Ever since I started writing, people have compared my writing to that of others. Perhaps the most frequent comparison has been to the writing of an American author, Tamora Pierce, and in particular to this Quartet – The Song of the Lioness. Until my escape into the US in August I’d never read any of [...]
Archive > September 2009
Monsters Playing Merry Japes On Panamese Children
Monsters. What would we do without them, eh? They entertain us, they fascinate us, they look after us so, erm, nicely in this cave. We think we know them so well, but does the relationship get stale? Of course not. Because monster know just how to keep things fresh. It’s like a good marriage. Monsters can [...]
Count Olaf
Here is my attempt at Count Olaf, the wonderfully malevolent character from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, of course. The original (and great), book illustrations by Brett Helquist, together with the film, have probably influenced the way I approached this drawing. It’s always difficult for an illustrator to tackle a familiar subject already [...]
TAKE A BATH!
The monsters are letting me out of the caves to battle HIVE author, Mark Walden, this Sunday at the BATH FESTIVAL OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE! Of course, they’re doing it just so I can handout some exclusive TRAPPED BY MONSTER author cards – so come along and claim yours! Between 4-5 pm I’ll be fighting Mark [...]
Bearsharktopus or Berk?
A flurry of concern in the caves today, at the news (via Boing Boing) that Bernard managed to blunder out of the wrong lake at the wrong time and got himself caught on camera. Honestly. With buffoons like Bernard about, it’s amazing that sightings of monsters by humans occur as infrequently as they do.
Happy Birthday, H.G. Wells!
Following on from David’s pic below, here’s another coincidentally facial-hair-related post… ;p Today is the birthday of a truly amazing author, H.G. Wells. Not only did he sport a fantastic moustache, he also wrote some of the most thrilling books I’ve ever read. Did you like Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film version of The War of [...]
The Darker side of Mr Twit
I enjoyed drawing that witch the other day for Roald Dahl Day so much that I thought I’d see what happened when I had a go at Mr Twit.
Zombie!
One of the things I’ve been most keen to do since beginning my full time career as an author is to encourage young people (and particularly boys) to read more. As such, I have long been a fan of the Barrington Stoke titles, written for less able and more reluctant readers. I hadn’t realised that [...]
Pre-Hysterical Fun!
As I’m sure you’d expect, I read a lot of children’s books (in fact, whatever there is on the monsters’ shelves) – and it’s about time I paid homage to two of the best series out there: Astrosaurs and Astrosaurs Academy by Steve Cole. The initial Astrosaurs series takes the simple idea of dinosaurs in [...]
Five of my Favourite Books Ever
Awesome independent booksellers The Big Green Bookshop are currently running a rather wonderful poll. What (they ask) are your five favourite books of all time? Anyone who answers has the chance to win a brilliant prize: twenty books of their choice from whatever ends up in the Big Green Top Fifty when the results are [...]
