First things first, this isn’t an article about how baking too much during lockdown has led to us changing our tribe on Grindr (we’re comfortable with that now), this is way more fun.
We’re sure that everyone will have taken part in the global hide and seek phenomenon that is “Where’s Wally?” as a child right? Then several years later those skills assisted you in finding your drunk friend who wandered off in the club didn’t they? Well let us help you to discover a fantastic example of a modernised throwback that combines the two!
Gurl: Before we start on “Where’s The Twink?” give us a little introduction to the wonderful queer people behind the project?
Dan and Louis: Rumour has it that ‘Dan and Louis’ is just a pseudonym but we won’t dwell too much on hearsay. All we’ll confirm is that we both work in the creative industries and like all good friendships met when drunk in the early hours at a club. We’re old enough to be cynical and young enough to be idealistic about everything that comes with growing up LGBTQ+ in London.
GURL: Immediately serving us some tea, we’ll have to meet up for cocktails some time. Sounds like a fabulous combo of outlooks, probably the right balance that we need right now tbh.
GURL: So you two lovely guys made the lgbtqi+ version of Where’s Wally, how did that come around?
Dan and Louis: We were out dancing (sense a theme…) surrounded by these clearly grouped tribes of gay men. I guess you could say Louis is a jock and Dan a twunk… for now at least. We enjoy observing (and critiquing) the way this tribalism exists, how different people gravitate toward other types of people enjoying a night out. Packs of bears talking to groups of otters in a corridor. Daddies congregating at the bar. Twinks assembling en-mass on the dance floor.
That’s when the idea popped into our heads and we naively made a promise to create the book there and then. That’s why the Club is the first scene in the book. It’s a place where new beginnings are made possible: us becoming comfortable in our skin as gay men, our friendship, the idea for the book.
Pretty much right after having the idea we sat down to plan out the scenes and find an illustrator to help us. That’s when we saw Camille’s work on Instagram. We got in touch, took her around Soho and the rest as they say is herstory.
We initially wanted to launch the book for Christmas 2019 but missed that deadline… probably due to our 80-hour workweeks. Camille moved back to Paris. Then coronavirus hit. But we finished the book and made our posters throughout the madness of 2020, launching them a couple months before Christmas.
The last thing we had to do was to go to Paris to get Camille to sign our screenprints and we managed to sneak this in between lockdowns and pretty much since then we’ve been selling books and posters. We’ve sold hundreds and hundreds of books so we’re really happy with the reaction.
GURL: Friends having an initial half-joking chat about starting a business but actually going through with it…..well that sounds eerily familiar. It’s a great concept and let’s be honest, who isn’t going to a club to take in the sights of all different tribes and body types while sipping from their cocktail. A bit of a delay is always a shame but hey, it’s released now and you had an excuse to nip to both give Camille a local tour an also nip to Paris, that’s a win-win situation in our eyes. Very pleased to hear it’s going well so far, you absolutely deserve it.
Gurl: You mention on your website that you based the project on a lot of your own experiences, care to elaborate?
Dan and Louis: Isn’t life one big quest? Without getting too deep, being LGBTQ+ can sometimes feel like you’re on a constant search. We are definitely both people-watchers too so it seemed like a natural project for us to work on and make a game of it. It’s very tongue in cheek but we wanted to look at all the highs and lows from our own experiences and turn them into something funny and celebratory – from the fun of a club to the toxicity of Instagram and everything in between.
Hopefully nothing comes across as judgemental or too cynical, we think the best satire comes from a loving place. We’ve had people comment on how it’s much more inclusive than they expected too which is nice as we tried really hard to represent a full spectrum of queer identities. We just think it’s funny when you can turn anything into a punchline. It’s all about being relatable really without being too obvious, hence all the inside humour. Our straight friends love the book but they don’t notice 90% of the jokes.
GURL: We’re definitely aware of the struggles as part of the LGBTQ+ community, no need to go too deep (unless daddy is in the mood of course). The book is definitely more on the light-hearted side of things, playful in the right way whilst still having a nod to the realities that man of us face on a regular basis. Honestly we spent so long looking at each different setting for all of the hilarious puns, we particularly enjoyed the little rockets!
Gurl: The bonus items absolutely had us in stitches with laughter – did you have any other ideas before you narrowed it down?
Dan and Louis: We had loads of ideas when it came to the bonus items. The long list contained some that were slightly more x-rated and others that were perhaps a little too mean. Plus, we wanted to keep the book (relatively) PG and gently shine some light on the colourful lives we all lead. We’ve had lots of people get in touch asking us to do a 2nd version where our twink Finn continues his travels. Perhaps he goes interrailing around Europe for a few months or moves to East London? We’ve also had requests for an X-rated version containing some of the more explicit scenes…though we might struggle to get our illustrator on board for that one.
GURL: There are endless options let’s be real, you did a great job of narrowing down to comical but as you say (mostly) PG options that everyone can have a giggle at. Naturally our favourite is Daddy’s Hotel Keycard – there was a very audible laugh when we saw that. We’re in full support of a European second edition and if you need help finding an illustrator for something a little more adult just hit us up, we’re sure we can find someone!
Gurl: Do you have any plans for future projects?
Dan and Louis: We’re currently still working on this edition of Where’s The Twink. When we first showed our friends some of the early drafts of the book, they wanted some of the scenes as standalone pieces of art for their walls. We decided to make The Gym as a limited edition screen print and then run 3 other scenes from the book as giclee prints. This is just a side hustle for us both so it’s been nice to finally see a couple years worth of work come to life and be enjoyed across the world. Maybe one day we’ll get onto Where’s the Bear?.
GURL: We saw those prints, they look really cute and nobody would immediately clock them as being queer so we’re here for the surprise when they get us close. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that the side hustle keeps growing and we get to see a Bear version (along with many others) in the future.
It’s safe to say that we’re just a little bit obsessed with the book, how could we not be really? We even took it out to show to some friends when having some sensible drinks and to say it went down a charm would be an understatement – many a tipsy giggle were had.
In case it isn’t obvious, we fully recommend that you pick yourself up a copy of “Where’s The Twink?” right away and have yourself a camp old time hunting down all the comical hidden gems.
The book and stunning prints are both available over at the online store now and you can keep up to date with Finn’s journey on Instagram to see what antics he get up to next!
Website: https://www.wheresthetwink.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wheresthetwink/
Illustrator: https://www.instagram.com/camilleferrarii/