The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

A Trailer!! For 'Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!'.... Oooo-aaRR! Click on the image to be taken to the guardian's movie trailer page!


For anyone who's looked at previous posts and knows what I've been up to, I might be starting to sound like a broken record. 'Pirates' this... 'Pirates' that.... Picture books, concept art, picture books, concept art... Blah blah blah...

But I'm very, VERY excited today, because Aardman have released the first 'Pirates!' trailer, and it looks amaaaazing. My three dreams as a kid were to write and illustrate my own books, design characters for a movie and fly a space shuttle. I've worked on 'Pirates!' since February 2008 and designed lots of the characters, props and creatures, so seeing them moving about in a trailer is a big, BIG deal for me. I'm so excited!!

Just the space shuttle bit to do. Are they selling them off?

The Pirates Next Door!
(more news)

So, if anyone out there (in the UK) is super-keen to get hold of my next picture book, 'The Pirates next Door', the hardback has now been listed on Amazon and Waterstones! Hooray!

The hardback will feature a rather splendid fold-out dust jacket with the cover and a family tree on one side, and a large line-up of the Jolley-Rogers on the reverse. A bit like this....


This will only be available on the hardback, and 'The Pirate Cruncher' hardback sold out before the paperback arrived, so if you want to decorate your walls with a funny looking pirate family, AND have a picture book to read in the wee small hours, you'd better order yourself a hardback copy.

If you're anything like me, you can buy the lovely hardback to covet and stroke and keep spick and span, and then buy a paperback version for your kids to clumsily destroy. My children have actually destroyed one of my first edition hardcover 'Pirate Crunchers', and now I can't get anymore, but I'm not kicking myself or anything. Honest. But I'm sure someone out there is kicking themselves that they let their five-year old chew chunks out of their first edition 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' and draw wizards in felt tip in all the margins. So build a shelf that the kids can't reach, pre-order the hardback, and when it arrives you'll know your investment is safe from grubby hands. If you're feeling particularly flush, or want to show off your limitless wealth to friends, you could buy TWO hardbacks and throw one to the little tearaways, whilst secretly stashing the other copy in a plastic envelope on your special shelf.

'The Pirates Next Door' is currently at the printers in the far away land of China, and will be available on October 1st.

Ooo-arr, and all that.

Bang Goes a Troll!

With all the mad panic in trying to finish my picture book, I missed a couple of book publications. The paperback edition of 'Bang Goes a Troll' was published on 31st March! I was quite pleased with the colours and stylization in this one, particularly on the troll.


I've been working on this series of books, called 'An Awfully Beastly Business' by 'the Beastly Boys', for a few years. The first book in the series, 'Werewolf versus Dragon', was one of the first books for which I produced digital black and white illustrations, and it's all now drawing to a close. I've just finished the interior illustrations for the sixth and final book, 'The Great Beast Show'. That'll leave paperback covers for books five and six, which I should be doing within the next month or so, and some collectors cards for inside the paperbacks. And that'll be it.

I've got a few more chapter book series on the go, the 'Will Gallows'series for Anderson Press, 'Accidental Adventures' for Penguin and 'The Archer Legacy' series for Harper Collins.

Next year, I'm hoping to write some chapter books myself. Watch this space...