Why don’t I blog?
Because I’m too busy staring into space.
But had a lovely time at the Guardian’s Big Draw with such a fine and varied group of illustrators. I did Squiggles, where you can turn a squiggle into anything. Here (above) are some of yours.
On October 27th I’ll be at the Wantage Betjeman Festival doing more Squiggles and reading from ‘It’s Not Fairy’ and my new book of poetry, ‘Vanishing Trick’.
And ‘Welcome to the Family’ by the splendid Mary Hoffman (with my pictures) is shortlisted for the School Libraries Asociation Award.
Here’s what kind Rhino Reads had to say about it:
‘By the inclusion dream team of Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith … Perhaps Gove should scrap all his education reform and, instead of donating a King James Bible to every school, he could put a set of the Hoffman/Asquith books in every school library. He could change the world.’ – 9th July Rhino Reads
The British Comic Awards have announced their short list of nominees and that the great Posy Simmonds will be inducted into the hall of fame. The nominees were selected by the BCA Committee based on suggestions from the public and winners will be chosen by a panel consisting of Jonathan Entwistle, Jessica Hynes. Danny John-Jules (yes The Cat from Red Dwarf!), Jonathan Ross and Suzy Varty. Winners will be announced November 15th at Thought Bubble.
Best Comic
• Dangeritis: A Fistful of Danger – Robert M Ball and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell (Great Beast)
• In The Frame – Tom Humberstone (New Statesman)
• Raygun Roads – Owen Michael Johnson, Indio!, Mike Stock and Andy Bloor (Self published)
• Tall Tales & Outrageous Adventures #1: The Snow Queen & Other Stories – Isabel Greenberg (Great Beast)
• The Wicked + The Divine #1 – Kieron Gillen, Jaime McKelvie, Matt Wilson and Clayton Cowles (Image Comics)

Best Book
• The Absence – Martin Stiff (Titan Books)
• Celeste – I.N.J. Culbard (Self Made Hero)
• The Encyclopedia of Early Earth – Isabel Greenberg (Jonathan Cape)
• Lighter Than My Shadow – Katie Green (Jonathan Cape)
• Sally Heathcote: Suffragette – Mary Talbot, Kate Charlesworth and Bryan Talbot (Jonathan Cape)

Young People’s Comic Award
• Bad Machinery Vol 2: The Case of The Good Boy – John Allison (Oni Press)
• BOO! – Paul Harrison-Davies, Andrew Waugh; Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, Jonathan Edwards, James Howard, Gary Northfield and Jamie Smart (Self published)
• Corpse Talk: Season 1 – Adam Murphy (David Fickling Books)
• Hilda and the Black Hound – Luke Pearson (Flying Eye Books)
• The Beginner’s Guide to Being Outside – Gill Hatcher (Avery Hill Publishing)
Emerging Talent
• Alison Sampson (Genesis, Shadows (In The Dark) – artist)
• Briony May Smith (Tam Lin, The Courting of Fair Spring and Red-Nosed Frost, The Mermaid)
• Rachael Smith (House Party, One Good Thing, Flimsy, Vicky Park (Leicester Mercury), The Amazing Seymore (Moose Kid Comics))
• Becca Tobin (Eye Contact, Peppermint Butler’s Peppermint Bark (Adventure Time #30), numerous short comics)
• Corban Wilkin (Dreams of a Low Carbon Future – artist, Breaker’s End, If Not Now Then When (Offlife #6))

It’s not particularly grim oop North if you head to the right parts, and you can’t go wrong with Kendal. It’s a lovely part of the world, and the perfect place for a comic book festival. And conveniently that leads me to mention The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, which will see Sean Phillips and Bryan and Mary Talbot as founder patrons. Located in Kendal, the Festival will be setting up tables for it’s first year of existence this October. So it’ll be a beautiful – flippin’ freezin’ – festival.
The festival has just announced the first ten guests, all of whom were lured in with the promise of mint cake galore.
The initial line-up are:
Doug Braithwaite
Posy Simmonds
John Wagner
Carlos Ezquerra
Ed Brubaker
Glyn Dillon
Jon McNaught
Joe Sacco
Jose Munoz
Andy Diggle
Alongside Phillips and the Talbots.
Heavy coats and scarves all round, everyone! Although Andy Diggle already lives in the North, so he’ll probably be able to wear shorts. Tickets go on sale in May. I imagine The Beat will make their presence known too! S’only a stone throw away from here.
A too-true view of children’s publishing by the amazing Posy Simmonds, from her book, Literary Life.
(via Patricia Storms)
Here's a nice piece by Carol Ann Duffy, illustrated by the great Posy Simmonds in the Guardian.
Beautiful, beautiful work!
Hat tip to Paul Giambarba.
by Posy Simmonds
Red Fox / Random House 2004
A mean old baker and his lazy wife have a cat who literally does everything for them. He sweeps, he peels, he slices, he mixes, he rolls, he ices, he bakes, he does the washing up, and at the end of the day is sent exhausted into the storeroom and told he has to ear his keep by catching mice. Exhausted, the poor marmalade tabby collapses while the
Why don’t I blog?
Hey! Unfair! It’s only in October! It’ll still be mild. Thought Bubble is late november, colder, and Angouleme late January, when it’s absolutely freezing. Never seen anybody complaining about the weather in connection with them.
It’s ok, Bryan, Steve has a delicate constitution, so he’s probably referring to that, the poor pet. We’ll bundle him up in thermals and puffa jackets and bring him along.
I’m quite the weakling, Mr Talbot
Bloody southerners – Kendal is roastin’ all year round :P
What an epic line-up! So very chuffed to see Posy Simmonds will be there. I did get a bit of a fright at the hotel prices though, eek!