A few weeks ago, when the Guardian entered the incomprehensibly popular world of adult colouring by publishing a general election colouring book special, nobody knew what sort of reaction to expect. The danger was that the print edition would end up as tragically monochrome wrapping paper in middle-class, north London fish and chip shops.
And yet, happily, you leapt on it with tremendous abandon. We have been inundated with pictures of your results, which have been so universally clever and funny and angry and creative that the least we could do was share them. And now, to channel our inner Tony Hart, here is a selection of your finest creations.
Of course, all the classics were covered – David Cameron as the devil, Nigel Farage as Hitler – but some of you managed to find more esoteric subtexts within our pictures.
The image of a bearded Ed Miliband, dollar chain swinging around his neck and bellowing “Thug life”, is a personal favourite …
… as is the one where he is attempting to force a giant bacon sandwich into his mouth.
Then we have the pictures by Mel Elliott, who created the original illustrations: so exquisitely shaded that they have even managed to make Cameron look twinkly eyed and youthfully glowing.
And whoever turned Nigel Farage into Jabba the Hutt, you will be receiving our therapy bills in due course.
Best of all, in terms of incisive political comment, was the work sent in by Anna Morse. Anna (or her child) took our picture of Cameron, Osborne and Johnson in full Bullingdon garb and simply scribbled out their faces with a crayon. Anna (or your child), you are the new Banksy and you have an impossibly bright future ahead of you.
Guardian writers also got in on the fun. Marina O’Loughlin, a resident of South Thanet, turned Nigel Farage into a weirdly Ian Beale-esque clown.
Marina Hyde went to extraordinary lengths to turn the Bullingdon Club picture into a still from the opening titles of Grange Hill (pictured top). Most striking, though, is the image of Ed Miliband who, in a fit of demob-happy giddiness, was transformed into the subject of The Scream by Alan Rusbridger.
My own attempt involved the least-loved of our collection, the two-for-one image of Natalie Bennett and Nicola Sturgeon.
Eventually, after many hours of indecision, I chose to depict Sturgeon in the same way that cutting-edge satirical performance artist Piers Morgan has done, by turning her into a miniature Godzilla. With that in mind, it seemed only correct to turn Bennett into Mothra, who is, after all, basically just a rubbish Godzilla.
All these pictures – with the possible exception of my Godzilla one, which looks like a desperate cry for help – have vastly exceeded our expectations.
You have done yourselves proud, even if all you did was perform an infantilised task on the say-so of a powerful media organisation. You guys are the best.
- This article was modified on 4 May 2015. An earlier version miscredited Eleanor Marsh’s pictures of Ed Miliband and Nigel Farage. This has been corrected.
