Here's a book cover I created with David Fickling Books designer Alison Gadby for Lissa Evan's book Small Change for Stuart, which comes out today:



Back cover and spine:



Here's the pencil rough and the inked version, before I added colour digitally:



Inside, you'll find lovely little chapter head illustrations by Temujin Doran. And just for cover contrast, here's a gorgeous new version of the Dutch edition of the same book, by Emanuel Wiemans:

Last weekend I was in Shrewsbury for the first year of Comics Salopia, a comics festival spread all over the town! I got to hang out with some awesome kids, including one named Florence who drew my portrait:



My home base both days was Button & Bear Bookshop, a terrific independent children's bookshop run by the Chadwick family, most of whom you can see here. I heard the festival had some first-year glitches, but because I was being looked after so well by Louise, John and Becky Chadwick, everything for me went great.



One think I really appreciated about the setup was pairing me with comics creator Marc Jackson (and his lovely, lively family). That meant I could show children Marc's table and talk them through the process, from idea, to drawing, to printing, to hand-selling.



There aren't any invisible parts of that comic-making process (except maybe in the printing) - Marc does them all himself - so it's much easier for children to imagine how they could set up their own comic table in years to come, selling books and merchandise that they've made from scratch.

( Click here for lots more under the cut!Collapse )