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!
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.
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.
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:
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!
2016 is rapidly coming to its end and most people seem to be quite happy about that, as far as I can tell. It’s been a bit of a bumpy one, current affairs-wise, but 2017 promises more of the same. Let’s hope that cooler, wiser heads will prevail and that it’s not too troublesome.
For me, the second half of 2016 (as it’s been that long since I updated this blog!) was quiet, book-wise. I was focused almost entirely on writing, something that makes me very happy! I can report that the first draft of the first of my two books for Bloomsbury has been handed in, and I’m awaiting the editorial verdict. I’m expecting lots of red pen as even I could see the flaws of this draft, but I’m looking forward to fixing things up with my editors’ help. I love the world I’ve created in this book and really enjoyed writing it, in spite of a few uneven sentencesparagraphs chapters. I have to finish this book and hand in the first draft of the second book by June next year, so I’m expecting the first six months of 2017 to be spent tapping away on a keyboard…
…apart from January/February, when I’ll be working on the illustrations for this book written by Tom Nicoll. It’s very funny and I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty on the drawings. There are some great, quirky characters in it, which are always very satisfying to do. More info on that when I’m allowed to show it.
The last Creature Teacher book was published in July. It’s now out in six languages (English, Turkish, Danish, Slovak, Hungarian and Vietnamese) which is very pleasing.
Writer Sam Watkins is currently working on a new series from Egmont: The Fintastic Diary of Darcy Dolphin which is out soon, and I’m sure will be… well, fintastic!
Jampires has become something of a Hallowe’en book – not quite what Sarah McIntyre and I intended, but I love hearing about little Jampires turning up at costume parties in October – there are more and more each year!
On the subject of Jampires, here is Mrs Coventry from St Joseph’s School in Keighley, Yorkshire, reading the book aloud for us:
A very impressive performance! I went to a workshop for children’s writers in October on how to inject a bit of drama into book presentations so I’m hoping my reading skills have buffed up a bit. It was hosted by the Golden Egg Academy who mentor up-and-coming authors through the writing and publication process. It was an excellent day and the Golden Eggers are a lovely bunch of people too. I’ve a big couple of presentations in March (among other things) where I need to step up my showbiz side a bit more.
My most recent public gig was at the brilliant Brentwood Children’s Literature Festival back in July, organised by Natasha and Jim at the Chicken & Frog Bookshop. It was very well-organised for a first-time festival and there was a great crowd at the Brentwood theatre to see me do my Monster & Chips comic-making spiel. Some fab comics came out of it too, my favourite being about a prince and princess who meet, fall in love… and are eaten by a giant fly. (Pic below by Natasha.)
Here are some more monster-y drawings that have been sent my way – firstly, this fearsome chap who comes with his own specials board (I love this colour combination!):
— Sophie Anderson❄️THE SNOW GIRL❄️ (@sophieinspace) October 8, 2016
And also this brilliant comic featuring Fuzzby and pals (a couple of years old but which I only just found out about):
Last, but definitely not least, I’m very excited about the next book from me and the amazing Francesca Gambatesa: When I’m A Mummy Like You! It’s out in early February (just in time for Mothering Sunday in the UK) and a bit later in the US – where it’s called When I’m A Mommy Like You! (obviously).
I can’t get over how super Francesca’s art is! She’s done such a wonderful job with my rhyming nonsense and I hope people love it! There’ll be a launch party at some point which I’ll post about here when we’ve firmed up the details.
I’m going to be offline for the rest of the year but have lots of plans for 2017 so will be back refreshed and recharged in January.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a peaceful 2017!
It was great seeing When I’m A Monster Like You, Dad! in various shop windows over the Father’s Day weekend. It’s going down well in the U.S., apparently, and everyone wants to know what Francesca will do for the illustrations for our second book together (including me). There will be a wait, I’m afraid, as that’s not out until early next year. However, you can colour in some of her illustrations with these lovely activity sheets she made, available on my activity page.
Events
I will be at the Brentwood Children’s Literary Festival next month, and in the run up to that I’m taking part in the Brentwood Art Trail. Some of my illustrations are in the window of the wonderful Chicken and Frog Bookshop, who are organisers of the festival. I’ll be running a writing workshop on the 29th July so do come along.
Meanwhile, I’m super-excited about a new book deal which means I’ll be writing a couple of books for an older age group (9-12 years) than my usual 7-10 years. It doesn’t sound like a big age gap but there’s quite a leap in reading ability in that time. Monster & Chips was about twelve thousand words in all, these will be about thirty thousand words long: loads more to write but loads more to play with, developing characters and exploring new worlds. It’s going to be a real challenge but I’m so looking forward to it, especially as I’ll have an editor holding my hand along the way. The first book won’t be out until 2018 but I can’t wait to see what people think.
Happy book birthday to us! Francesca Gambatesa and I have a new picture book in the shops today (and if you’re on the USA, it’s been out for a month already!).
When I’m a Monster Like You, Dad! is about a little monster who wants to be just like his dad: BIG and BAD! But Daddy Monster just wants little monster to have fun. The words are by me and the beautiful artwork is by Francesca. I’m thrilled with how it looks! It’s been a long-timing coming (I wrote the text in 2013) but it’s great to see it finally in the shops -just in time for Father’s Day (June 19th).
We had a launch party at the wonderful Gosh! Comic Shop in London last Friday. Lots of people turned up and I did a dramatic reading of the book! It was a lot of fun – thank you to every one that came along, and thank you to Gosh! for being such good hosts.
Francesca made some goody-bags with little note-cards and badges in. So cool!
Here’s me and Francesca, with monster ears, proudly holding our book baby (taken by Sarah McIntyre):
There are a load of other great photos from the night here, taken by Gosh!’s resident photographer, Mauricio Molizane De Souza. Here’s one of us signing some books (fascinating fact: it was the first time Francesca and I had actually met!):
All the buying information can be found here. Francesca and I will be at Village Books in Dulwich on Sunday 11th June at 11am for a story-telling session, and we’ll be making Father’s Day cards too, so do come along if you’re around. Toot-a-loo!
Firstly, lovely letters. Here’s a drawing from Theo, aged 7, a Monster & Chips reader. He’s drawn a brilliant monster with a snot-burger and chips. Great use of colours, too. You can almost smell the fart!
I also had a very nice letter from Charlie, which was beautifully written, so I’ve taken extra care with my reply. Charlie, from St Bede’s School in Weaverham, said the Barry the cat was his favourite character in Monster & Chips so here’s a little picture of Barry that I drew at the bottom of the letter.
Recently, I finished the illustrations for the last Creature Teacher book. It’s a great series and I was over the moon when the first book won the Heart of Hawick Children’s Book Award! Woohoo! I couldn’t be more pleased for writer Sam Watkins as it was her first published book.
Freshmade NYC are a cooking and craft studio that run cookery sessions for kids in New York City. They have a storybook cooking class, which sounds like a fab idea, and recently ran a Jampires doughnut making session! Here’s a pic from their Instagram feed:
What am I up to at the moment? I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately and a few weeks back finished a manuscript for a book idea that I’m really hopeful will prove to be publisher-friendly. It’s doing the rounds of publishers right now, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed and praying to the book gods that it works out.
I’m also working on a window artwork display for the nice people at Chicken & Frog bookshop in Brentwood. I visited them a couple of years back and am doing an event for the Brentwood Children’s Literary Festival which they are organising. It’s not something I’ve done before so it’s very exciting.
In the meantime, When I’m A Monster Like You, Dad! is out in the shops very soon! My advance copies arrived from the publisher today. Illustrator Francesca Gambatesa and I are hosting a launch event at Gosh! Comics in London on the evening of May 27th – all are welcome, so do come along if you can and say hello (and buy a book!).
A second book of Sam Watkin‘s Creature Teacher series came out in August with me on art duties again. Creature Teacher Goes Wild is set at a theme park which meant lots of fun things to draw. Here’s a bit when Mr Hyde and the gang are on their way to Wilf’s Wild Adventure Theme Park – it gets messy pretty soon afterwards:
There’s another Creature Teacher book out very soon – next week in fact! Creature Teacher Science Shocker introduces a new character who’s more than a match for Creature – but who is it?
The fourth CT book is due out in July and I’ll be drawing the illos for that any day – can’t wait to get started!
CT is also coming out in Turkish which is very exciting. I love seeing books I’m involved with coming out in different languages!
Speaking of foreign editions, JAMPIRES is going to be coming out in Korean which should be really interesting to see as it’s such an attractive written language. My fab co-author, Sarah McIntyre, and I donned our Jampire gear for a spooky Hallowe’en window-painting session at the wonderful GOSH! Comics in London back in October.
It’s very hard to paint on glass, never mind back-to front. I’ve borrowed these photos from GOSH’s Facebook page – they’re both taken by Mauricio Molizane De Souza and there’s plenty more of his ace work to be seen there too.
We talked about our books – all of them funny books – having visited the schools involved in the previous weeks to see what kind of funny stories they could come up with themselves.
It had to be one of the hottest days of the year – not a day to be dressed up as a lion fighting a zebra Roman gladiator.
Yes, dear reader, that is me in the furry onesie, having taken on gladiator Gary, and in the middle of my (very dramatic) death throes. A career highlight.
Finally, I’ve recently got to see the artwork for When I’m a Monster Like You, Dad!, the picture book I wrote that is being illustrated by Francesca Gambatesa. It’s been ages coming (for publisher scheduling reasons) and I was over the moon to see the final images. Francesca’s done such a great job so I couldn’t be more happy!
The second book in our collaboration is in production now and will be out next year some time, but WIMLY (as I call it) is out in the beginning of June – just in time for Father’s Day. I’ll be talking a lot more about this before then, but here is one spread from inside just to whet the appetite:
Now: time to look forward to the challenges of 2016. Onwards!
I get lots of emails from readers in the Netherlands who have to do book reports for school – it sounds like it’s quite a common thing to do. Students have to find out about the book’s authors as well as telling their classmates about the story. I’m quite happy to answer questions as it’s always nice to know that people like your book enough to tell others about it.
I don’t often get to hear how the book reports go, so was very pleased to hear back from Philippe (aged 8) who was awarded a 9 for his report! I’m not surprised, as he included a monstrous menu of his own making:
Translation:
Blood Soup with Living Human Eyes
Hamburger with Dead Cricket
Pizza of Darkness (the title of the second Monstersnackbar book)
That is the scariest pizza I’ve seen in quite a while. I think I’d stick to the hamburger.
Philippe also included a menu made by one of his classmates.
Translation:
Dung Beetles with chips
Frog Legs with chips
Lion’s Eyeballs with (large) chips
Zombie Cupcakes with Icing and chips
Beetles with chips
Very tasty! I love the little illustrations that go with the food, just like the menus in the Monster & Chips (De Monstersnackbar in Dutch) books.
Autumn is here already! I’ve lots of news to catch up on but important things first: fan art.
This picture of Barry from Monster & Chips was sent to me by Tycho from the Netherlands. Barry’s looking very jolly here. Thank you, Tycho – he’s brilliant!
I’m particularly proud of the Dutch editions (De Monstersnackbar) as they’re lovely hardbacks, and it’s nice to hear from Dutch readers. Translator Sandra Hessels obviously did a great job.
The first book of this series came out in April. It can sometimes be a bit confusing working on a set of books that are being published at relatively short intervals. Whilst book one was appearing in the shops I was working on the illustrations for book two and simultaneously working on the cover for book three! I keep getting the books mixed up in my head. Here’s a rough pencil-version of an illustration from book two, with the CT gang on the hunt for mischievous creature!
Creature Teacher writer Sam Watkins had a very busy launch event at Thomas A Becket School in Worthing in May. She spent the whole day doing short events with children from years 1 and 3 – I think she was losing her voice by the end of it all.
I joined her for the afternoon sessions to do a bit of drawing whilst she read from the book. It was a lot of fun but quite exhausting! It was the first time Sam and I had actually met (she is lovely, thank goodness!). Sam even made some swirly biscuits to match the book cover design. I can personally vouch for how tasty they were.
Here’s a pic of us at the end-of-day signing (we didn’t play the bongos, alas). Not sure who took this photo – apologies for pinching it.
Our visit even made it into the Worthing Herald. Oh, the heady heights of fame. Here’s a clipping from Sam’s Twitter feed:
We ran a competition at the school to design a cover for a Creature Teacher book – you can see all the entries at the CT website here. I love how much energy there is in all the drawings, but then it is a very energetic book!
More recently, Sam and I visited Brighton Waterstones for a drawing and reading session. Everyone got to design their own Creature Teachers, drawing or doing a bit of collage. Here’s some photos from Sam’s Twitter:
It’s great doing events with someone else – you get to bounce ideas off each other, as well as providing a bit of support. Sam and I will be doing more events together at some point soon.
Whilst in Brighton for the Waterstones shindig I popped along to the Brighton Illustration Fair, part of the town’s fringe festival.
It was good to catch up with comics chums Joe Decie, Warwick Johnson Cadwell and Amber Hsu, who all had tables, as well as bump into Matt Baxter.
Lots of lovely things to see, but I was very much taken with the drawing activity they had: rotating towers of cardboard boxes that you could draw on in a heads-and-tails fashion. Worth bearing in mind for a future event.
Other news
I was thrilled to see Whitchurch School in Hampshire have been reading Monster and Chips as part of their Year 4 book group. The readers have been creating their own monsters and even making up their own ‘delicious’ menu:
Bashed Beetleburger AND CHIPS
Slimy Slug Surprise with antennae eyes
Eyeball soup with slug slime chips
Bogey burger gravy AND CHIPS
Smelly cabbage soup with poo plop croutons
Earwax tart
Poo plop croutons! Tasty. I hope you enjoy the rest of the book – I love seeing people’s reactions to it. Thanks to librarian and book evangelist Jo for the tip-off!
I was very pleased the group had read Jampires too! The US edition is out at the end of the month and my co-author Sarah McIntyre and I were very happy to have a nice review from Publisher’s Weekly.
Sarah has been very busy – and successful – with her Pictures Mean Business Campaign, trying to get more recognition for book illustrators in their contribution to a book’s success. You can find out more here, or follow the #PicturesMeanBusiness hashtag on Twitter
It’s officially out today (although I think it’s been in some shops for a bit): Creature Teacher is here!
Written by Sam Watkins and with illos by me, it’s the story of Mr Hyde, everyone’s favourite teacher, who has a rather unusual secret: he turns into a weird creature whenever he gets upset!
It’s a great read and very funny, and I hope it’s a huge success for Sam as it’s her debut book! We’ve not yet met but will be doing a few events together in Worthing in a couple of weeks – very exciting! Purple snot may be involved. Allegedly.
There’s loads more info about the book on our Creature Teacher website (including important buying stuff).
You can find out about all the characters, read an extract from the story, and Sam’s also come up with some brilliant writing and drawing activities which can be downloaded for printing.
Make your own purple snot! Test your slug general knowledge! Make some moon rock cakes!
I did the illustrations for the book digitally, which helped a lot in meeting the deadlines. It still meant there were a few steps in the process of making them, but no boring scanning which always takes ages.
Here’s a walk-through of my process for making an illustration, where Mr Hyde’s doing some crazy dancing in front of the class!
1. I get sent a PDF of the book where the designer has left spaces for the illustrations with suggestions for what they might be. I worked with the lovely Sarah Darby – we’ve not met but I reckon she has a heck of a social life.
2. I block out some basic shapes to help me get the relative positions of all the picture’s elements in place and just get a feel for the illo. There might be several versions of this.
3. Then I draw a rough (digital) pencil sketch showing a bit more detail. This normally goes back to the designer for approval.
4. If the publishers are happy, I’ll ‘ink’ the sketch.
5. The finished illustration. I’ve added some grey tones and a bit of texture to make things interesting. The designer may make further tweaks, particularly if there have been changes to the text layout, but otherwise we’re all done!
Creature Teacher is the first of a series of four books (I’m about to start working on Book 2). Do go and buy it – it’s in the shops now!
I had a good post day yesterday and, appropriately enough for World Book Day, it was a book! With my pictures in it!
Creature Teacher is the first of a series of books written by Sam Watkins, and it’s been my privilege to have illustrated it.
A strange thing happens to Jake’s teacher Mr Hyde when he gets upset: he turns into a little monster that causes chaos in the classroom!It’s up to Jake and his friends to keep Mr Hyde’s secret from horrible headmistress Mrs Blunt.
It was huge fun to do the pics for this – it’s a brilliant, funny read, and there’s more to come. It’s published by OUP and the editor was Peter Marley, with design by Sarah Darby and Molly Dallas.
Yesterday was a bit of a busy one: off to Oxford for a workshop and ‘show’ (look at the purple-y poster I made for it!) at the fabulous Story Museum. It’s an amazing and highly unusual space devoted to story-making and telling, and a real gem amongst all of Oxford’s better known attractions.
I ran a comic-making workshop in the morning with a Hallowe’en-y/monster-y feel. Lots of keen comic-makers were there with loads of ideas – the beginning of a workshop is usually talkative and boisterous.
But the moment they had to get on with making their own comics the whole room descended into such an intense silence that I wished I’d brought some music with me!
And there were some fantastic comics made – we had some time at the end of the workshop for those brave enough to share their comics with everybody. Some were hilarious, some action-packed, some more gentle – I always try to get across that the great thing about comics is how versatile they are as a medium.
One work-shopper brought along his collection of Monster & Chips books to be signed. I was so pleased to see how well-worn the covers were! Nice to meet you, Aydin! It was at that moment that Sarah McIntyre arrived for our afternoon event and she snapped me busily scribbling in the books.
Then Sarah and I rushed off to do our JAMPIRES show! Our performance is still a bit wobbly in some places, especially after the last-minute addition of a Jampires song (!), but it all adds to the fun. I need to brush up on my tambourine skills, that’s for sure. Here’s a pic from after it was all over (pinched from Sarah) with some of the audience and their Jampire artwork:
Sarah always manages to look so elegant in her costume whilst I just look a bit of a fool! Thanks to everyone who came along – both events were sell-outs – and huge thanks to the Story Museum for being such great hosts.
I’m currently producing the illustrations for the first of two chapter books. I’ve not written these books and it’s been a lot of fun interpreting someone else’s text. The deadline for the first book has been very ‘ambitious’ in publishing-speak (‘insane’ in Dave-speak) but thankfully my Cintiq has really come into its own. I completed fifty greyscale illustrations in seven days – without any stress – and I’m personally pleased with the way they turned out, which is unusual for me. Let’s hope the publisher likes them too! Here’s a sneak peek:
I’ve spotted Jampires in my local Sainsburys, where it’s part of their Hallowe’en seasonal promotion and is reportedly selling well. Jampires isn’t really a Hallowe’en book but I’m not going to complain! To see Jampires sitting so close to Monster & Chips in the same shop was pretty exciting for me. Also, Nectar points!
Frankfurt
The international book fair in Frankfurt is this week, one of the two book fairs of the year that drive the children’s book market. I’m represented in a couple of places, but was very pleased to see my upcoming picture book in the HarperCollins Children’s Books catalogue: When I’m a Monster Like You – illustrated by Francesca Gambatesa.
This is the only image I’ve seen so far and it makes me very excited to see how Francesca’s interpreted the rest of the story! The catalogue says it’s not out until January 2016 which seems like along way off right now but I’m sure it will go quickly. More about this book (and the two others in the series) in the future.
Feedback
Everyone loves a bit of fan mail – I do particularly! These letters and pictures have come all the way from Monster & Chips readers (and superb artists) Sammi and Olivia in Australia. Love the colours on these – I’ve not used felt tip marker pens in a long time but these make me want to crack open a pack and get colouring.
I’m kicking off a new work project today. Here’s a sneaky peek at one of the characters! I’m using a Cintiq 21UX for this job, which I recently bought second-hand. I’m hoping it will make the process faster. Unfortunately it doesn’t make me a better artist!
This is a Cintiq – it’s a touch screen device that plugs into your computer and acts as a second screen. With a stylus you can draw on it just like paper.
On the screen you can see a two page spread from the book I’m illustrating, with the text all ready in place.
The grey box is where the book designer wants the illustration to go. She’s also high-lighted some text in blue that is relevant to the picture. Using the Cintiq I can draw the illustration straight into the page, rather than using paper, pencils and ink and then having to scan the whole thing.
I always get a bit nervous about new projects and have to take a couple of days to get my head around the task and try not to panic about what I’m being asked to do. Sometimes you just have to go for a walk to get your thoughts together.
On a trip to Sainsbury’s I was very pleased to see they were stocking the re-packaged Monster & Chips for their Reading Scheme. It looks very nice next to all the other books and they’re doing a buy-one-get-one-free offer, if you’re interested!
