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I only took a patchy selection of photos at last night's #SketchbookSocial, part of London Book & Screen Week, but you can check the #SketchbookSocial hashtag to see lots more from other people!









I stopped by Atlantis art supply on the way there and got some big chunky pastels. Always best to use totally unfamiliar materials when you're doing a spot of live drawing, ha ha...



The #PicturesMeanBusiness campaign for people to credit illustrators got a good mention, and Society of Authors has just now posted a plug for it.




Thanks so much to Katherine Woodfine and Claire Shanahan for organising! I hope it happens again! :)

I got to be a judge in the final year of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, and since it ended, there's been a big gap in the recognition of funny books. Many of the best of these books are illustrated, but too wordy to bag the Greenaway illustration medal, and too reliant on pictures to win the Carnegie writing prize. Funny books are more difficult to write than serious books or even books that make us cry. It's easy to dismiss funny things as less consequential or important than serious ones, but political cartoons that cleverly capture an idea often have far more impact than an impassioned article. Sales show that kids LOVE funny books, and laughing at a situation can often help take away the fear of things that would otherwise be scary or worrying. Comic timing is one of the most difficult skills to master... so why haven't we been heralding Britain's best?

Well, never fear! Some of my friends are ON THE CASE and have been scheming to develop This Book is Funny!, with plans to seek out the funniest books. I was at the pub a couple weeks ago with Alex Milway, Gary Northfield, David O'Connell and Matt Baxter (who all make funny books and comics) and Matt showed me the red logo he'd designed. Here it is!



And the very first book they're featuring on the website - www.thisbookisfunny.com - is my studio mate's upcoming book, Julius Zebra. Wahoo! Here are a few words from Alex Milway about the project:




And here is their very straightforward mission:



So plans for this include reviewing funny books on the website, hosting events, and supplying a red sticker to booksellers so that customers can more easily find funny books if they know that's what their kids love.

Now, my studio mate Gary Northfield has been making funny comics and books for years. You might recognise some of these titles - Derek the Sheep (his first book with some of his collected Beano strips), The Terrible Tales of the Teenytinysaurs (dinosaur adventure comics), Gary's Garden (collected strips from The Phoenix Comic) and his ongoing Phoenix Comic work.



But Julius Zebra is Gary's first book that isn't a comic. I couldn't help smiling when I saw his tweet, the first time he saw it printed up:



And here it is! It's a lovely thing, a solid hardback with beautiful stripey zebra endpapers.



This book's going to be a winner with so-called 'reluctant readers' because every single story page is lightened by at least one picture. (The Horrible Histories book team also made this decision, as it proves so effective in keeping kids turning pages.) Schools will love it because of its researched ancient Roman theme, but serious history doesn't get in the way of plain silliness.

The book's a pleasing mix of plain text and cartoons, such as these, when we first meet young Julius. He hates going to the stinky water hole with his family and shows off his new-found independence:



Look at him go, he's so confident, is Julius:



Ha ha, oh wait, maybe not!



Oh no! A lion has driven the animals away from the watering hold and Julius is separated from his family. The lion chases Julius and the warthog and all three of them fall into a hole, which turns out to be a TRAP. They're captured by humans and taken all the way across the sea, to Rome!



At first, Julius is quite excited, because he's heard that they're all going to the circus. He's excited to see juggling monkeys. But then he discovers they won't be watching the circus, they're going to be performing:



He gradually learns that it won't even be a jolly sort of performance...



They are going to be thrown into the arena to fight trained GLADIATORS.



And bizarrely, they don't do too badly on their first appearance in THE COLOSSEUM! After Julius panics, he tries to fight back and hits a gladiator with a sword, and the crowd takes pity on him. Emperor Hadrian spares the animals' lives and enrolls them in his world-famous Gladiator School, Ludus Magnus. Their instructor, Septimus, is used to training tough men, and is less than thrilled when they present themselves at roll call.



One of my favourite things about the book is the way the text breaks for little comic aside comments. This one's quite sweet:



I love the way Gary draws, even his wobbly energetic lines are funny, with their bugged eyes and gaping mouths. Don't be deceived in thinking this kind of drawing is fast and easy; Gary really poured himself into this book and it took AGES to write and draw (and redraw and redraw).



You might notice that all the pages have Roman numerals instead instead of our standard Arabic numbering system. Which means each page number is like a code to be worked out, and Gary provides an explanation at the end of the book:



He also includes a four-page glossary, that's mostly educational, but Gary's personality keeps coming through.



And right at the end of the book... oh, look! It's a photo I took across the desk, from where I sit in the studio.



Gary worked with editor Lizzie Spratt at Walker Books, the same person who edited his Derek and Teenytinysaurs books, and with designer Jack Noel.



Oo, and look, it's funny writer Philip Ardagh, author of The Eddie Dickens trilogy with David Roberts and The Grunts books with Axel Scheffler! So what does Ardagh have to do with this book?



Ah, look there, right across the top of the book. A lovely quotation!



So this book launches at the beginning of March with Walker Books and will make a fabulous gift and be perfect for stocking in libraries. I anticipate people asking which age it's best for, and I'd say ages 6-12, but younger kids will enjoy it being read to them, and there's no reason to say adults and Gary's comics fans won't enjoy it, too. Gary's busy working on the second Julius Zebra book right now.



Congratulations, Gary! You've gone and written a blinkin' novel!

Last night the Fleece Station studio was out in force to celebrate the launch of Gary Northfield's new comic book, Gary's Garden! You may recognise Gary's Garden as a frequent strip in The Phoenix Comic, one of the comics in there that the parents like as much as the kids do because it works on so many levels.



Elissa Elwick and I both wore Chompy the Caterpillar-themed garb. Gary's Garden makes the perfect prezzie for kids (say, 5+ with some help reading), adults who love nature and gardening, anyone who likes a good laugh. Buy it here a The Phoenix Comic online shop! Gary works so hard on these comic strips, has such great drawing skills an perfectly pitched comic timing; we're all very proud of him. Look, Lauren O'Farrell (aka Deadly Knitshade) makes a perfect perch for Bob the Butterfly!




And here are the lovely Ficklings - David and Caro - who make it happen, at David Fickling Books, based in Oxford. It was also great to see Gary's Garden amazing designer Ness Wood (who also designed Jampires!), DFB's Phil Earle and John Dickinson. Jonathan Main and Justine Crow of Bookseller Crow in Crystal Palace hosted the party, and they've been great supporters of lots of our books, we love our indie. I love buying books from them, even online; they stock a great selection, including lots of beautiful graphic novels.



Gary's sister, Susannah Northfield, made the cake!



...Bits of which were consumed most elegantly by Gary and his partner Nicky Evans.



Speaking of elegance, just as David Fickling was giving his speech, a giant bird swooped down and placed a wafer upon his lips. We all bowed our heads for a moment of awed silence for this great book.



Gary made a big window display; here he is stage directing Nicky in setting it up.



There were a couple other Phoenix Comic people present: the fabulous Jamie Smart (Bunny vs Monkey, also out now as a book!) and the excellent Matt Baxter, who creates the Live from HQ strip with the Phoenix comic-character editorial crew. I didn't manage to get a photo of Jamie, but here's Matt. And you can just spot illustrator and app-creator Heather Kilgour over his shoulder! There were quite a few comics makers there that I didn't manage to photograph, including Francesca Cassavetti.



Hee hee, another hat photo.



This Thursday (called 'Super Thursday' in publishing) was also the official publication date for my book with David O'Connell, Jampires, and wow, a couple of them showed up!



It was really Gary's night, but we had a happy mix of new creative stuff.



I was very proud of my Chompy hat, made from a pencil case, foam balls and pipe cleaners from Poundland, some felt, a yoghurt pot and a coat hanger.



When creating Gary-themed characters, it's very important to get the wonky eyes right.



Before the launch, we went for a top-notch Afternoon Tea in Alex Milway and Katie Lee's garden (Gary lived with them for a couple years while he was working on Gary's Garden), and Dave and I brought along some of our local Butch Institute Jampires-themed jam.



Huge congratulations, Gary! Gary's Garden is amazing, and everyone, spread the word and help it fly off the shelves! And subscribe to The Phoenix Comic for ongoing Gary's Garden goodness.

Oo, what's all that rustling and buzzing in the garden? It's a whole cast of characters from Gary Northfield's new comic book, GARY'S GARDEN, published by David Fickling Books and out today!



We at the Fleece Station studio are super-proud of Gary, who's been working so hard to make his amazing weekly comic strips for The Phoenix Comic. And now he's packaged up a whole bunch of them into a beautiful volume.



I love Gary's Garden so much. The little conversations between the insects make me laugh. It's masterfully drawn with such expressive, energetic line and a welcoming colour palette that pulls you right into the garden. Oh, and extra bonus, Gary even has a few cameos in it!




Our studio mate Elissa Elwick and I are wearing floral shrubbery on our heads to celebrate.



Check it out, who couldn't love all these cute animals running round having adventures? This book will be incredibly versatile, as it's kid-friendly but also appeals to grownups; perfect for any library collection, from primary school to adult. And it makes a great all-ages gift for any of your friends who love gardening, nature, or bugs. ...Say, you get your friend/partner/parent some boringly domestic thing for their birthday, such as gardening gloves or a spade. Why not stick a copy of Gary's Garden into the prezzie to dress it up and make it fun?



This panel made me smile, because it reminds me of working when no one's in the studio: I often think of jokes with no one to share them with. That's the great thing about having Gary and Elissa around, we can try out the funny bits in our books on each other, and generally muck around. So much better than when I used to work alone at home.



Gary's stuck with me at the studio since we set it up five years ago and he's the best-ever person to work alongside. He works incredibly hard on his books and his strips for The Phoenix and other publications, but then he'll take little breaks to have a laugh; we have a good rhythm and I've even come to love the same music.



You can see on the contents page how the book's broken down into little bite-size stories. Perfect for the reluctant reader, who might find a couple pages a real achievement. And hey look, it's dedicated to Ben Sharpe, our lovely editor from DFC and early Phoenix Comic days. (We once made him a whole personalised version of The Phoenix.)



And special surprise... you haven't missed the Gary's Garden launch party! The book comes out today, but Gary's celebrating on Thurs, 4 September at the lovely Bookseller Crow bookshop in Crystal Palace, south London. We had his Teenytinysaurs book launch there and it was ace. Do come along! If you want a reminder or to ask questions, you can sign up to the event Facebook page here.



And don't just take my word for it that Gary's Garden is amazing, check out this review by Richard Bruton on the Forbidden Planet International blog!



And you can buy Gary's Garden right here, from the Phoenix Comic shop.



The other exciting books out today are How to Make Awesome Comics by Neill Cameron and Long Gone Don by the Etherington Brothers! But I haven't yet seen copies of them, so stay posted... Read the rest of this post

A very happy birthday today to my fabulous studio matey Gary Northfield! Every year I draw him an uglier card:



Gary's a good 'un, and the person who taught me how to do events (here was one of my first events with him), and the person who's stuck with me in the studio since we set it up in 2009. (Here's a blog post from our first day!) If I ever can't do events, I always pass people on to Gary, knowing that he'll do them as well (or much better!) than I can. He's great at making kids laugh and at getting them drawing.



Elissa Elwick and I love working with Gary at the Fleece Station studio, but not only is he loads of fun, but his work's hugely inspiring, and has influenced my own work quite a lot. He has an art college background in printmaking and understands loads about artists techniques, and his storytelling skills in comics are second to none. He totally understands how stories - and jokes - work. If you haven't seen his book The Terrible Tales of the Teenytinysaurs with Walker Books, go out and find a copy now. And sign up for The Phoenix Comic, where his Gary's Garden strip is a regular favourite. You can follow him on Twitter as @gnorthfield and Instagram as @stupidmonster.

Hello! If you haven't yet worked it out from Twitter, the Bologna Book Fair is rumbling along right now, as I type! It's the biggest children's book event of the year, when more people than you can count all gather to buy and sell foreign rights to publish every picture book you can imagine. I went one year, the fair was amazing, and so was the GELATO. Publicist Nina Douglas and I were too busy to go this year, but we were feeling a bit sorry for ourselves, so made our way to sunny Soho and had a quick moment of make-believe at Amorino:



The book fair hasn't designated a hashtag on Twitter for everyone to follow, so people are all over the Internet. You can click on #BolognaBookFair, #Bologna2012, #BBF2012 and even #BBF12 to see moment-by-moment what's going on.

And we at the Fleece Station studio are represented! Walker Books has a taster brochure for Gary Northfield's upcoming comic-strip story TEENYTINYSAURS. I've been watching him work on it and oo-ing and ah-ing, it is amazing. Go ask about the rights, people at Bologna!



Just as all this has been going on, we got a lovely e-mail from some Portsmouth University students - Ryan McBride, Matthew Freeman Carter, Mitchell Jackson, Dale Bennett and Steven Ellis at 32RunProduction - with a video they'd made about our studio! So presenting... The Fleece Station, the Movie!


YouTube link

And look! Here's a little teaser for my next picture book! I don't know how much I'm allowed to say yet, but this image is in Scholastic UK's Bologna rights guide brochure, so I think I'm allowed to post it:



Back to the lovely TEENYTINYSAURS...



And good friend of the Fleece Station, Philip Reeve, also has a very exciting book just out with Scholastic UK! I've read GOBLINS and it is brilliant. Martin Chilton at The Telegraph thinks so, too! Here's his rave review...



And back to gelato, what everyone's really thinking about in Bologna. Now it's back to the drawing desk for me, to crack on with that picture book! Ooh, the deadline's not far off now...

Here's an addition to my Stupid Superpower series, this time featuring my fab studio mate Gary Northfield! (Gary says that when he worked at an art supply shop, his co-workers really used to call him this.) Besides his incredible years of Derek the Sheep strips in The Beano and his long-time contributions to National Geographic Kids magazine and the Horrible Histories magazine, Gary's been working on a stupendously beautiful and funny book, featuring dinosaurs, for Walker Books. It won't come out for awhile yet, but I've been watching him drawing, inking and colouring the pages and wow, when it does come out, YOU WILL HEAR ABOUT IT!



There are some fabulous things on the Internets today! If you're interested in getting into comics or picture books or any creative profession, be sure to read Jamie Smart's new blog post with his four pieces of great advice:



And I found this link through Brian Sibley on Twitter. I've been a fan of that guy since I listened to The Lord of the Rings in his adaptation for audio dramatisation. I used to work while listening to the cassette tapes, over and over; they got me into a good rhythm while I painted and when I'd need to switch cassettes, it was always perfect timing for a stretch break. Brian's just written about Forgotten Hobbits, and you can read more about this 12-minute-long, gorgeous 1966 animation over on his blog. It's by no means a faithful adaptation, but that doesn't make it any less beautiful.


YouTube link

Last night my new piratey picture book with Gillian Rogerson, You Can't Scare a Princess! officially set sail from The Princess of Shoreditch in London's east end. ARRRRR!



Not only was it our book launch party, but it was also International Talk Like a Pirate Day!



And here's the fabulous Scholastic Princess and Pirate Team that makes all things happen! From the left, that's publicists Catherine Alport, Alex Richardson, me, finance wizard Alyx Price, Gillian, editor Fiz Osborne, our editor Ellie Parkin and designer Zoe Waring. Thanks for all your hard work everyone! They really pulled out all the stops for this party, Gillian and I were totally gobsmacked.




Scholastic's Publishing Director Lisa Edwards gave a great speech and surprised us by telling us that the first book, You Can't Eat a Princess! has sold over 30,000 copies in the UK, and even though the new book just came out three weeks ago, it's already sold over 10,000 copies! And lots of people have been downloading the free pirate activity sheets off my website, I hope I'll get to see some of the pirates and treasure maps people have been creating!



Then my fab friends Philip Reeve, Gary Northfield and I kicked off our swashbuckling Pirate Draw-Off!



Gillian gave us a pirate category, and we had three minutes to see what kind of high-speed drawing we could bash out. Here's Gary's entry for 'Zombie Pirate'.



Gary, Philip and I did a few rounds, then other illustrators in the room swung into action! Here are all our shipmates who wielded deadly pens. From the left, Philip, me, my studio mate Ellen Lindner, DFC colleague Woodrow Phoenix, cartoonist and fellow Society of Authors member Ros Asquith, David O'Connell, Alexis Deacon, Gary and Alex Milway.



Here's Philip's Zombie Pirate...



...Ros's 'Pirate Dinosaur'...



...and Alexis drew a Pirate Dinosaur, too!



Woodrow's getting started here on his 'Hairiest Pirate'.



Scholastic provided lots of props, including princess tiaras and pirate hats, but some people brought bits and bobs of their own costumes. Thanks very much to writer Geraldine McCaughrean for lending me her fabulous Captain Hook hat! It's from the events she does for her official sequel to Peter Pan,

You may have already seen this video from my blog post in October about the library tour of Ireland I did with my studio mate Gary Northfield for the Irish Children's Book Festival, organised by Children's Books Ireland. But since the show went offline from the RTE's website, a few people have asked if there's any way to watch it again. So just to say, it's back online, if you want a peek at Gary and me mucking about and being generally silly on live television. (Apologies for the repeat!)


Elev8 Part 1 YouTube link



Elev8 Part 2 YouTube link

(Click here to read about it. They even put makeup on Gary's hands!) And keep an eye on The Fleece Station blog for studio updates.

Today's our fab studio mate's birthday! We had a celebratory lunch at our fave cafe, Panda Panda in Deptford, where we got lots of special treats. The Vietnamese coffee is STRONG AND BOY AM I WIRED. (You can see a couple more birthday photos over on The Fleece Station blog.)



And here's Van, the most excellent owner, and his lovely mum.



Gary's been saving the capsules from his Spider-Man kinder eggs.



Have you seen Joe Gordon's amazing winter wonderland photos from Edinburgh? He says he lives in Narnia, and it is true.

Loads to blog about before I head off tomorrow to the Wigtown Book Festival! Come along on the Saturday, you can come first to my event, then Polly Dunbar's.

**SALE!** I haven't wanted to sell any of my Morris the Mankiest Monster illustrations, but I agreed to let one go to the Facing Africa charity auction. It's happening THIS SATURDAY in Bath, and you can go along or also bid online. If my books ever become household names, this one will be from my first picture book with David Fickling and WORTH A LOT OF MONEY! (Or you can just keep it cos it's nice, hehe.) It's for an excellent cause, please don't let someone walk away with that picture at a bargain-basement price. It's Morris reading his comic in bed...

Place your bid now!

Congratulations to tBK Mag on its 30th issue! Vern and Derek the Sheep celebrated by taking over THE WHOLE MAGAZINE (although occasionally they deign to share the page with Jamie Smart's Chaffy, just to make him stop squeaking). Here's the first panel of a Vern and Derek Comics Jam.



My super-silly studio mate Gary Northfield's going to post the second panel on his blog.



A huge thank you to Sam Reeve for his fantastic drawing of Vern and Lettuce rocking out, and a very cool drawing of a tractor, with a miniature toy tractor used as a model. You rock, Sam!



Sam's da, Philip, said Vern and Lettuce has done wonders for Sam's reading, and he passed his spelling test at school the other day partly thanks to them: 'One of the words was 'government' and he worked out that it's 'Go Vern! ment' and now has no trouble remembering it.'



Last night I went to hear Philippa Perry talk about her new comic, Couch Fiction. The story takes us into a psychotherapy session between Philippa, the therapist, and her client who has a nasty habit he wants to break. It's very human, she lets us see the therapist making mistakes. And we can read it on two levels (like a Rupert Bear comic!): either we can just read the story going on in the comic panels, or we can follow the more detailed analysis going on in the footnotes. A fascinating read, and great to see the psychology and comics world coming together. Here's the doodle I made of Philippa during the talk:



The audience was full of people interested in psychology and I didn't see a single comics person in the crowd. The other guy who was talking about his psychology book did a lot of the speaking and we didn't get to hear much at all about the comic. But three of us went out afterward for drinks with Philippa and got to get to know her a bit better. (Funnil

I hope it's not overkill by posting two videos in a row of me reading from Morris the Mankiest Monster, but I just found out about this video from one of the first-ever events I did last year with my studio mate Gary Northfield. (Because I was too nervous to do it myself! I've had to get over being self-conscious super-quick.) I think I've learned a little bit since then about reading aloud, but these kids in Havering were the best thing ever for making me feel more confident, and also for realising just how amazing Giles' text really is. Picture these kids absolutely ROLLING ABOUT with repulsion, ha ha...

The first part's about pirates, by Sara Starbuck. (I'm at the 4:35 mark if you scroll along the bottom of the screen.)


YouTube link

That's Gary guffawing in the background! Afterward, Ruth the librarian took us on the Gary Northfield Heritage Trail.

I'll try to post some drawings soon! I have a ton of events coming up this summer and autumn and I'm sort of drowning in all the paperwork at the moment. Someone send me a life ring, please! Or an accountant, personal masseur, dietician, or life coach would do. I'm at least trying to avoid cake at the moment (vital research for my last picture book). Lately cake hasn't been doing me any good. I'm going over to Viviane's tomorrow to make pancakes for breakfast, but that will be the only exception to the cake rule. Yes.

And the inhabitants were friendly! Stuart and I headed up to Scotland for our first-ever visit to the Highlands International Comics Expo or Hi-Ex. It was also Stuart's first experience of running a festival table, and I think he's still decompressing from the strange voyage.

Photo thanks to Joe Gordon (whom I met in person for the first time, yay!) at Forbidden Planet International

Here's a comics jam I did with DFC crewmates Jim Medway, Dave Shelton and Gary Northfield.
(Click on pic to embiggen)



Hi-Ex had some great photo ops, here's Dave, Jim and Gary:



And after months of only managing to grab a few rushed words in passing with Asia Alfasi, I finally got to have a long chat with her in Jimmy Chung's Chinese restaurant, hurrah! She'd been drawing portraits all day, but I talked her into doing one more with me and we swapped.


Gary and I led a workshop called Stupidmonsters & Aliens: comics from outer space. (Stupidmonsters is a mini comic Gary did awhile back.)

(Click to enlarge)

Here's a picture from the workshop and another book of comic strips a guy brought in that he'd made:



Here are Ishara and Freya with their alien pictures; these gals spent 18 hours on a coach to get from Bath to Hi-Ex. that's dedication!


Gary, Jim, Dave and I did several comics jams right at our table with some of the visitors. This one's by Jim, me and a girl named Amy.

Here's a fab example of four people making three panels: Amy did the first, Jim did the second, I inked the third and Fiona coloured it in. The other one has panel borders by Jim and comics by the beautifully face-painted visitor.



Jim Medway's table and his alien:

Here's an amazing cat picture I got from Jim, which reminds me of some very old Russian woodcut pictures. I'm totally going to treasure this one.

Or, The Return of Sheep Swap! For the last week or so, Gary Northfield and I have been waving at each other over a gigantic stack of work piled up between our desks, but now we're buckling down and getting back into the world of Derek and Vern. (Read earlier pages here.)

Have you seen the great review of our Birdsong anthology over at Forbidden Planet International? Thanks you, Richard Bruton, for discussing each contribution in such detail! You can buy Birdsong here and I'll be taking some copies up to Hi-Ex in Inverness, 27-28 March.



Some other diary dates:
May 28 & 29: Gary and I will be sharing a table at London's MCM Expo and supporting the DFC Library gang, who will be out in full force!

Saturday, April 24, St Albans: I'm leading a Hungry Aliens & Manky Monsters workshop at a new comics festival, UniComics, at the University of Hertfordshire. Keep an eye on this festival to see where it goes!

Thursday, 8 July, London: Get your booking in soon if you want to hear Giles Andreae and me talk about working together to make our book Morris the Mankiest Monster. **(Note that the date's changed from 1 July.)** These talks in the SCBWI Professional Series tend to fill up fairly quickly, so don't wait until a few weeks before.


If you're in Brussels anytime until Aug 29th, pop into the Belgian Comic Strip Centre to see the Moomin exhibition. We're hoping this exhibition will also come to London, fingers crossed!

Starring Derek the Sheep and Vern! (Read from the start.)

Derek and Vern will both be at Hi-Ex in Inverness on 27-28 March along with Dave Shelton's Good Dog and Bad Dog, and Jim Medway's cats, don't miss them!

Starring Derek the Sheep and Vern! (Read from the start.)

Starring Derek the Sheep and Vern! (Read from the start.)

Starring Derek the Sheep and Vern. (Read from the start.)

Here's the first double-page spread in our mini comic! And a deadline! We're going to try to tell the whole story in time for London's MCM Expo so we can sell it at our table. Whee!

Gary and I were whinging across the studio how we've fallen behind on coming up with new stuff for our blogs. So we decided to herd Derek the Sheep and Vern into one ongoing comics jam. We'll move Derek to Vern's cosy block of flats, and thrust Vern out into the wild of Derek's field. (Vern was getting a bit chubby from Christmas, he could use some fresh air.) Here's the cover for our mini comic:



Good news! I just got a date for the publication of Vern and Lettuce in book form... September 30th!

I've finished almost everything and sent it off to Laurence Beck, who's putting together all the last bits of layout stuff in his studio on the other side of London. I even got a little peek at the cover-in-progress for Mo-Bot High, another DFC Library book coming out about then, by Neill Cameron ... it's looking fabulous!!!

Exciting, I can't wait to see Vern and Lettuce running around in a book! John Aggs was plugging for Neill's robots and Vern and Lettuce to meet at some point, or make Vern and Lettuce robotic... (We'll have to talk, Neill.)

Hooray, I just turned in my picture book artwork! Yesterday I went up to Oxford and had two great meetings, one with David Fickling and my editor Hannah Featherstone, and the other at Oxford University Press with the editor and designer who have been working with me on this particular picture book: Helen Mortimer and Molly Dallas.

First, the exciting news from David Fickling: Morris the Mankiest Monster has almost completely sold out of its first print run!
I think Random House are rather astonished, since the trade in hardback books is kind of slow right now, but they're racing around making sure there will be more books printed up so people can buy it for Christmas gifts - Go go go! :-D Thanks to everyone who's bought copies and is making it a success, yay!!!
Edit: I've sold out of all my copies and I know the warehouse is empty, but I see you can still get some on Amazon.co.uk.

I'm moving on to three more projects with David Fickling, starting with something involving both books and comics and co-created with my fab friend and fellow comics jammer, David O'Connell. More about that soon! The other two projects involve Vern and Lettuce, which is really exciting because I've really missed that sheep and rabbit.


Molly and Helen at Oxford University Press

Moving on to OUP: So I can't say too much about the picture book, it won't come out til next autumn, and I still have to make the covers and do some hand lettering and spot illos, but it's going to be a rollicking great adventure story! Helen said I could give people a peek at one of the pages. I love this page because it's such a great example of collaborative work; I initially was having a hard time getting the look of this book just right, and in particular, really fighting with a drawing of a dinosaur. So I turned around to my studio mate Gary and said, 'Hey, can you draw me a dinosaur?' Without missing a beat, he scribbled something onto a post-it note in about five seconds, and whadya know... he nailed it! So I've been calling it 'Derek the Dinosaur', because it totally looks like Gary's sheep:

click to buy Derek!

That was a bit of a turning point in the book, things flowed much better after painting that page. Woodrow and Viv have also given me some great pointers and book loans and I'm so grateful because, at the end, it's not about how much I've done, but how good the book is. And it's way better for having really talented people around during its creation process. Thanks, Woodrow, Gary, Viv, Helen and Molly!

Edit: Don't miss today's radio interview with Viviane and me! 5pm on Resonance 104.4 FM, streamed at www.resonancefm.com and podcast soon after at Panel Borders:

Alex Fitch sums it up: Strip! - Banal Pigs and Constabulary Sheep
Concluding this month's series of shows on 'collectives and anthologies', we're looking at two very different animal themed collectives. In an interview recorded at this year's Small Press Expo in Bristol, Dickon Harris talks to Steve Tillotson and Gareth Brookes about their self published comics, including The Manly Boys Annual, Can I borrow your toilet and The Banal Pig Landscape anthology; while in an interview recorded in the Old Police Station, Deptford, Alex Fitch talks to Sarah McIntyre and Viviane Schwartz, who illustrate books for children and share a studio with Beano artist Gary Northfield that they affectionately call The Fleece Station...

Yesterday my studio mate Gary Northfield and I jointly led a couple monster workshops in Essex at the South Hornchurch library and Newton's primary school. I had loads of fun reading from Morris the Mankiest Monster; the kids got REALLY into being grossed out, and at the grand finale on the last page, both groups of kids did this thing where they all fell backward, en masse, in total amazed disgust. It was awesome!

Afterward, the librarian, Ruth Gedalovitch, drove us all around the places Gary grew up and he got rather nostalgic, which was good fun. You can see the rest of the tour over on the Fleece Station blog. (Warning: includes snogging and violence)




I got a few photos from the workshops:


Several kids informed me that I am very tall, which was helpful as I had never realised that, heh heh...


Links o' the day: Illustrator David Ercolini did an unusually classy cover for the SCBWI magazine, you can see his work here. In the related article, he recommends the New York Public Library Picture Collection Online, which I skimmed very briefly but looks like it could come in handy.

Hurrah, the studio I share with Gary Northfield and Viviane Schwarz is officially warmed!




In the morning, Viv and I baked cupcakes and made sheep heads and legs, with Alexis Deacon inspecting them for quality. Gary was putting together our music play list and chipped in with the icing when we arrived at the studio






David O'Connell and James Petrie approved of the cupcakes.


Architect Barnaby Gunning and his family were some of the first people to show up. Barnaby's the dude who helped us find our studio, and he spearheaded the 'Save the DFC' campaign. His kids amazed us with their knowledge of comics, and we thought he had the coolest parents ever... their dad's building a real house entirely built of LEGO!

The Yorkshire guys won the prize for coming the furthest for the party: Hugh Raine (shug_comics) and Darryl Cunningham (tallguywrites)

Hugh, Al Maceachern and runner-up for distance (Brighton) Joe Decie (joedecie) Thanks for making the trip, guys!


Joe, Akanksha Awal, writer (and sometimes illustrator) Fiona Dunbar, Darryl and the James Turner (Super Animal Adventure Squad in the DFC)


Comics reviewer Matt Badham (hey Matt, where did you blog go?), comics artists Francesca Cassavetti (visiting with her rock star partner Nicky Tesco), David Baillie and Dan Lester.
And writer (and British SCBWI webmaster Candy Gourlay drawing a sheep on our blackboard. That board was looking fab!


Creator of Good Dog, Bad Dog from the DFC Dave Shelton and Cartoon Museum artist-in-residence Mark Stafford. Comix Influx's Stephen Betts checking out the cells with Mark, photographer Anna Mondo and designer Rian Hughes.


Akanksha and James having a thumb war (John Aggs (DFC's John Blake) and designer Peter Stanbury in the background)


Comics guru Paul Gravett, illustrator Heather Kilgour and her web designer partner


Candy, me and Fiona (you can see a little of the dress I bought on my way to Viv's house to make cupcakes)


Painter and printmaker Ashley Fitzgerald (who, with his partner Helen, was a huge help to us moving into the studio)


Gary looking way cool at the bar with our sheep dip punchbowl. We had Barnaby's kids helps us add some chocolate-covered raisins to the punch to look like sheep poo, but after a few hours, the bits of chocolate floated off and gave the drink a pond-scum look that made ellenlindner wince but drink up bravely.

Today's very sloppy morning sketch features Lumpy the dinosaur, carefully crafted by Gary Northfield and lurking on one of the studio bookshelves. Lumpy is very famous, he starred in a film at the National Theatre for about four seconds and got a great laugh. He also has a nasty smoking habit.



Got to see some grand folk last night after Jamie Smart's book signing at Forbidden Planet (including Steve Marchant, above, looking his most winsome.)

Here are Mark Stafford and Paul Gravett, and Jamie in his new Chaffy scarf. I bought a copy of Jamie's Ubu-Bubu book and I'm about halfway through, but I can say that not only are his characters full of kawaii cuteness, but he has pushed the concept of 'not suitable for young children' to staggering new levels.