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When Stuart and I were visiting the Reeve house on Dartmoor, we spotted two Poglite visitors perched on top of the piano, gently waving about their tentacles:



And then the Reeves notices that all their spoons had disappeared, and I know for certain that these two occurences were linked. Poglites have never managed to develop their own spoon technology, and they are always on the prowl for these treasures.

And just today, Zoe Toft pointed out this article that would have interested the Poglites very much:



Philip and I particularly admired the spoon for disposing of horrific soups:



If you've been following Zoe's Playing by the Book blog, you will have seen that she and her family have already made forays into the world of spoon valuation:





Perhaps some day Reeve & McIntyre will write a Poglite song - and play the spoons! - but in the meantime, you can hear our first Cakes in Space song, as performed at Budleigh Salterton:




But Cakes in Space is not the only new space book, there's an amazing one coming out next week! Kids, adults, librarians, everyone, go get a copy of James Turner's STAR CAT.



James is possibly the funniest writer of comics on the planet, and you can't go wrong with this book. His humour works on many levels; from slapstick to breath-takingly absurd metaphysics. ...Oh, and the London launch party at Gosh is NEXT THURSDAY! Do go along if you can, and get James to sign and doodle in your book:



Besides Gosh comics, another great place to buy STAR CAT online is from The Phoenix Comic's own shop (where you can get lots of other great comics, too. Hmm. I notice it's not there yet, but it should be there next week, after the launch). Check out James's website and you can follow him on Twitter as @eruditebaboon. If you love STAR CAT, be sure to check out his earlier amazing book, Super Animal Adventure Squad... and subscribe to get a weekly dose of comics from The Phoenix Comic!

Speaking of comics, be sure to check out Neill Cameron's blog: he's been writing up a storm about how to get kids reading using comics. I back him 100%, this is something I really believe in.



Comics And Literacy, Part 1: Why Reading Comics Matters

Part 2: The (New) Golden Age of Children's Comics

Part 3: Things You Can Do

Follow him on Twitter as @neillcameron and keep an eye on the #ComicsAndLiteracy hash tag.

I have so much to blog about from yesterday that I hardly know where to start, but I'll begin at the end of the day, when I went to Tales on Moon Lane bookshop in south London for the launch of James Turner's brilliantly funny comic Super Animal Adventure Squad. It's the latest installment if the magnificent DFC Library (of which my Vern and Lettuce book is part!) and not to be missed. A perfect Christmas prezzie for kids, say, 7 years up to 99 years. Not just for kids, adult will love this book, too. (Book details here)



James spent much of yesterday baking! And he didn't do your standard iced cupcake, oh no, that is not James. He made his cake out of BROCCOLI. Yes, he did. And funnily enough, they were very tasty, with the added frisson of biting into unexpected clumps of hot pepper.




Here's our publisher, David Fickling, proclaiming the glories of Rex, Agent K, Bearbot, Irwin and Beesley.



Here are Phoenix comic publicist Ross Fraser, David's wife Caro Fickling, John Aggs and David admiring the quirky, fun artwork. (Just checking, have you subscribed to The Phoenix yet? The first issue's not far away! And John Aggs and his mother Patrice Aggs are hosting a party to launch their DFC Library book, The Boss on Thursday! Details here...)



If you get James to sign your comic but don't tell him which character, he will most likely draw Beesley, because he is the easiest to draw. In fact, there's even a How-to-draw-Beesley guide in the back of the book.



These two lovely ladies are James's partner, Akanksha Awal, and store manager George Hanratty.



Thanks so much to Tales on Moon Lane for hosting the party! It's an amazing bookshop, and here's a video from their website if you'd like a peek at it.

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Hey, don't let all my NELSON comic goings-on distract you from possibly the most AMAZING COMICS OF THE YEAR, which is launching next Tuesday, the 6th, at beautiful Herne Hill bookshop Tales on Moon Lane, in south London. Are you going to be there?



James Turner is possibly the funniest writer I know, and his characterful artwork complements it wonderfully. You'll remember his comics strip from The DFC, Super Animal Adventure Squad and now the book is coming out, as part of the DFC Library! (If you liked my Vern and Lettuce, also in the DFC Library, you will LOVE James's family-friendly, all ages comic.)



Don't just take my word for it! Go read a review on the FPI blog by Ryan, in Year 6, another review by Lewis, Year 4, and a third review by adult reviewer Richard Bruton. You can buy it at Tales on Moon Lane, all good comics bookshops, FPI, etc.

In fact, our DFC colleague Woodrow Phoenix and I were such fans that we took two of his characters out for lunch one day:



And James is doing another comic strip, soon to launch in The Phoenix Comic. Don't miss the very first issues, sign up for the first copies now, over on their website. (And you can also catch a glimpse of the new strip by my fab studio mate Gary Northfield!)



James is eruditebaboon on Twitter and Gary is gnorthfield, be sure you're following them!.

Aaahh, what are those marvelous goodies in the window of Daunt Books???



It's BAGGAGE, the Etherington Brothers' brand-new addition to the DFC Library series of AMAZING comics for kids, adults, aliens, cowboys, whoever craves pages full of lush story goodness. Here's writer Bob Etherington, our fab publisher David Fickling, and artist Lorenzo Etherington at their madcap launch on Thursday night in London.



Lookie, lookie, isn't it lovely? And at the party, we had not only The Brothers, but two other creators from about-to-be-launched DFC Library books! From the left, here's James Turner, David, John Aggs and The Bros.



So let's have a little peek, shall we? (Am I allowed? Heh heh... apologies, these are merely snapshots, you can probably get *proper* scans from the publicists or artists themselves.) But a little peek, just for yoooou....




The back cover reads: Meet Randall, a happy-go-lucky but disaster-prone lost property officer with an impossible task. In order to save the job he loves he must locate the owner of the oldest item stored in his immense warehouse... in just one day!

So begins an adventurous journey through a wonderous city. Clues are uncovered when Randall leasts expects them, and help arrives from the strangest of quarters.

But whereever Randall goes, trouble is sure to follow. And even if he succeeds in his mission, just how much of the city will be left standing?

Oh, and would'ya look at this title page?! Beeyootiful.



Okay, and a sneaky little peek at the action-packed, highly caffeinated world inside those Etherington Brothers' heads.



Warning: book includes MASS DESTRUCTION.



Moving on to another of Thursday's party's very special guests! Here is the magnificent James Turner with his journalist partner Akanksha Awal.



I've been waiting SO LONG for this book to come out. Do you remember these wacky little guys? They ran at the same time as my Vern and Lettuce in The Guardian, and I am a huge fan. James is possibly the funniest writer I know, and his drawings perfectly capture the spirit of the characters' banter.



Every book needs an exploding pirate ship.



A cunning escape ruse... involving... pumice? Whaaa...? Ha ha ha...



And our next very special guest, John Aggs! Here is is with one of our fab DFC editors, Will Fickling, who currently is commissioning work for the Phoenix Comic. (Comic creators and readers, if you don't know about the Phoenix Comic yet - which launches in January -

Before the bean dogs, just to say, come see what's happening in Tibet in Part 9 of my travel comic over on the David Fickling Books blog! Here's one of the panels:



And my little video of the Tibetan prayer wheels we saw. I did quite a lot of spinning.



Our studio, The Fleece Station, went for drinks on Friday night and we got to see the new book by my comics hero and former DFC colleague James Turner. Hurrah! (James is eruditebaboon on LiveJournal and eruditebaboon on Twitter.)
...Mameshiba on the Loose! And if you go over to Wikipedia, you will see that Mameshiba are actually quite a big thing in Japan.



James writes and draws, and he only wrote this book, but it is so, so, so cute. Look, here's a little Indiana Jones scene!



We got to thinking bean-dog hybrids were so kawaii!! that we all started drawing each other as beans. See if you can spot anyone you know...










Mameshiba on the Loose! is an American edition, but look out for it at top comic shops and if you can't find it there, you can buy it on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.

Today we bring you another installment of Youth Media Movers and Shakers. We've culled through industry publications looking for the recent executive placements we think you should know about. If you have executive news that you want us to highlight... Read the rest of this post

Satire for the Nu.nl news website, about the Dutch gymnast Yuri van Gelder who turned out to have used cocaine again, after a previous scandal.

You're invited to sevensheaven.nl for an extended impression.

Starting THIS SATURDAY! They only asked me yesterday, so it's great that I won't have to wait too long to see it. Every Saturday for twelve weeks, The Guardian will feature the first twelve episodes of my comic, Vern and Lettuce (which is running now in the DFC). And since the Guardian Comic has three pages of comics and Vern and Lettuce takes up only one page, the other two pages will feature James Turner's Super Animal Adventure Squad. Which thrills me to no end because it's one of my favourite strips in the DFC, and I'm so glad they'll be together! (You might also know James – eruditebaboon – from his hilarious webcomic Beaver and Steve.)



Just in case you're one of those kinds of people who only read a certain section of the paper and throw away the other sections, I've made a little chart to show you where to find comics goodness:



And (hopefully) on an entirely unrelated topic, iv_solyaev has posted two of the most jaw-dropping paintings of train wrecks and wow, they are something.

Yesterday Woodrow Phoenix came up with a ruse to see our local DFC man, James Turner (eruditebaboon). Unfortunately James's day job got in the way, but we found the Super Animal Adventure Squad moping around his house, bored out of their skulls waiting for James to come home from work. We felt a bit sorry for them and took them out for lunch. I don't think we'll be going back to that cafe, it was SO embarrassing. James, please teach your animals some table manners! You can't take comics anywhere.



London: I just realised there are only four more days of this exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery: What are you like, featuring work by Mini Grey, Quentin Blake, Andrew Marr, Brian Eno, David Adjaye, David Shrigley, Donald Urquhart, Eric Clapton, Jack Penate, Lauren Child and more.
From the website: The idea is taken from a Victorian game of describing yourself with images of your favourite things: like a self-portrait. 45 people in the public eye have been asked to illustrate their 8 favourite things from a list of 12 – their favourite animal, book, clothes, comfort, food, pastime, place, possession, music, shoes, weather and pet aversion (the thing they love to hate!)

That exhibition ends on the 18th, and I'm not sure I'm going to make it, but I'd still like to see their other exhibition, Saul Steinberg - Illuminations, which runs until 14 Feb:
Born in Romania, in 1914, Saul Steinberg originally studied as an architect in Milan, before turning to cartoons and illustration; making his name as a contributor to The New Yorker magazine. In a career spanning six decades he created over 1200 covers and editorial illustrations for the publication. A master of many trades, he also worked as a propagandist, a fabric and card designer, a muralist, a fashion and advertising artist, a stage designer and was the tireless creator of image-jammed books.
The exhibition covers the whole range of his work, from high art to low, from murals to magazines, from caricature to cartography. Political, satirical, witty and whimsical, Steinberg:Illuminations is an intelligent sideways glance at the energy and contradictions of the 20th Century; entertaining and enlightening for Steinberg followers and newcomers alike.

I first heard of Steinberg when my art college tutor cryptically included at the end of an e-mail to our class, 'Oh, and if we're lucky, Steinberg might be coming to our party'. No one could figure out who this Steinberg was, and I found this Steinberg on a web search and started marveling at his illustration work. And I also realised we wouldn't be so lucky if he showed up at our party because he was dead. In the end, we never did find out who Steinberg was, our tutor couldn't remember mentioning him.