You can now spend two quid and get You Can't Eat a Princess! and You Can't Scare a Princess! as eBooks!



And they're not just pages on a screen, you can turn the whole stories into Gilbert & Sullivan style musicals!



When I was at the Reeves this weekend, 10-year-old Sam and I had a blast mucking around with the stories on Philip's iPad. This is my favourite feature of the eBooks, you can record stuff:



This is brilliant because you can record and save the story in more than one language, have different people reading it aloud, or if you're Sam and me, get busy sabotaging it, then making up stupid songs. Hurrah! This is a very UNOFFICIAL VIDEO.



I totally need to get an iPad. If you have one, head on over to the MeBooks website, download the free app, watch the intro video to see how things work, then get busy playing with the stories!



Thanks for your great work on these: Gillian Rogerson with the script, Sarah Daykin for the audio recording, and the MeBooks people for developing it! You can follow MeBooks on Twitter: @Me_Books.

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I have LOADS to blog about this weekend - my first eBooks! Exeter's animation festival! - but I promised myself I'd get a whole picture book spread painted today, so I'll have to blog about those later. But I thought I'd post a few drawings and photos from my interplanetary trip. This is how I looked on my spaceship about 9:30 last night.



Yesterday morning, I did some exploration of the martian terrain. (Funny, I thought Mars would be much hotter.)



And aliens! I met aliens! These two are named Alfie and Iggie.




I spotted strange liquid formations on the planet's surface:



And found it was inhabited, and not just by aliens, but by two eccentric explorers from Earth, named Sarah and Philip Reeve.



Here's Sarah, back at the comfy space station.



I made an alien comic with their hatchling, Sam:



And we left a coded message to beam back to Gary, my studio shipmate:



Back on Planet Earth now, but just before landing, I caught one last glimpse of the alien landscape:

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Hurrah! Scholastic's publishing director just tweeted a photo of our new book...


... so that means I'm allowed to show you now! Introducing Superkid, typed out neatly by Claire Freedman, writer of the hugely popular Aliens Love Underpants.



This book's been on the burner for absolutely ages; I signed on to do it right when I paired up with Scholastic, and then it got pushed forward so I could do the second Princess Spaghetti book before all the fans of You Can't Eat a Princess! had grown up. So Superkid's been in the back of my mind for a long time and it's great to see him finally getting to launch. I sometimes get asked to do comics workshops for kids and then discover the kids are slightly too young to make comics, so this will be a good picture book starter, to get their little feet in the door. You can see lots of clues on the cover to the wild adventure stuff packed inside.

Second bit of news: Vern and Lettuce and five other books in the DFC Library will come out in paperback this August! To celebrate it, I've made a new cover:



Spot a new book in these six below? That's Jamie Smart's Fish Head Steve! It's never been seen in book form before, so that's very exciting! The Etherington Brothers have just written about it on their blog, which you can read here.



Here's a trailer for Fish Head Steve:



Speaking of Jamie Smart, there's one more thing you absolutely shouldn't miss: he's just been tweeting about a new comic for children that he's hoping to start up, called Moose Kid Comics. Jamie has edited anthologies before and self-published loads of comics, besides his regular work in The Phoenix Comic, Scholastic, Nickelodeon, The Dandy, loads of stuff. Click over to the Moose Kid Comics to find out more, and if you're a comics artist, how you might be able to get involved.


Find out more...

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I love how social media makes little stories at night, but by morning, they've slipped unnoticeably the Twitter stream. Anyway, it's a good excuse to post a quick drawing:



And here's how it came about: lovely Alex T Smith, making cookies and drawing a goat.


Goat sketch by Alex T Smith You can follow him on Twitter as @Alex_T_Smith.

Other news, just saw in The Bookseller that Raina Telgemeier has signed to do another graphic novel with Scholastic Inc, called Sisters. Cool! Now if only we could convince Scholastic UK to publish graphic novels... *smiles wistfully*

One more thing, it's school half-term and London's Imagine Festival is still going full-steam ahead. Don't miss David O'Connell's sure-to-be-fab comics workshop this Friday! Ages 7-11, details on his website. (He's @DavidOConnell on Twitter, keep an eye out for future workshops.)



And just in case you missed it on the Fleece Station blog, here's a goat video that had us in absolute stitches:

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What a day! Philip Reeve and I did two Imagine Festival joint events in the big ballroom in the middle of the Royal Festival Hall, in front of over a thousand people! Thank you, Philip, for this oh-so-lovely picture you drew of me during my introduction:



We were introduced by the incredibly striking Madame Lark, who was rather disturbingly carrying a large saw and violin bow.



No one was injured during the course of our event, although some musical notes got some seriously abusive-but-impressive treatment. She's a hard woman with a voice box and she knows how to use it.



Can you believe I used to be shy... For our afternoon Monsters vs Goblins show, the ballroom was packed, with people standing at the back.


Photo by Ruth Huddleston


It was lovely of the festival to accommodate our monsters theme with their own monsters...



Here's a monster that the audience helped us draw, Philip and me taking turns adding bits to it.



This page started out as a joint drawing but turned into a war zone.



Another audience-assisted monster drawing:



The group at the morning show got to draw their own monsters and goblins, too!



At the book signing afterward, it was fun seeing them come up with their drawings.



This girl drew a very literal Morris the Mankiest Monster vs Skarper the goblin!



Here's a drawing Philip made when he was introducing Skarper and the goblin chief, King Knobbler. If you like, you can play the Goblins Bratapult Wars game (a bit like Angry Birds) over on the Scholastic website.



And here's another drawing of Skarper, and my very helpful drawing of a dwarf. It was fun getting a rise out of the crowd by adding the bows, bunnies and ballet shoes while Philip had his back turned. BEHIND YOU!



Philip had a 150-people, sold-out Goblins workshop in between our two events (they really worked him!). Here he is, right before the workshop, doing a warm-up drawing.



Philip led the group in a world-building exercise. He's used to the 'young adult' crowd, from his Mortal Engines books and such, so it was a little different and surprising for him, having a much younger audience. But they were all still totally into it, building their own worlds.



Such as this one, so awesome:



A few more:











A huge thanks to my fabulous Scholastic picture book editor, Pauliina Malinen-Teodoro, who came along with her son to help out for the day.



I had several editors for my last picture book, but Pauliina came in right at the end, and now I'm working with her on a brand-new picture book that I've both written and illustrated. I already love working with her, she's ace.





Hurrah to the Imagine Festival team! It took hundreds (if not thousands) of people to make it happen, but here's organiser Ruth Huddleston (@Marielairre on Twitter) and Alton Brown (@AltonCarlBrown):

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One last reminder about this Sunday's two free MONSTERS VS GOBLINS events at the Imagine Festival on London's Southbank! 10:30, 2:15, details here...



And next Saturday, Philip Reeve and I will be launching a new book, The Exeter Riddles with a wild Comics Jam session! Martin Chilton at The Telegraph has written a great article about the new story, which comes in several editions (three editions in embossed leather!) and will have a little bit of illustration by ME. (Yay!)



If you're anywhere near Exeter or love animation, illustration, comics, etc, head on over for Animated Exeter and book tickets for our Comics Jam!


...Read more here

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Guys. Let me guess. If you're reading this blog post, you're probably:

1. Involved somehow in publishing
2. A published writer, illustrator or someone aspiring to be published
3. A parent who is impassioned about books for children, perhaps even with your own book blog
4. A teacher or librarian
5. My family

(If you don't fall into one of these demographics, give me a wave down in the comments box!) This is my point: whatever I'm going to say about libraries now will be preaching to the choir. If I write, 'Hurrah for libraries! Save Libraries', you'll feel a vague warm fuzzy feeling, think Good for her, she's one of us, and move on to the more interesting news about Oscar Pistorius shooting his girlfriend.

I'm actually losing track of what Terry Deary said because I keep getting pieces of it through different media sites (The Bookseller, Guardian, Telegraph, The Independent, Alan Gibbons, outraged tweeters) and hearing it back repeatedly, usually with nasty names and swear words included. But the thing is, I'M HEARING ABOUT IT. People who aren't even really into books have probably heard of Horrible Histories. The guy's prompted so many people read and care about history who might not have otherwise; I think he's earned his chance to say something and have us think about it. There's been a lot of good stuff said about libraries, but recently there's also been a huge amount of nostalgia, and people repeating the same things. I haven't heard a lot of creative solutions. Not because the ideas aren't out there - I bet loads of people are coming up with great ideas - it's just that the media doesn't work that way. People who aren't interested in the library debate aren't going to trawl through lengthy articles on literary blogs. The media jumps on people who say outrageous things. And outrageous things are never the things that make us feel 'that person is part of our club'.

Say that you're an aspiring author or new author, and you have ideas to get people reading that challenge the current library set-up. Perhaps your ideas even involved drastically changing libraries as we know them, or closing down certain buildings. It would be career suicide to put the idea out there... well, if anyone even noticed what you said. If somehow you did manage to create a few waves, you'd never get another library booking, librarians wouldn't want to stock your books, book people would snub you at parties (if you were even invited) and no one would ask you to speak at conferences. Deary didn't have to worry about this, he knew people WOULD listen, because he has clout, and he doesn't need events or bookings to make his books sell. And he also knew that if he toed the party line about saving libraries, all the library-friendly people would nod and say, 'good ol' Terry' and it would make very little impact on anyone outside the circle.

Now, I need to go back and read what he's said very carefully. The point that immediately raised my hackles was the implication that all people can afford books. No they can't, especially kids, they can go through hundreds of books a month if they're avid readers and few parents would support a habit like that. I doubt he's saying 'books only for the rich', that doesn't seem like something he'd say. But the points he made about libraries taking business away from bookshops made me think, what? And what he said about the cinema and telly not being free, so why should books be, was an interesting point. I don't get to go to the cinema and watch a film for free just because I don't want to own it, and I don't go to the supermarket for free food. I suspect , in the end, I will not agree with Deary about this, but I'd like to think about it some more. Maybe he can slightly alter some of the ideas I take for granted.

One of my best friends works like this; sometimes when I say something that everyone else is saying in the politically-left-leaning book world, he'll come back with something very contrary that sounds totally preposterous, often just to get a rise out of me. But usually when I talk with him about it, I'll find out why he's said that, and very often it will slightly alter my own opinion, even if I don't come to agree with him, or agree with him entirely. It's one of the reasons he's a best friend, and why I find working with him boosts my creativity so much.

What I'm saying is this: you don't have to agree with Deary, you might hate what he says. In fact, I'm almost sure you do, since you're one of the above demographic. But let's be civilised in our response; libraries have been a pinnacle of our civilisation. And contrary to what Deary implied, a lot of good things have come from the Victorians: women's suffrage, worker's rights, mass education (I'm repeating now what my friend said to me but I'm not going to make him jump publicly into the debate). And we can be glad that we CAN give a response, that Deary has the discussion going again in the media, and there's more chance the media will listen to you if you tackle what he's said. Thank you, Terry Deary, for that. I've seen several good responses already, but I've also seen a lot of name calling. Library friends, don't do that. You know Deary isn't anti-reading; Deary's the guy you want to invite to your panel discussions. We need more than only hard-working but invisible yes-men.

There are very practical reasons we still need libraries, but in what form? That's where we need you to come in with your ideas. Let's give people a safe space to share them without making them feel their careers are at stake if they say something odd. In fact, let's say more odd things. Let's get everyone talking.

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I haven't posted a drawing for a few days, so here you go, a caricature of Michael Portillo.



I like trains - I even illustrated a train book - but Stuart loves them more (he's a proper anorak) and has been obsessing over Portillo's Great Railways Journeys series. I've been watching the first episodes of Mad Men Series 5 with headphones on to avoid the show, but this evening it seemed companionable to watch it together while we ate our pancakes. Drawing made it much more fun.



That is my favourite pancake sugar, which we always buy when we go to Brussels. And I found the chocolate sprinkles in a suitcase I hadn't used for awhile, from a trip to Amsterdam. They still hadn't gone stale. Gary and I have been putting in long hours at the studio and trying to eat sensibly, but we sort of lost it today, even before the Pancake Hour. I popped out this afternoon and Gary sent me along with a little shopping list:

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And London's Imagine Festival is now open! Last night the Imagine team and The Book People gathered children's book people from far and wide to celebrate the start of two weeks of amazing family events on the Southbank. Check out the programme, have you booked your tickets? (Don't miss my two events with Philip Reeve next Sunday!)



I took rather random photos on the night and missed out lots of people (including David Roberts, who's one of my all-time fave illustrators), Jeff Norton (whose book I reviewed recently) and Steve Cole (who's done joint events with me), but here are a few peeks at the evening. Oh look, there's Philip Ardagh, mucking about as always, with publisher Alison Green.



Some of my best mates, David O'Connell (whose first book with HarperCollins, Monster and Chips, is launching in three weeks) and my fab studio mate Gary Northfield (whose book with Walker Books, TEENYTINYSAURS, launches in May), and our lovely agent, Jodie Marsh.




Showing off my fancy hat with super-prolific writer Ali Sparkes!



Babette Cole and I adopted young illustrator Sam Usher and spent all evening doing our best to embarrass him. He took it very well.





Writer Andy Stanton with Book People chair Ted Smart and writer Anthony McGowan:



Writer and reviewer Nicolette Jones, writer-illustrator Jez Alborough, writer Nicola Davies, Ardagh and Thirst for Fiction YA book blogger Rhys Jones:



We were all asked to bring along our favourite word and make a badge of it; here's illustrator Garry Parsons with 'SPLAT':



Garry with an agent (named Alice, I think?) and illustrator Adam Stower:



Sam Usher with writer Holly Smale, whose first book, Geek Girl launches the same day with HarperCollins as Dave O'Connell's.



Illustrator-writer team Emma Dodd and Kelly Gerrard. There were quite a few Americans about, and I somehow didn't manage to get a snap of Caroline Lawrence, who last time I saw her was in full cowgirl outfit.



A big thanks to organiser Ruth Huddleston, for all the hard work she's putting into organising the Imagine Festival! Here she is with her daughter, Lydia:



Oh dear, it's that Ardagh again! I need a longer photo to fit him in.



And a big thanks to the Southbank's Performance and Dance Programmer Tamsin Ace, who's also been putting in huge efforts to get this festival rolling!



Gary Northfield, writer Alex Milway and David O'Connell. They drank beers but I stuck to the mojitos.



I found myself sitting right behind writer Sarwat Chadda during the speeches.



Here writer Lauren St John and I are trying to decide on a proper photo face.



Cartoonist and writer-illustrator Joe Berger with his partner Charlotte, and writer-illustrator Ed Vere:



Poor Axel Sheffler. Every time I've seen him, I've taken a photo of us looking more and more terrified (for some reason), but I think we've plumbed the depths of terror and must come up with a new expression for festival photos.



Thanks so much, Ruth, Tamsin, all of the Imagine team, Book People and the evening's great performers for a lovely night! Bring on the festival!

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Happy National Libraries Day! No, this year has not been a happy one for Britain's libraries. But I don't want to rummage through nostalgia for reasons we should keep them open (despite having many, many nostalgic reasons). That's because we don't need to play the nostalgia card:
LIBRARIES ARE EVEN BETTER NOW.



A few reasons why libraries are better now:

* Libraries look better, they smell better. I loved my library as a kid, but I pretty much stuck to the rack with the flimsy paperbacks because I could pick them up and examine their covers. I didn't know how I could move on to the 'grown-up' books because they all had uniform library binding and smelled weird from their repackaging. They were all either beige, burgandy, green or dark blue. These days, librarians laminate the covers, so you can still see them looking as attractive as they would in a shop, and you can read the blurb on the back. You can pick up a book and feel it, gauge the heft of it (which you can't do online). I love walking into a library and seeing an attractive, tantalising display of covers.

* They stock more comic books. Our school librarian used to gripe about how all the kids just wanted to read the three Garfield books the library stocked. She wanted us to read 'proper' books. The waiting list was whole classes long just for Garfield. The librarian always tried to turn us to the other books, but we all hotly yearned for the comics. Librarians are wiser about comics now; they realise they're on to something good when kids can't get enough of them. Instead of making them fight for a few comics (Garfield wasn't even a very good comic), they stock lots of comics, and the best ones: humour comics, adventure comics, graphic adaptations of classic books and plays, Western comics, mystery comics, biography comics, history comics, info comics, you name it. My local ibrary in Deptford has two large racks of comics, and more in the children's section.

Perhaps librarians are rediscovering the importance of visual literacy, not just trying to get people to plough through chunks of text. And discovering from the commercial world the value of visuals (and smells, the scent of hot drinks?) in making people want to read.

* We need more help these days. When I was a kid, it was considered all right to do a research paper by going to the encyclopedia, looking up the entry and slightly rewriting the text I found there. Once I found the set of encyclopedias, I was pretty much okay to do it myself. I'd probably get a few other books and photocopy pictures out of them. Teachers didn't expect too much because they knew our resources were limited. Now we have far more information online. But teachers know that copying out a Wikipedia entry isn't the extent of learning, and we can push kids to look further, engage with world experts, talk with authors. The possibilities are endless and wildly exciting! But where? How? That's where librarians come in, being able to teach kids how search engines work, how to find the more informative sites, look up related books, and how to avoid internet dangers. Just because a kid can put a search term into Google doesn't mean they've mastered the Internet. Librarians really ARE the most powerful search engine, and they care about kids.


The Paralympic torch aloft in front of Deptford Library

Follow the hash tags #NLD13 and #LoveLibraries if you want to find out what all the buzz is about! Click here if you'd like a free printable poster.

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These have been an exciting couple days, all revolving around Oliver and the Seawigs! The big news is that Oliver and the Seawigs now has a German publisher! In fact, it turned into an auction, and Dressler, part of the Oetinger group, won the bidding war for this book and our second book, too. (Hello, new German publisher!)


A peek at pages from the Uncorrected Proof version of Oliver and the Seawigs

Our Dressler editor, Marlen Bialek, wrote: I am really, really completely in love with it! I love Oliver, I love the voice, the Rambling Island Cliff and its wig, the mermaid Iris, the albatross, etc. I am absolutely overwhelmed by the incredible illustrations ... And I could go on and on like that. What an intriguing read! This lovely book would be perfect for our list.

On Wednesday Oxford University Press brought Philip and me to St Hugh's college in Oxford to present our book at the final act of their sales conference. We talked about how we met, and how the book came about, but also had loads of fun mucking about with hats and silly wigs. Hurrah!


Philip in a Seawig, head of marketing Elaine McQuade with a mockup of the final cover design, me, our editor Clare Whitston

I made my seawig out of a panettone box, a model ship and cling film, inspired by these wigs designed by Kate Cusack.



And the we gave them a puppet show! Or, as we put it, we let Oliver and Iris the mermaid talk about what it was like to star in the book and how it was to work with us. I thought Oliver and Iris would say nice things - I mean, we gave them a story to run around in - but they dished up quite a few disparaging comments, those naughty characters.




Afterward, lots of people wanted to try on the wig. Unfortunately it was a little too big for our editor and ate off her head. But here you can see it modeled by the lady who negotiated our German deal, Valentina Fazio.



We also signed a small stack of proof copies, including one for our the daughter of our publicist, Harriet Bayly. First signed book!



Here's Philip modeling his Christmas prezzie, sea monkey cufflinks. (I made them out of Sculpey clay.)



We had a lot of fun with the puppets, we even sang a song! One of the sales reps was weeping, she was laughing so hard, which either means we were good or our singing was really, really terrible. (I can live with either or those possibilities.)

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Not to be outdone by Amazon (who beat me to the mark in posting them), here are the final covers for Oliver and the Seawigs! I can't believe it doesn't come out until September, but lots needs to happen before then, selling foreign rights. Philip Reeve and I will both be promoting it at the Bologna Book Fair on Mon, 25 March. And then I guess it needs to go to the printer and get made into a book-object-pretty-thing.

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Hurrah! Gary just called across the studio that I might like to look at Twitter, and when I did, I saw my lovely agent had just tweeted this!



So exciting! This is the uncorrected proof copy, which is basically a preview version, but not supposed to look too much like the final book. So the cover is completely different, and the last chapter is still my sketches, not final artwork. It's all set to go to the Bologna Book Fair at the end of March ; fingers crossed that lots of foreign publishers will want to buy and translate it! (If you know any, please give them a push for us!) :)

Gosh, I'd love to see a copy in Japanese or Korean. And if it was in French or Russian, I could sort of read it, that would be ace. I'll brush up on either language to do a reading abroad if any of you foreign publishers want to take it up. (I think my very bad accent might amuse people, at least.)

I've proposed #BCBF13 as this year's English-language hashtag, just because last year there were about six hashtags and it was almost impossible to follow (as I blogged here).

Click on this Seawigs tag to see previous peeks at the book!

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Sorry I haven't posted much the past few days, it's all been hard-core, long hours trying to meet my picture book deadline for the upcoming Bologna Book Fair. (Everything in children's books is revolving around that fair right now. Send comforting words and doughnuts to any book designers you know.) In the meantime, have a look at this lovely video about mental health and self esteem, made by Jakob Westman and starring characters made by Felt Mistress and Jontofski!

UMO – Var finns hjälp att få? (65 sek) from Jakob Westman on Vimeo.

At the Fleece Station studio, we're getting very excited about the upcoming launch of Gary Northfield's TEENYTINYSAURS! Here you can see it displayed, already in several different languages! Visit Walker Books' website for a preview.



I also like these posters by Irish graphic designers Mark Shanley and Paddy Treacy of their worst client comments (via Philip Reeve on Twitter).



Philip Reeve has blogged about his brand-new eBook, The Traction Codex, written with his friend Jeremy Levett, which is an amusing illustrated guide to the world of Mortal Engines. It's 85p to download, and I thought I couldn't get it because I don't have a Kindle or iPad, but Amazon let me download a Kindle app for my iPhone. He didn't get to choose the cover, and the graphics are a bit smaller than Philip would have liked - he drew them fairly large, and incredibly detailed, but they're still gorgeous, and he's been posting some larger versions of his illustrations on his blog. (I own this one!)



I always love seeing Hourly Comic Day roll around, and I'm sorry I didn't take part in it this year. (Here's one I did way back in 2008, drawing a comic panel about my day for every hour I was awake.) You can browse through all of them here - a compiled list! organised by Dean Trippe - but here's a particularly lovely one by Dan Berry, read it in full here.



I haven't had a chance to read through all these Hourly Comics yet, but I'm really itching to do so! Here's Dean's website about how to make an hourly comic; you don't have to wait until Hourly Comic Day on 1 Feb, it's a great thing to do any day; it's like putting yourself on your own reality show.

And finally, a big congratulations to Glyn Dillon and Jon McNaught, who just bagged two of the top prizes (Jury Special Prize, Best Newcomer) at Angoulême comics festival! This is a big deal for British comics, you guys did us proud! :) Full prize list here (in French)

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Hey look, I have an interview in Ireland's Inis (pronounced 'IN-ish') magazine with Cethan Leahy, including a piece of brand-new picture book artwork no one's seen before! Click here to read...



Thanks to the Irish book community for being so supportive of my work! I'm looking forward to a week in Ireland this May, where Children's Laureate Niamh Sharkey, French picture book man and sculptor extraordinaire Hervé Tullet and I will be running gloriously amok. More news about that later!

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Morning sketch: this time I got down a book of Hermitage paintings and redrew Antonio Allegri da Correggio's Portrait of a Lady from about 1519. (But I thought I'd put something in her empty dish.)



People sometimes ask me if they can colour the things I draw, so I've made this into a free colouring sheet, if you'd like to download it and have a go (with crayons, in Photoshop, whatever you like!). (Here's a link to the PDF file.)



Click here if you'd like a closer look at the painting in the book. She's fun to draw. Her clothes are solid colours, but you could change things and put in all sorts of patterns and textures. She might even have some awesome tattoos.

Oh, and check out Francesco Mugnai's website of photos of beautiful abandoned places and modern ruins. So amazing. Wow. (via Aliette de Bodard and EwaSR on Twitter.)

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I love watching Jonathan Edwards' drawings pop up on my Instagram feed, and this picture of Stuart is inspired by some of the things he's been trying out.



Some diary dates: I'm appearing at Chipping Norton Lit Fest on Sat, 20 April, for a family event with my new book, Superkid: Startling superpowers! Astounding monsters! Madcap battles! Join writer, illustrator and comics creator Sarah McIntyre in designing THE SILLIEST SUPERHERO ON THE PLANET and unleash your creation on the weirdest, vilest, dribbliest baddies you can throw at it. For children of all ages, accompanied by an adult.</i> Free, booking details here. Loads of other fab authors are appearing the same day, including Philip Ardagh, Jo Cotterill and Sue Heap.

And I'm leading a Comics Jam workshop with Philip Reeve at Animated Exeter on Sat, 23 Feb, details here! Lots going on, Philip's even written a whole new short story (set in Exeter) for the occasion and I illuminated one of the letters in the story.

More links:

I was very excited to hear that Viv Schwarz has got her first few copies of her upcoming graphic novel The Sleepwalkers with Walker Books. Can't wait to get my hands on this, Viv's amazing, and from the peeks I've seen of this, the book will be, too.

I always mean to read more science fiction, and Jared Shurin from The Kitschies Awards has just posted his 50 Essential Fiction Novels. I've bookmarked this for further exploration!

Nichola Morgan has posted an excellent article, How much should writers charge for events? (People are always asking me for advice on this.)

Here's a little dinosaur song for you, via Woodrow Phoenix:

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I just had the most amazing school visit! Do you remember my Futures for Comics brainstorming blog post about comics festivals in schools? Well, I went to Green Lane Primary School in Surrey and they did something similar! For their Arts Week, teacher Lee Christy chose a writer-illustrator - me! - and each class studied one of my books and created narrative artwork inspired by the books.

When kids ask me how to get books published, I always advise them not to wait until they're grown up, or in art college, to start making books, but to start making them now, in effect, self-publishing. So it was brilliant to see the Green Lane kids doing just that! Year 5 focused on Morris the Mankiest Monster, creating books about their own monsters, also in rhyme, and describing where their monster lives and its personal habits, like writer Giles Andreae did with Morris.




They even included things like endpapers and a back blurb and price, I was impressed. Here's one:






And Year 5 and 6 made comics!



They examined my Vern and Lettuce book and then created their own:





I got such a kick out of this war comic based on Vern and Lettuce, called Major and Ryan. Here's the cover design:



Then the comics inside:






Each class photocopied the comics and put them together into an anthology, as well as having each comic displayed individually:



More comics:



Year 4 made clay monsters:







Here are some of their monster drawings. The teachers also did some clever things with printing out pictures of Morris from the book and putting them on a grid, having different kids draw a quarter of Morris, so they'd look more carefully at how he's constructed.





A lot of the monsters looked very striking, as good as anything grown-up illustrators might create!









Another clever idea was to give the kids half of Morris, then have them draw the other half:



Here are some fab monsters with dangly legs by Year 3:







Year 2's book was When Titus Took the Train, by Anne Cottringer and me.



They invented new railway journeys and drew them as maps, and created WANTED posters with their own photo in it and a description of their bandit adventure.











Year 1 focused on You Can't Scare a Princess!, with text by Gillian Rogerson. The story includes a bunch of pirates in a hot air balloon, so they made their own hot air balloons:



The story text doesn't mention sea creatures, but I've drawn tentacles sticking out from the waves, and the teacher jumped on that detail to have the children create their own sea monsters and compiling them into Princess Spaghetti's Book of Sea Monsters. How cool is that!



Some sea monsters:



And Princess Spaghetti with real spaghetti hair!



The teacher even used the characters to help with vocabulary words, written on accordion legs they made:



Last, but not least, Reception class focused on the aliens in You Can't Eat a Princess! They made awesome looking paint blobs and stuck googly eyes on them to make them come alive.



I'd quite like to do this, actually. These came out beautifully.





This group did some writing, too!



I was overwhelmed, almost to tears, by how hard the teachers had worked to think up interesting ways to use the books, and walk their kids through the projects step by step; the work showed the great deal of thought and effort that the kids put into them. I think this must be the best school visit I've ever had, the kids knew so much about my books and me before I arrived that I was able to do much more with them than other visits, where the kids haven't been prepped as much. Thank you so much to the teachers and this team who helped me during the day: Deputy Head Alison Reed, Literacy Co-ordinator Rachael Crook and teacher Lee Christy. You people are amazing!



I'll include a few more things the kids created, just because they're so fabulous. Starting with Reginald the Roodest Monster. I love that he "lives in a house made of go-away signs".



Here's Scrbby the Scaredest Monster









Chili the Cheekiest Monster








Louis the Laziest Monster




















Thanks so much, Green Lane Primary! You guys totally rock.

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Oh, the things we've been seeing in south London's winter wonderland. Here's today's morning sketch:



Beware the plane trees in the park, they're muttering rebelliously.




You can't be a slacker snowman in my neighbourhood...



... or another snowman might EAT YOU.



The trees in Greenwich Park were much friendlier.



But this was my fave snowperson, in New Cross.



Check out that quiff!



Meanwhile, everything at work is very serious, as you can see in front of our studio.



Thank you, thank you...



If you can't get your fill of seeing snowpeople online, here are some more from London's East End .

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Stuart absolutely loves-loves-loves the soundtrack to the London Les Misérables musical, so we trotted off through the snow to the cinema to watch the new film version. He loved it so much that he came back and put the soundtrack back on, then played it again this morning and was swooning so romantically around the house that I ditched the work plan and went on a winter wonderland walk to Greenwich with him to run around the film set. SO much of the film was shot here at the Royal Naval College, it almost made me laugh how many different angles they used to make the same courtyard look like different locations. Here we are, demonstrating about where the barricade stood:



We had way too much fun taking these Les Miz photos. But what did I think of the film? I mentioned on Twitter that I was going to see it, and writer-illustrator Liz Pichon tweeted back, See my review if you want to save yourself TWO HOURS of your life! Here it is:



Some similar comments:



They were SO right about the crying; I didn't just cry once at the end, I cried about SIX TIMES, and I could hear people all around me sniffling and sobbing. But then, right at the end, the audience let out an almighty cheer.




**Warning: contains film spoilers if you don't know the story**

The cheer was rather moving, because they'd sounded like noisy yobs when the film started, and as soon as it began, they settled right down. In fact, no one could have heard ANYTHING over the booming opening music. I actually had to cover my ears as it was rather painful. But it was such a different experience to watching the musical at the theatre. I'd seen it twice: once at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Seattle when I was a teenager, and about ten years ago in London. The Seattle version was energetic, but the London cast looked like they'd done it a thousand times (which they had) and they flopped tiredly about the stage. But the worst thing was that, both times, I had affordable tickets and was sitting high up in the nosebleed section, so the whole thing looked like a flea circus way down there below. This time it was SUCH a relief to be able to see people's faces, subtleties of expression, and man, that huge, listing ship coming into the dock was an impressive start.


(Oh, hold on, it was much bigger than this ship. They didn't film the dock parts in Greenwich; I think those were shot at Chatham Dockyard.

Because of this, I found the film so much more of an involving, enjoyable experience than going to the theatre. And while I know it was long - 158 minutes - I liked not having the story broken up by an interval. (I realise this appreciation may change as I age and grow weak-bladdered.) At the theatre, it's so tedious having the lights come up, then deal with mundane little thoughts such as, Can I leave my scarf on the seat? Are they going to have plastic spoons or those horrible little wooden paddles that feel like they'll leave splinters on my tongue? And if the show's any good, I don't feel like making pointless chit-chat for twenty minutes, I want to KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.



The actors' voices weren't perfect. I missed Javert's booming bass; Russell Crowe can sing low, but he can't do that trick where the singer holds the note and then lets it grow richer with a bit of vibrato at the end. His notes just end. (And as my studio mate mentioned, he's always standing on a ledge when he delivers them, which I couldn't help but constantly notice after she pointed it out.) But I found being able to see him up close and relate to his character made up for him not being a top-notch singer. Even better, the singers were able to act and sing together, they weren't bound to miming something they'd had to record months earlier in the studio. That gave them freedom to give their singing lots of nuances, and boy, could that Jean Valjean be INTENSE. At the moment he's ripped up his parole papers and he's coming straight at you with Rasputin-like bloodshot eyes and a scraggly beard, singing for all he's worth, it's quite terrifying, in a good way. I'd never seen the guy who plays him - Hugh Jackman - which I really liked, because he came to me purely as Jean Valjean, no one else. (I recently saw Cloud Atlas and loved it, but having Tom Hanks play the lead was very distracting for awhile.) And Jackman could sing very well. He was all-around brilliant, actually.


One of the courtyard angles you'll have seen A LOT of in the film

It's funny, when I was a teenager and transfixed by seemingly endless unrequited love, I liked those forlorn songs by Fantine and Eponine. I'm not so wild about them now, and I find Cosette's love songs even more syrupy. But they have their place. My favourite song now is The Confrontation, just after Fantine dies and Javert thinks he's captured Valjean. I love the intensity of it, and the way both blokes are arguing hard for their cases but totally not listening to each other. Javert's part is unrelenting, the voice of law and justice, and Valjean provides a great counterpoint with his passionate protestations for mercy, so he can find Fantine's child and prevent her from dying in a gutter somewhere. I just listened to a recording of the film soundtrack, and to be honest, it doesn't sound that great, not half as good as the Original London Cast musical recording. But I thought it sounded good during the film because I was so caught up in the drama of the confrontation. So I guess the film tricked me a bit, but I don't mind that.


Stuart's confrontation with the stern face of the law

Even though I was slightly distracted by Anne Hathaway playing Fantine, she did a great job, and it was unusual to hear a song done in one take. In the musical, the Lovely Ladies prostitute scene is quite comedic, whereas in the film, it's so gritty that it actually does make you think about how few choices people had back then.

I loved Eddie Redmayne playing Marius; he had an appropriately Toby-Stephens-style public schoolboy look, and while he and Cosette (played by Amanda Seyfried) were both young and silly, it was rather charming on him. Some rather nasty reviewer called Seyfried 'a hankerchief with eyes', which was unfortunately rather true, but I guess that's her role; she's supposed to be a completely sheltered, naive girl. But I liked Redmayne's version of Empty Chairs and Empty Tables, I really did get the sense of someone who's suddenly forced to become an adult by having tragedy thrust on him. The bit I liked with Éponine (played by Samantha Barks) was when she knew she'd lost any chance with Marius and had deciced to go, suicidally, into battle. Watching her bind her chest to look like a boy was quite moving, saying goodbye to her femininity.



The Thénardiers were funny, I didn't mind recognising them as actors because they're the pantomime dames, the farcical elements. I got a giggle from watching Sacha Baron Cohen be very silly, and Helena Bonham-Carter was the obvious choice for the Sweeney Todd role. (They even had a tribute meat grinder! And was there a Fargo reference in there, too?) Oh, and I loved Aaron Tveit playing Enjolras, the lead student in the uprising. Partly because he looked an awful lot like my writer-illustrator friend Alex Milway, even his way of talking and cajoling people into getting excited about something. So I couldn't help but being agitated, knowing that he'd be soon shot, thinking Please don't die, Alex! Please don't die!



But my absolute favourite part of the film was getting to see Greenwich ('my' Greenwich) used as the set piece. The place where I take my coffee and draw. (In fact, I notice I've tagged Greenwich in 69 blog posts and I don't always remember to tag.) It's like seeing a friend in a big Hollywood film, you can't help but squee.



I can see why a lot of people wouldn't like the film, or be bored by it; it's terribly earnest, and full of Christian ideals, and very traditional as a musical. If you're looking for highbrow, postmodern sophistication, don't bother. But if you can sit back and just go with it, I'd say it's three hours well spent. The final scene is wonderfully moving, it's hard not to get caught up in watching Valjean leave behind his body and step out into the new light of day. Go ahead, have a good therapeutic sob.



Oh gosh, Stuart's playing the soundtrack AGAIN. And he's announced that he's going to go back to the cinema and see it a second time this week. There are very few films I see twice at the cinema, and I don't think I would have made two trips to this one my own... but I don't mind going along with him. It's nice when he gets excited about stuff.



Here's a video if you want to find out more about how the film was made:


Direct YouTube link

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A couple months ago, Gary Northfield had a bunch of young film makers from the London College of Communication arrive at our studio and interview them for their video What Gets You Up In The Morning. Here they are: Kezia Newson, Marie-Pier Tremblay, Caroline Ly, Shreya Basu and Elvira Figueras.



And here's their film! They describe it as a documentary "focusing on passion and motivation in the creative industry'.


Direct YouTube link



We didn't know who else was going to be in the film, but it was fun to see familiar faces pop up, such as Karrie Fransman, Zarina Liew and even Lucas Levitan, whom I haven't seen for years but who studied at Camberwell with me, but over in the Graphic Design group. And it was the first time I've seen Sophie Dauvois, which was cool because I'm a big fan of her Okido children's magazine.

Oo! I even made a couple vignette appearances! And a lot of my messy desk stuff keeps popping up.




You get to see some sneak peeks from Gary's upcoming TEENYTINYSAURS book (launches this spring):



Lauren O'Farrell's desk makes an appearance:



And here's the team again at the Fleece Station. Thanks, ladies!

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Here's a photo of today's morning sketch, this time a portrait of Russian writer and poet Alexander Pushkin. It was fun giving him great hair.



I started drawing from a portrait by Orest Kiprensky, but it's printed so badly in in my little art book that I got frustrated and looked up this etching of the painting, so I could see the clothing better.



I lived in Moscow for a couple years in the mid-'90s, and over there, Pushkin is a total rock star. Some of my most vivid memories of Russia are of bosomy, middle-aged women in shiny blouses delivering deep-voiced, passionate renditions of Pushkin poems. ...They're rather terrifying when they do that.

No snow yet here in London, but I've been looking at photos from Devon... oh my. We usually get their weather a day or two later.

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Today's morning sketch:



Once again, I'm terribly behind on my e-mails. I'm trying to get lots of book work done - deadlines, deadlines - and I apologise if I haven't answered your message! Please keep pestering me if it's very urgent.

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Last night Sam Reeve and his dad were posting his Picasso-inspired drawings (on Twitter and Instagram) and noted they looked suspiciously like me:



So I got down one of my Picasso books and had a go at drawing them back. I quite like how it came out!



My studio mate, Deadly Knitshade, left a comment about it, so I drew one of her, weeping over her knitting like Picasso's model Dora Maar. If you're looking for inspiration to draw something today, why not draw a portrait of yourself or a friend in the style of Picasso or one of the old masters?



Other news: my friend David O'Connell has just posted a fab comic strip (starring him and his dog, Treacle) which you can read in full here...



Well now, here's an excuse to post photos of cute-as-a-button Treacle herself:



Dave's really storming right now, his third issue of ink+PAPER (a full-colour comics magazine for grown-ups; I have a strip in Issue 2) has just been listed by Paul Gravett in his Best of 2012 review. And his new kid-friendly illustrated chapter book Monster and Chips is lauching soon - 28 Feb - and he's working hard on the following two books, all coming out with HarperCollins. I can't wait to read them!

You can read about Monster and Chips in The Bookseller here.



Ha ha, I just spotted this comic strip, A Kind of Celebrity, over on Dave's blog. Some great stuff there, do keep an eye on it!

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Today's morning sketch. I think I've started off on a series of interpretations of famous pieces of Russian art. (See the drawing of Pushkin here.) I was curious to see how I'd draw the beard on this guy.



It's a nice way to finish breakfast. Here you can see the original figure on the 1559 shrine to Archbishop John of Novgorod. (Oo, I found him on Wikipedia, he had his own superhero name of Wonderworker.)



A morning sketch is also a way of procrastinating before walk to a rather cold studio. Here's how it looked at the peak of its snowy glory:

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