David Farrier Tickled (Patreon)

This weeks' update is still a few days away as I'm busy finishing up my 2nd drawing for this year's TKLFest. Drawing #2 for them might be ANIMATED!

In the meantime, enjoy this drawing I made back in 2016 of the director of the "Tickled" documentary, David Farrier. I've told the story of my peripheral involvement with the film before, but I'll recap here:

Back in 2014 before Mr. Farrier decided to make his documentary, he wrote a series of web articles about the subject. Of course, anything tickling related in mainstream media makes the rounds on the various tickling message boards. I found and read the articles and was kind of shocked to see that he had quoted something "Achilles" had posted on the TKLfrat board in his article.

I thought that was interesting enough to contact him. I found him on Twitter and sent a message that basically said that there was a whole community of people into tickling, and that most of us were not like the subject of his articles. He wrote back and we exchanged a bunch of pleasant messages. Ultimately, he asked if there was anyone else he should be talking to and I gave him a few names including Richard from MyFriendsFeet.

Many months later, after he decided to make his film, he wound up in NYC staying in a hotel in Brooklyn with his film crew. Knowing that I live here, he got back in touch with me and asked if I'd be interested in getting interviewed for the movie. I was pretty cagey, feeling like this movie had the potential to be successful, and only agreed if my identity could be hidden. I wasn't ready for my closeup yet. I had a fun little interview with them for about 15 minutes that was pretty light-hearted and funny. There was very brief mention of me potentially drawing a poster, but nothing ever came of it.

Ultimately, when the film was edited I wound up on the cutting room floor. The story got very twisty, turn-y and dark, and there just wasn't room for a segment about tickling drawings. I got a nice letter thanking me for participating.

Then, many months later I got invited to go to the NYC premiere of the film in a theater on the lower east side along with Richard and his husband. At that point, it had been nearly 5 years since I'd closed my site and I hadn't done any tickling drawings in that time. I was kind of itching to get back into it, just to see what I could come up with. I wound up drawing this sort of mock poster of the film (even though they'd already come up with a brilliant one). I think David liked it and he was a fun likeness to capture. Though, poor guy, he really hated being tickled in that segment in the film. HATED it. Tickling isn't for everyone, after all.

Stay tuned for a new drawing for TKLFest and a new update!