Hilda Bloggs, Jim’s wife, has a view of the world that is, if anything, even more naïve than that of her husband. While Jim is keen to keep abreast of current events, Hilda believes that newspapers are “full of rubbish,” except for the horoscopes. Some of Hilda and Jim’s characteristics are taken from Briggs’s parents, who feature directly in his later biographical graphic novel Ethel and Ernest: A True Story (1998).
Artistic Style
One of the striking things about When the Wind Blows is the fact that it is drawn largely in the familiar style Briggs had previously used for his highly successful children’s books, including Father Christmas (1973) and The Snowman (1978). The two main characters are rotund, simply drawn and rendered, mainly in strong, bright watercolors enhanced by colored-pencil shading. This rather sedate and benign drawing style, combined with the dark nature of the story, creates a disjunction between form and content that makes the tragic events of the narrative seem even more shocking. In fact, it is possible to read the first few pages of the novel without realizing the bleak nature of the story that is about to unfold.
Most pages in the book contain seven rows of more than twenty densely packed panels. Briggs had originally tended to use a more traditional format with fewer than ten panels per page, but he was inspired to use this more intense layout after seeing small-scale reproductions of his earlier work. There are some exceptions to this dense page layout. When Jim and Hilda reminisce about World War II, larger balloon-shaped panels spread across the pages in colors that are literally rose-tinted. Early in the story, three dark-silhouetted double-page spreads depict a missile, military planes, and a nuclear submarine, respectively. These vast stark panels interrupt the narrative, bringing a massive dose of oppressive reality into the couple’s comfortable, delusional world and helping to warn the reader of the dark events that are about to unfold. The nuclear explosion itself is rendered in a two-page spread that is almost pure white, with the smallest hint of red along the edges. Over the next two pages, the frames of the comic panels slowly reassert themselves, first as jagged white lines, and then fading in from red, the frames finally become rectangles again. The remainder of the story follows Briggs’s usual drawing style and page layout, apart from two larger fantasy panels in which Jim imagines himself rescuing a beautiful girl and being confronted by a Russian soldier. As the couple’s bodies gradually decay, the colors of the pages become increasingly muted and grayed until they are virtually just a dull monochrome.
Themes
The book essentially has two themes: the almost unimaginable horror of a nuclear attack and the misplaced trust of simple people in their incompetent, uncaring authorities.
Portrayals of nuclear war are comparatively rare in comics, although there were a spate of Cold War comics in the United States, including Atom Age Combat (1952) and Atomic War (1952-1953). Japanese reactions to the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima are addressed in Japanese manga such as Keiji Nakazama’s Barefoot Gen (1973-1974) and Fumiyo Kouno’s Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (2004). The earlier type of American comic tends to present nuclear war as winnable, while the later Japanese comics, perhaps unsurprisingly, concentrate on the sheer terror of the atomic bomb and its aftermath.
Briggs’s portrayal of a nuclear attack with elements of black humor is unusual, if not unique, in the history of the medium. He portrays the political events that lead to the war as distant, and perhaps inevitable, and the attack is revealed gradually to the reader. Despite the increasing ghastliness of their situation, Briggs continuously introduces comedic elements as the couple makes a series of errors based on their fragile grasp of the situation in terms of both its origins and its implications.
Briggs’s use of the simple, deluded lower-class couple to provide the humor in his story has been criticized as constituting an attack on the working classes, but he has stated that the ludicrously inadequate official guidelines were the target of his criticism, as well as the source of much of the humor. Having seen a documentary about precautions the population was meant to make in event of a nuclear war, Briggs obtained “Protect and Survive” and other leaflets produced by the authorities. When viewing Jim and Hilda’s trust in these leaflets, it is certainly possible to see the couple as hopeless, naïve, and childlike in their simplistic approach to the situation. The question remains whether the humor in the story derives from Briggs simply making fun of the couple’s stupidity. While their naïve mistakes are certainly part of the humor, the situation that they are in also engenders pathos, and Briggs clearly wants the reader to feel empathy for them.
Impact
It is clear that this work was aimed at adults, unlike Briggs’s earlier books, which, although they tended to have a cynical edge, were aimed mainly at children. Father Christmas features a grumpy titular hero, Fungus the Bogeyman has a most disgusting central character, and even his popular The Snowman has a downbeat ending. Yet none of these stories approached the bleakness of When the Wind Blows.
Briggs’s body of work has allowed him to occupy an unusual position in British publishing in that he is widely regarded as a children’s author, even though all his most famous work is in a comic format. Even the most famous of British comic artists tend to be regarded as working in a lesser medium, where they are marginalized, but Briggs has escaped this entirely, and his work is often categorized with the more prestigious label of “picture books.” This has meant that works such as When the Wind Blows tend to be reviewed in mainstream newspapers and are taken seriously by the British media. Briggs has received critical praise for both his children’s books and his adult works such as The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman (1984), a satire on the Falklands War.
Copies of When the Wind Blows were sent by its British publishers to all members of the British parliament, where it received predictable praise or condemnation from those on either side of the political divide. The book was discussed in Parliament, and some of the more favorable comments it received from members of Parliament were included in later editions.
Films
When the Wind Blows. Directed by Jimmy T. Murakami. TVC London/Film Four International, 1986. This animated version was voiced by Sir John Mills and Dame Peggy Ashcroft, with music by Roger Waters and David Bowie. The book acted as a starting point for the artists’ storyboards, with Briggs serving as consultant. There are two major differences from the book: the use of documentary footage to represent nostalgia for World War II and the depiction of the bomb drop itself in a lengthy and spectacular sequence of destruction that segues into black-and-white scenes of the couples’ earlier happy life, before present reality intrudes again. The film was not as successful as the 1982 TVC animation of The Snowman, presumably because of its dark subject matter. Despite this, it was also adapted into a radio play and a West End theater production.
Further Reading
Briggs, Raymond. Ethel and Ernest: A True Story (1998).
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Snowman (1978).
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman (1984).
Bibliography
Briggs, Raymond, and Nicolette Jones. Blooming Books. London: Jonathan Cape, 2003.
Cooke, Rachel. “Raymond Briggs: Big Kid, ‘Old Git’ and Still in the Rudest of Health.” The Observer (August 9, 2008): 20-21.
Gravett, Paul “‘Where Is the Use of a Book Without Pictures or Conversations?’ Coming to Terms with the Graphic Novel in Europe.” Third Text 21, no. 5 (September, 2007): 617-625.
Kilborn, Richard W. Multimedia Melting Pot: Marketing “When the Wind Blows.” London: Comedia, 1986.
Wroe, Nicholas. “Profile: Raymond Briggs.” The Guardian, December 17, 2004, p. 20.