Boats are so much fun to draw. I love keeping lots of little models around me. I got these boats at the National Maritime Museum’s Toy Boats exhibition, that was AWESOME.

I had fun imagining what little characters could look like, having adventures in the boats. Here’s a squid in a submarine! I love my job.

Here was the original toy I looked at: Read the rest of this entry »

All 9 of our beautiful DFC Library books will be on sale at Comica Comiket this Saturday.  What’s more,  4 of our brilliant creators will be signing copies of their books, as below:  

 1.30-2pm:   Sarah McIntyre (creator of Vern & Lettuce)  

2.30-3pm:   Adam Brockbank (illustrator of MeZolith)  

3.30-4pm:   Neill Cameron (creator of Mo-Bot High)

4.30-5pm:   James Turner (creator of Super Animal Adventure Squad)

See you at the DFC Library stall!

See you there…

I love story retellings because they’re a great excuse to play fan girl AND make a comic! When I was a teenager, I had a terrible crush on Cyrano de Bergerac, the French film version played by Gerard Depardieu, and also related to him entirely, having no success in my own little love life. I saw the film three times in the cinema and I still often play the soundtrack when I’m making books in my studio (in fact, I’m listening to it right now!)

So when I got back into making comics, it was not much of a leap of the imagination to write myself into the story. I play Sister Marthe, the little nun near the end who tries to feed the wounded and exhausted Cyrano some soup. It was a comic I wrote and drew in a couple hours, then posted on my blog. I had no idea where it would go when I started, but making it was so incredibly entertaining.

Read the rest of this entry »

My embarrassing moments happen almost every time I do an event where there’s live drawing. Drawing on a big flip chart in front of people is SO different than drawing in the privacy of my own sketchbook or creating illustrations with all my favourite materials in the cosiness of my studio. In events, I’m drawing with fat markers (which usually work) and trying to draw fairly quickly so it stays entertaining and not like watching paint dry. So my flipchart pictures are anything but polished, and still, there’s usually someone who wants to keep the drawing to hang up at their school or library. I’ve had to learn to overcome the urge to say, ‘But wait, I could draw you something so much better!’ and be happy letting them have it. It still makes me blush sometimes, though.

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A Thursday evening, last year. I am in a pub in smelly London attending the very jolly and well-attended launch party for Sarah McIntyre’s magnificent Vern and Lettuce book. (Buy it. Buy it now). I have had some champagne and some cake. Rude not to. Now I have some beer. Mr David Fickling has given a rousing speech which has, as usual, entertained and roused. There is more cake available and there are any number of talented cartoonists knocking about the place with whom I may converse freely about pens should I so desire (and I so do). In particular I spend a good deal of time catching up with my good friend Faz Choudhury. In short, all is very much well with the world.

Into this personal paradise enter a man, a woman and a boy. The man approaches me in familiar fashion, smiling. Says hello. Says, “This is my wife, Lucia”. I think, “never mind your wife, who are you”. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you heard of Hay Fever?..

Several DFB authors and illustrators authors caught it this year! Sarah McIntyre, Candy Gourlay and The Etherington Brothers all went down with bad cases of the contagious fever this year, from attending Hay Festival 2011.

Symptoms?

Shivers of excitement, blistering friendliness and a rash of book-lovers..

The cure?

A strong dose of workshops, talks and festival antics, taken with a marquee-ful of your favourite authors and illustrators!

So what did these lovely DFBers get up to all weekend?? Well…

Robin & Lorenzo Etherington(AKA The Etherington Bros) -  sold out their workshop(!), and it sounds like they had a blast monkeying around with their 200+ fans(!!). . When I asked Robin what his festival highlight was, I was  hit with a wave of enthusiasm and a list as long as my arm. But I think that ‘Finally getting to perform our show for our respective wives and see them really enjoy it’ and ‘getting papped by ten year olds and knuckle bumped by a legion of new readers’  were probably two of their more memorable experiences! Check out what else they got up to on their awesome blog here. Or for more details of what these boys can teach and show you, have a look around their new Comic Club site..

Sarah McIntyre and Candy Gourlay appeared as part of a triple-decker event alongside a favourite author of theirs, Geraldine McCaughrean – what a treat for the audience!  And beforehand, when Sarah heard the weather forecast, she drew this fantastic picture of how their trio might end up -

 - but, of course, the event was far from a wash out.

And, needless to say our fantastic authors didn’t leave it at that, they also ran their own their own talks and workshops! You can read Candy’s hilarious blog about the group experience, and of course her own workshop here. Candy’s writing workshop was all about legends… and there were some brilliantly silly ideas.

Sarah was also full of fun and seemed to meet up with nearly ALL the festivalgoers at Hay – even the Duchess of Cornwall!! For the lowdown on how Sarah a)wangled and b)handled this, check out Sarah’s blog, here.

Hooray for Hay, and for our truly brilliant authors who helped make this year’s festival such a success!!

(And if all that wasn’t enough, see how much fun was had by the many celebrity and non-celebrity attendees here.)