Coming soon…

It’s still a bit early to talk about this, but my new fiction series (illustrated by Claire Powell) has made an appearance in Bloomsbury Children’s Books online catalogue for the first half of next year.

[Click on the image for a slightly more readable version of the catalogue.]

I’ll be posting more information when I can (and as usual, the book will have its own page on my website) but for now, I’m keeping my fingers/toes/other bits crossed for October’s Frankfurt Book Fair, where I’m hoping some foreign publishers will be interested in buying rights.

Quick Post

Last night I went to the launch for Katherina Mannolessou‘s Look for Ladybird in Plant City at Gosh! Comics in London.

It’s a gorgeous-looking book. Above is author Katherina giving a speech with editor Kate Davies (left) of Frances Lincoln Children’s Books.

Molly Jamieson and Emily Talbot from United Agents, with authors Smriti Prasadam-Halls and Sarah McIntyre.

An interior of the book (click for a bigger version) – so much work! It’s amazing. Congrats, Katerina!

Happy Book Birthday: Boyband of the Apocalypse!

It’s the publication day for Boyband of the Apocalypse by Tom Nicoll! It was my pleasure to do the illustrations, with fabulous design help from Sophie Bransby of Stripes. The whole project was a lot of fun to work on.

Here’s the blurb:

When Sam agrees to take his little sister, Lexie, to see the world’s most popular boy band, Apocalips, he expects it to be bad. But he doesn’t expect to get locked in a cupboard, to overhear the band plotting to destroy the world and to witness them disintegrate one of their own members. When no one believes him but his best friend, Milo, Sam is left with no option but to take part in a contest to join the band to try and save the world from Armageddon. To do this Sam will have to become someone he’s never been before. With help from Milo and Lexi, he’ll have to overcome the Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse, pop Svengali Nigel Cruul, a dodgy haircut, and his complete inability to sing or dance. Still, it’s not the end of the world. Not yet anyway.

And here’s one of the interior illustrations (and my favourite): Apocalips on stage!

All the information for BOTA is here. Go buy and make Tom a happy man!

Holiday

Back from a few days of refreshing seaside sun. I love Southwold!

So many different textures and tones to be seen. The coastal landscape is quite stunning.

It always helps when you’ve got decent weather, of course. Fortunately, it was a beautiful week and the town wasn’t busy, as it was the just before the summer season starts in earnest.

Back to work! I had some nice news whilst I was away – hopefully I will be able to share it soon.

Beano 1979 versus Beano 2017

This week I bought the Beano comic for the first time in, well… decades. As a child I had it delivered from the newsagents. ‘Beano Day’ was definitely a highlight of a week dominated by school and its associated joys/miseries.  It was the first comic I ever read, and I’ve never stopped reading comics since. I’ve even had a go at making my own – its influence is enormous.

The Beano has recently had a revamp and I thought I’d have a look, and compare it to the comic of my boyhood. I was reading the Beano in 1977, which would have made the gap a nice, round forty years, but I must have thrown those issues in the bin at some point as the earliest I have is 1979. So here is a comparison of today’s Beano with that of thirty-eight years ago instead.

Fear not! This is not an old-man-ranting review. I appreciate today’s Beano is not made for me. I’ve self-published comics, edited comic anthologies and I write for children. I have some understanding of how much effort and cost it takes to get something like this into the shops every week (A LOT) and have a professional interest in what’s current in kids’ culture. I’m also a history nerd and documenting changes in popular culture is a useful exercise in seeing how far our society has progressed (or not). I also thought it would be a fun thing to do, so here goes:

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Spring happenings

Here’s what has been happening with me for the first part of this year.

When I’m a Mummy Like You!, the picture booked created by me and Francesca Gambatesa was released into the wild in February! We had a launch party at Gosh! Comics in Soho to celebrate (pic by Sarah McIntyre). It’s also out now in the US as When I’m a Mommy Like You! You can read a lovely review at Bookblog Book Monsters here. Francesca spotted the book in Foyles window as part of a Mother’s Day display.

Meanwhile, I finished the illustrations for Tom Nicoll‘s Boyband of the Apocalypse that’s out in June, and I’m pleased to say there’s a sequel on the cards which I’ll also be drawing. I’m looking forward to that, as I really enjoyed working on Boyband.

Also in February, Sarah McIntyre kindly invited me to take part with her show at this year’s Imagine Festival at the RFH, along with Katherina Manoulessou and Stephen Collins.

We had to talk about our book characters and then lead the audience in a draw-along – the (huge) audience were very enthusiastic and some fantastic drawings were produced.

Read Sarah’s report here (from where I pinched these pics).

In March I had another big event at Leicester Author Week, organised by Whatever It Takes, an initiative to encourage reading within the city. I gave a talk to two sets of school children – about 400 children in all – about my work, followed by creative writing workshops. It was a busy day, but a lot of fun! Thanks to WIT for organising it, probably the best organised event I’ve been invited to. (Pic by WIT)

World Book Day (or at least, the UK version!) is in March and it always pleases me to see how many people dress up as Jampires, year after year. Here are some pics that appeared on Twitter:

So cute!

Currently, I’m working on the edits for the first book of my novel series with Bloomsbury books, which comes out next year. An illustrator has been chosen and I’m very excited about the whole thing. Fingers crossed that other people like it too!