The Percher. The Mover. The Bagbeater. All characters you'll recognise from the London Underground — and all characters who feature in these cartoons by Timothy Wood and Elliot Moss.
The concept for the book came about after a chance meeting between the two in The Moon Under Water pub in Leicester Square, where conversation turned to what the pair did to pass the time while sat on trains each day.
"Elliot had been people-watching and jotting down humorous names for the different types of people he'd see each day," says Wood, "I said we should make a book about them — a thought which developed into a sort of Hitchhiker's-Guide-meets-Origin-of-Species to help identify each one."
The list quickly grew, and Moss and Wood selected the 50 best characters for Wood to illustrate. Each character was given a humorous pig-latin name, in keeping with the Darwin-esque theme. (It's a bit like having David Attenborough narrate your commute.)
The pair are now crowdfunding to have their idea turned into a book (which they promise will happen before Crossrail does). They're treating it as a pre-order: £12 gets you a copy of the book when it's published, and your name in the back.
One other deliciously geeky bit of fun: the page numbering system in the book correlates with the line that each character is paired with. Each page has a number that corresponds with a tube carriage that has at some point been used on that line, with the last two digits being the actual page number.
I mean, top marks for nerdiness, guys.
Help Subterranean Travellers - The Spotter's Guide become a book, by funding its £1,200 target.
