Happy Crust
"Get cosy under the pastry"
Welcome to Happy Crust! A world set under the crust of pie, populated by a host of characters including our hero Edi Mamu (an edamame bean) and his best friend Peach Ice Tea. They are accompanied by the ever ambitious but hapless My Japanese Scientist in his vanlab, the chip-eating Italians Pam and Tony Panettone, the evil Gizzard and Whizz, Captain Frogspawn (who lives in a bucket of frogspawn) and the mischievious children Pin, Poop and Shonap. The Happy Crust world is full of baked goods, both savoury and sweet, but the most popular pastry is "a wheezer", a type of hot pie that emits a scented steam, almost as if it was breathing. There are different types of wheezer, including a stove-top wheezer, a raspberry puffer, and a crusty-olive-steam-wheezer, to name but a few. These are commonly served at the Big Wheeze, a local diner managed by Brian the Beardy-Weirdy.

Happy Crust is the brainchild of John Walter and Samantha Hardingham, long-discussed over a decade before being brought into reality as a series of drawings and paintings by John between 2021 and 2022. This page featues a slice of the pie to date.

Books of drawings
There are 154 double page spreads, made across 5 books. Each opens to A3 size.
Ink, watercolour and paint pen on paper.
2021-22

  
  
        
      
 

Large paintings
Acrylic on canvas
125 x 165cm
2022

  
  
  
  
  
 
  
  
  
  
 

Small paintings
Ink and acrylic on paper, mounted on canvas
30 x 42cm
2022

   
   
   
   
   

 Photographs: Jonathan Bassett