Caleb: Who is Tami Knight...? How'd you get into making epic cartoons, your amazing humor, and what prompted such a unique style?
Tami: Tami Knight is a 65 year old Canadian chick who coaches recreational gymnastics, is mother of 2, grandmother of 3 and married to Phil who does all the work "in post" for me. He's also her enforcer if needed hahah. Tami did a ton of climbing as a younger person but, more recently, arthritic hips and a few other dumb reasons have limited her outdoor recreation to riding her bike around town.Â
I loved cartoons as a kid. I read Dr. Seuss & P.D. Eastman (Go Dog Go), moved onto Mad Magazine, Cracked , Archie comics (preferred Betty & Jughead) then superhero comics (Conan the Barbarian) but also Tintin & Asterix and then The Far Side. I studied animation at Emily Carr College (now it's a university lol) and graduated in 1983. I never used my degree simply because there were no jobs and , besides, I'd got into climbing and that & traveling to go climbing was more important than any damn job ! So post-grad I went treeplanting in the 1980s to fund my fun. My parents always encouraged me to draw so I did. They also permitted a fair bit of self-expression so I wasn't limited by any set of false ideas or expectations (e.g. religion). I've always believed strongly in being influenced by others but not copying them so I didn't want to be "the next [insert famuss name here]" but the first Tami Knight hahahahhahah. I see a lot in life thats really absurd and so I like to point it out & make fun of it. Â
C: How has climbing influenced your art over the years?
T: My rat character emerged from my climbing in a pretty much fully formed vision of what climbers were - and are - like !!!! My first boyfriend was Peter Croft. Bluntly said, he looked like a rat. Here's a drawing of him from 1979 or so. Note the use of a Bic pen as drawing weapon-of-choice.Â
Now I don't mean this in a mean way - he had a small nose, whiskers and brown hair & eyes - quite cute really especially to my 18 year old self. And like all our cohort of climbing friends at Squamish at the time, he and I just wanted to climb ALL THE FAKKIN TIME. Everything in our lives was directed at the big black hole of climbing. As such, my art became inextricably connected ...kinda like smashin' atoms together and makin' molecules only this wasn't some unstable radioactive shit, it became me.
This dates from 1981 or so. Can you guess what fine (haha) tavern this is? Big hint is Washington state. My money is on Bill getting it inside of 10 seconds. Â
C: Weirdest memory of Bill Amos or John Campbell (Alpine Luddites).. or both?!
T: Some secrets a gal must keep.Â
C: Tami, what's your favorite cartoon you've ever drawn?Â
T: I can't quite put my finger on why but this one is my overall fave.Â
But I have plenty o' faves:Â
C: What's up with all the inside jokes?
T: Hahahha. I like to create a toon so someone can scan it like it's an Insta piccy of a kitten or a ba-dum-tsssssh type toon or they can start drilling into it for a deeper adventure. Kinda like doing a climb. Didja do it fer the tick list? TO fill out yer cv ? Or was it more of an adventure that you regaled around the campfire (camp stove!? ) later that evening? Didja write it up and include funky details like the scorpion you found in yer pack? And fifty years later are you tellin the story to yer grands?Â
Check out this one :-) It was the answer I did to RR when he wrote a piece (I forget who for) in the 1990s about rapbolting. If you were lucky enough to have read the piece, he actually used words like "seven sacred virgins" , "evil rapbolt thugs", "pugnacious subalterns" and so on. PURE FODDER. I just fluffled the piece out to include more fun'n' games. Can you see Batso? And of course RR is holding a #11 Hex. Anyway........Royal LOVED the piece and signed my copy. Woo hoo!!!! Â
C: What is your favorite genre of climbing? & why is it obviously that Tami loves Ice Climbing the most?
T: I started climbing when climbing was divided into "Rock Climbing", "Ice Climbing" and "Mountaineering" also known as "Alpine Climbing". Rock and ice climbing were done primarily as a training to do that same shit in the mountains*. Not as a thing unto itself.Â
Emerging in the late 70's at Squamish was this even more niche training called "Bouldering" (Thank you John Gill) and, as you're well aware, "Sport Climbing" ( "is neither" according to Verm) around the mid 1980s. And the intardnet has now got us thinking of climbing genres like "hi-ball bouldering", "dry-tooling" and so on ....so why not "upsidedownin'" or "raw-doggin'" ? ITS ALL REALLY GOOFY!!!!!!Honestly, it's ALL climbing. It's going up stuff to get to the top and brag about it to friends and family.Â
I realized ice climbers were nuts when I heard about a couple of Quebecois ice climbers who were doing really sick stuff. To me, cold stiff water was something to avoid........tho' I do have to admit my first "ice climb" was following Peter up Professor Falls (Grade IV) in my half-shank leather boots with adjustable crampons that Don Serl had to teach me how to put on at the base. Not bragging but reporting in on what nutty shit ice climbers do. Hahahahahahahha
* The winter of '78 I was expounding on my virtues as a "rock climber" to an ancient doyenne of the Vancouver mountaineering scene, Margaret Mackenzie, w ho had climbed with the Mundays. Mrs Mackenzie was born in the late 1890s. She said "Oh, my dear, you're NOT one of those HARDWARE climbers now are you???" HAHAHAAHAHAAHAHA
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C: What's your most famous piece of art the climbing community would recognize first?
T: Good lord you know I haven't a clue. Skiers would recognize the avalanche poodle; as I understand it, "be the poodle" means be the first to ski the slope. Guffaw and goodbye. As for climbers? Just the rat character I 'spoze.Â
C: What is the greatest collection of outdoor comics? and why is it obviously your recent book?
T: Because it's sui generis. There aren't any others like it. So it's kinda in a category of one hahahhahahaha. So you could also say it's the worst collection of outdoor comix !!!!!! While there are cartoonists out there drawing climbing toons, I'm the only one who has been at it since the 1970s.  I don't have to pay my bills with my "art" so I don't have to substantially craft the work like, say, one does when doing advertising illustration. I've also been lucky to do work that's fairly radioactive so only nano-companies like NWAlpine and Alpine Luddites would even consider using my work for their brands. Bigger companies with big phoney reputations won't touch me with a hot iron poker while wearing a hazmat suit. And I'm fuckin' fine with that. Â
Secret Plans, Vol. III is self published because of the same reason so Phil & I had total control over the content. I'm 65 now & am still drawing but during the pandemic while doing full time end-of-life care for my Mum, we decided it was time to gather my archives that had been scattered hither thither and yon and see just what I'd been doing with the past forty years of my life. You know, other than living, raising a family and navigating the insanity that is life. We put together 215 toons, some that are a quick snicker and others you can sit with a number of times and still see more stuff in it. Phil did ALL the scanning, tidy up and colourizing of the work. He's invaluable to me. Â
You can find Tami Knight's new book Secret Plans, Vol. III via her website TamiKnight.comÂ
PS, If you've made it this far, we've got an exciting new collab with Tami coming soon. An iconic design you'll want to get your hands on ASAP ;)
