Allow me to introduce Marshall Armstrong – he’s new to school, but he’s a little different from your average kid!

Marshall Armstrong is New to Our School is the fantastic debut picture book from the equally fantastic David Mackintosh. We absolutely love it, and we’re pretty darn sure you will too!

Here’s a sneaky teaser to get you all excited…

It’s a crisp August afternoon in the HarperCollins office, and the despicably talented Tom Percival (author of the wonderful new picture book, Tobias) is taking a well earned rest from creativity and preparing to tuck in to a rather scrummy looking salad. Naturally, I took this to be the opportune moment to drag him from his lunch for a Q and A session.

So, Tom, where did the concept for Tobias come from?

Well it started off as an idea about a ghost who loves frightening people, but eventually scares everyone away and realises how lonely he is. As it evolved, the story became a bit more of a romp – Tobias became a bit more mischievous, but the underlying concept remained the same: a lonely little ghost who wants to make friends, but doesn’t know how to go about it.

Tobias’s name came from some books I read as a kid, Tim and the Hidden People (Sheila K McCullagh). These were part of a school reading scheme and featured a boy called Tim who meets a magical cat called Tobias. In the books, there was a special key that enabled the carrier to see all the magical hidden creatures. They looked like ghosts, but were real people just hidden from ordinary folk.  I absolutely loved these books, which were so much more exciting than the Peter and Jane books I’d been forced to read in the previous year– they’ve stayed with me ever since.

Do you think you’ll return to these characters?

I’ve got a few ideas, future adventures for Tobias and Eliza. But I’ve got a whole raft of other characters, stories and ideas I’d like to explore too. I guess we’ll just have to see.

When did you first start working on picture books?

I’m not sure exactly when I started, maybe about 8 years ago. But they were awful, really awful! They had subplots and everything. I kept asking why do they have to be so short? Why can’t they be, say, 80 pages long instead? Now that I’ve got a young son, I understand!

Have you any of them still around?

No, I think I burnt them all. I hope I did anyway.

Coming from a visual arts background, how did you find the writing side of picture book creation?

It was more challenging, definitely. But I’m quite a believer in the fact that people are capable of doing anything they want to, really. It’s not all that different, writing and drawing. You’ve got an idea and you’re trying to communicate it. You can either communicate it visually, through a series of rules, such as perspective and shading, light and dark, visual balance. Or you can communicate it with words and language, which have their own set of rules. All you need to do is learn the rules for the particular task. It’s much the same for music and drama. It’s all expression – nothing’s ever truly off limits.

So, do you basically love anything and everything creative?

I guess so. I grew up in a fairly remote place, and I think that influenced my early desires to create stories and characters. My brother was four years older than me, and always off fixing lawnmowers and motorbikes, so I would just wander around making up little adventures. I spent a lot of time roaming around woods and fields, imagining magical characters living in tree trunks and things like that!

Tell us a bit about the way you create your images?

There is the initial line drawing stage, where the characters are shaped – classic pencil on paper. Then I use a graphics tablet, which is essentially a digital pen, to produce the colour pallet. I’ve got lots of brushes set up on the computer, and these emulate different real-life brushes and paints – acrylic, water colour etc – you just choose the brush you want, and then you can create any marks you like.

In Tobias I have also used a lot of photographic elements. I’m not the greatest photographer in the world, but I do enjoy photography, and I like to be able to use these images in the illustrations that I do. When I was a teenager I absolutely loved the work of Dave McKean, whose approach often involves bringing together different mediums – found objects, photography, painting, collage – and his graphic style has influenced me a huge amount.

… (and I couldn’t resist asking one question about Skulduggery, for which Tom also does the illustration… )

The image of Skulduggery Pleasant, skeleton detective extraordinaire, is becoming pretty iconic – was the generation of that final character design a long process?

Surprisingly enough I actually hit upon it pretty quickly. Derek had already painted a fairly concrete description– the skeleton, the suit, the hat – then it was just a case of choosing the style, the elements to accentuate, and thinking about, visually, how Skulduggery would hold himself. Though he’s very thin, being a skeleton, he always needs to look powerful and solid. So I always see him in broad stances, where he looks substantial and ready for anything.

Tom Percival’s debut Picture Book Tobias and the Super Spooky Ghost Book publishes this month.

£5.99,  PB,  ISBN: 978-0-00-733739-2

A rare look behind the scenes at a fabled Children’s marketing meeting.

Alison, Sarah and Laura are pictured here brainstorming HARD on some creative ideas for our Spring marketing campaigns, including Skulduggery Pleasant, Dr Seuss, Dancing Jax,  Withering Tights and a very exciting TOP SECRET book.

Laura (far right), is clearly the only one taking things seriously. Enough posing, Sarah, get brainstorming!

Honestly.

I spent three hours last night dripping hot red wax on to envelopes and then sealing them with a specially created stamp.  Firstly I did it while planning a holiday with my friend (she was on the laptop, I was talking and waxing) and then during Ultimate Big Brother (unsurprisingly I was able to follow exactly what was going whilst preoccupied with waxing). Unfortunately, I now have a blister on my thumb from constantly re-sparking the lighter and several blisters on my hand from dripping hot wax on it. You can see one such blemish below.

The wound is a bit unsightly, but I hope you’ll agree it’s a very nice manicure none the less.
Anyway, I think it will be totally worth it when the invitations go out to the great and the good of the book trade.  You see, we have a brilliant new book coming out next Spring from a debut author and we are inviting them all to a top secret briefing at the Cabinet War Rooms in London in September. We’re really, really excited about it, but I can’t tell you too much now!   Lux E Tenebris.