Karen Addison takes on Tottering-By-Gently brand as Woodmansterne launches card range
A new client has tottered into licensing agent Karen Addison’s hands in the shape of Annie Tempest’s classic Tottering-By-Gently cartoons.
Famously appearing each week in Country Life magazine, Annie’s drawings depicting the lives of aging aristocrats Daffy and Dicky were a very popular part of the Peartree Heybridge greeting card portfolio until the company closed last year.
The brand has recently signed a licensing partnership for greeting cards with Woodmansterne, and Karen has now taken on the illustrator to represent her for future licensing deals under her Karen Addison Associates company, after Annie’s long-standing agent Raymond O’Shea finally retired at the grand age of 82.
Karen went for a coffee with Annie following Raymond’s recent stepping down, and said: “What a character! For 32 years she’s been drawing a weekly cartoon for Country Life, it’s incredible.”
Of the main protagonist in the Tottering cartoons, where the pair live amid the decaying splendour of Tottering Hall in the fictional county of North Pimmshire, Karen laughed: “Sadly, I can identify tremendously with Daffy in the fastening the skirt department, but have to keep going!”
Prior to her Peartree Heybridge days, Annie worked with US company Caspari, and has just begun collaborating with it again on products including cocktail napkins, bottle bag, and boxed note set, which will be available soon.
Annie, who admits she’s “happiest in the studio in paint-splattered dungarees”, keeps her fans up to date with regular Instagram posts and has also featured in this week’s edition of Country Life magazine with a full-page article about the trials and tribulations of tackling technology to set up her new website, where she continues to sell the originals of her cartoons at around £950 each.
