And here it is! What the world’s been waiting for…
Yetis on the moon.
Books
A Yeti in Crystal Palace Park
If you have a yeti, and you have snow in Crystal Palace Park, then you have to make use of them!
Besides, it’ll be great material for the Alien Moon trailer…
A clever little Scottie Dog
Like most writers and illustrators, I’m always thinking of the next project – the lot of a freelancer eh?. And probably like most writers and illustrators, I’m working on three new projects at once. They’re all at different stages in their evolution: one’s a synopsis with a blossoming set of characters, one’s had three different treatments already (!?!), and the other is three chapters written.
I like to keep on my toes.
Any way, here’s a new character from one of the projects. I’ve always wanted to draw a Scottie Dog, and here it is.
Unused Mousehunter story and illustrations
I’ve been having a clearout and I uncovered a stash of rough illustrations for a new short story featuring Emiline and Portly. I wrote a bit of it, but I think yetis or some other work got in the way.
And so here it is, all messy and unfinished, but I thought you might like it.
Emiline stepped over the slippy rocks and slid down onto the narrow beach. The rain was easing and the dark grey clouds moving on.
‘I love summer,’ she muttered unimpressed, tightening her jacket.
She shook her shoulder-length blonde hair in an attempt to dry it, and let her pet mouse Portly out of his Mousebox. He ran up to her shoulder and stretched out tall, breathing the fresh sea air.
‘Not much of a day off, is it?’ she said, walking towards the sea. Portly squeaked happily in reply.
In amongst the large rocks that scattered the beach, the damp sand was deep brown and glistening, still soaked from the recent downpour and the retreating tide. Emiline paced around a pool of water, her footprints leaving shallow, crisp impressions behind her. To balance herself she clutched a tall cluster of rocks, some up to her waist in height. Portly suddenly leapt from her arm onto a rock and squeaked loudly. Emiline stopped, turning her head to see him sniffing the air.
‘What is it?’ said Emiline.
Portly sniffed a few more times and then vanished behind the rock. Emiline leaned over and found her mouse sat on top of a large crate, built of wonky wooden planks. There was another crate alongside it, and Portly crawled slowly across both of them, his nose pressed to their surfaces.
Emiline noticed that one of the crates had the word ‘Mouse’ painted on its side in thick brushtrokes. She gasped in excitement, and as she did the crates started to squeak. There were mice inside…
…
If anyone wants to finish this story, please, feel free. I’d love to know what type of mouse was inside the boxes.
The Magma Conspiracy arrives
Excitement is in the air here as a finished copy of the Magma Conspiracy has arrived. I’m so pleased with how it’s turned out, and I think the comic section of New York is some of the best work I’ve done.
It’s in the shops at the start of July, so go Yetis!
On Diana Wynne Jones, Julia Donaldson and Polly Dunbar
The world is full of news at the minute. You can’t sit down without hearing something new on the radio/TV/Twitter, which makes you want to stand up again.
The big news of the children’s book world is the loss of Diana Wynne Jones. When I first met my agent, her office was full of Howl’s Moving Castle and Studio Ghibli memorabilia. I was awestruck, as she’d recently travelled to Japan with Diana to meet Miyazaki. It seems such a slight thing, and she’d never have known it, but without Diana Wynne Jones, I wouldn’t have picked my agent, and the yetis may never have happened. So here’s me raising a drink in memory of a true great of the children’s book world.
Next on to Julia Donaldson, and the piece in the Guardian where she explains why she thinks ebooks are a bad idea for children. She says that: “if everyone just says yes to there being an ebook of everything, there is a danger they could take over.”
To think digital is not already taking over is a real mistake. You only have to look at the music industry and note how badly CD sales are faring to see that publishers have no choice but to embrace technology.
There’s no going back to an age where paper is the best medium for words, we left that long ago, and in all honesty, you can’t, and won’t, stop children picking up phones/iPads/laptops and using them. My 16mth daughter is already captivated by our phones. She’ll be coding by the age of four and reading ebooks by the age of 5.
I don’t believe all books should be retrofitted to work on digital devices, but new work should definitely look to the future and embrace its possibilities and potential. It’s exciting what might come out of it. And picture books look beautiful on a backlit screen.
And while we’re on the subject of picture books, Polly Dunbar has made a wonderful online picture book about writing a picture book. Just lovely (and digital).
Rampage of the Goblins by Tommy Donbavand
I rarely get much time to read these days – if I’m not writing I’m drawing, and if I’m not doing those I’m probably sleeping or looking after my daughter. Crikey, where did all the time go?! But over the past few weeks I’ve been running a lot of workshops within schools, so there’s been a bit of travelling. Travelling on trains means free time, which means I read a book!
I hadn’t read a Scream Street book before, but i loved the concept: a road/town where loads of monsters live side by side, separate to normal humans, getting on with life and getting into scrapes. A bit like Stella Street (watch out for a bit of swearing on that link), but with an A-List of monsters rather than superstars.
So, Rampage of the Goblins, the 10th in the series, involves the search for a lost mummy and a whole host of farting goblins that are out to cause trouble. I really like the goblins. I mean, what’s not to like about creatures that guff all the time? And then there’s the cutest bloodsucking leech you’ve ever met.
What Tommy Donbavand manages to achieve is a rollercoaster ride of an adventure, that’s both silly and scary in equal measures. It jumps from one set piece to the next with such gusto that you never really question how the characters stay in one piece, or how Rhesus the Vampire manages to keep all the useful plot devices tucked under his cape.
It’s a blast from start to finish, and there are more thrills and laughs than you can shake a decomposing zombie at. I like!
PS. Number 11 in the series features a yeti. What more do I need to say?
Big Ears’ house has a few design flaws
My daughter was given a few Noddy board books recently. They taste nice, apparently, but they do also have pretty pictures. While looking at these, it becomes apparent that many of the Toyland buildings are impractical. I’m not usually one with much of an architectural opinion, but I feel compelled to comment.
First up is Noddy’s house, which is built solely with toy building blocks, and lacking any form of mortar. Anyone with any experience of toy building blocks will know they spend most of their time toppling to the ground – a strong wind and Noddy’s house would fall apart.
But second, and much worse than that is Big Ears’ house, built inside a very chunky mushroom. It looks like a nice place to live, but building a home in a mushroom would have one serious consequence: it would be a very short-term let. You’d have a few days, at best, before your roof curled up and shrivelled away. And seriously, why fill the mushroom stem with a staircase? I mean, you could have had an external spiral staircase, and used the stem as a downstairs loo with a cupboard for storage space.
Those Toyland designers need to watch Grand Designs.