Frances McKay Illustration

RINGO THE RAVEN

2012-01-24T11:49:09+00:00

A new Year and a new book illustrated by Henning Lohlein.

This cute little story is by the author Manfred Mai and published by the suitably named Ravensburger in Germany.

Ringo the Raven is different from the other Ravens in his family.

His brothers are learning to fly and explore the world, as every raven child does.

But Ringo stays in the nest and observes them from a distance.

His parents are getting worried, what will happen to little Ringo?

Finally Ringo shows them what he wants to do...he flies off to the highest tree and sings his little heart out!

A great story perfectly suited to Henning's 'chirpy' style.

Donough O' Malley

Happy New Year !

2012-01-06T22:12:58+00:00

Happy New Year All !

Illustration by Henning Lohlein

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-21T15:44:20+00:00

It's that time of year again in case you hadn't noticed, so all of us here at Frances McKay want to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year with a selection of seasonal illustrations.

These beautiful illustrations were created in order by: Jane Eccles, Jill Latter, Bee Willey and Alan Marks.

Wishing you all a great Christmas and look forwarding to bringing you more amazing ilustrations in 2012.

Tom Morgan-Jones' War on Terror, the iPhone app

2011-12-13T11:27:30+00:00

For the last five years TerrorBull Games have published board games - specifically satirical and subversive board games. Last year we met a French vegan anarchist and artificial intelligence specialist and things took a turn. David Partouche suggested we make an iPhone version of our international cult hit 'War on Terror'. We chuckled because programmers had approached us before with the idea but then realized it was a bit too difficult, telling us it just wasn't possible. I'm pleased to say David has just proven those other programmers it can be done.

On the 25th November 2011 we launched War on Terror the app. Forbes tempted fate a few days prior to this by publishing the article 'Will Apple Ban The 'War On Terror; iPhone Game?'. But so far, so good (just to clarify, this means we haven't been banned yet). This little electronic baby of ours has been a joy to work on, we've put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it and I hope it shows.

The game is an absurdly addictive and wickedly satirical strategy game of global liberation. Imagine a darkly comedic alliance between Risk, Monopoly and Settlers of Catan and you're halfway there.

Our good friend Rob Taliesin Owen created the amazing music and all the sound effects which bounce beautifully around in your skull. And as a special treat, as if Rob's music wasn't enough, we managed to cap in hand, crowd fund cash for licensing a song by Jarvis Cocker. So you get a bit of Jarvis too.

Andrew Sheerin , the brains behind the whole operation, is not only the designer of the game itself and all of it's addictive game play, his legendary work load extends to graphic designer, video maker, writer of wit within the game and all round publishing machine. He's looking forward to some sleep, I think sometime next year. Maybe. It was a joy for me to see my illustrations boing around the screen and add an inky element to the game. It was great to work on drawings knowing they would be animated which I hadn't done before. A particularly rewarding set of illustrations went to form the 'Torture School' where I had my wicked way with Andrew, David and myself in a credit page like no other I've seen. If you've got an iPhone and get to play it, be nice to us. Within reason. Andrew even did all the colouring in of my drawings, which I don't usually let others do. Trust is a beautiful thing. The crazy man says he's simply a pixel pusher, everybody who works with him knows better than this. and knows no one better to know.

If you fancy you can watch the teaser trailer here, and our official trailer here. It's even got a real life horse in it. So it's a work of art in itself. Fellini would be proud of that trailer. And here's our TerrorBull Games web page with a few more details to put you off the game. But if you've got this far, why not just go to the Apple store and buy the thing? Terror has never been so globally available.

Henning's handsome Mr Fox

2011-11-29T09:03:53+00:00

Julia Donaldson, children's laureate and author of the Gruffalo, chose "My name is Mr Fox" written by Shen Roddie and illustrated by Henning Löhlein, amongst her top ten favourite recent picture books, as published in The Guardian Saturday 22 October 2011.

Even so the book has been published 5 years ago by Macmillan, it is nice to see that it still lingers in people memories.

"It's the night of the hens' fancy dress ball, but there is a mystery guest - the handsome Mr Fox.

Will the hens discover his identity before they become chicken pie?"

Amazing praise for an amazing book, well done Shen and Henning!

Donough O' Malley

The People's Book Prize 2011/12

2011-11-21T11:40:59+00:00

Bee Willey's The Mouse who saved Egypt written by Karim Alrawi and published by Tradewind Books has been entered into the children's books section of The People's Book Prize.

Here's a message from Bee - Please vote guys, if you like what we've done.This book took a long time but it's publication is at a perfect time! Voting is till the end of November. Bee. xx

You can vote for The Mouse Who Saved Egypt here, and see more of Bee's work here.

Congratulations and best of luck Bee, Karim Alrawi and Tradewind Books !

Images 35

2011-11-04T09:00:44+00:00

It's that time of the year again when the great and good in British Illustration pop up in the A.O.I's 'IMAGES' annual. Judgement on number 36 is out soon, while IMAGES 35 recently had it's private view in London, where the various awards in different categories were dished out. Work to appear in the annual is jury selected, so not every Tom Dick and Harry can get in, and subsequently the standard is always high.

Well we are happy here at team FMI to say that we have had not just one, nor two, but three people manage to get into the hefty tome. And if that wasn't enough, some of them even got a number of illustrations into it.

The people and their work are:

Valentina Cavallini. Valentina has had three unpublished pieces to go into the children's book section.

All the illustrations are inspired by a magical tale. The above image is based on a Greek myth.

The above is based on a tale about an enchanted lake.

And the above, Alice in Wonderland. Lovely work as usual from Valentina.

Tom Morgan-Jones. Tom has had his image selected for the self promotion section.

Tom said of the piece: 'Being a fan of Peter Cook and his Dagenham Dialogues I decided to ink a bit of both. Regrettably Dudley Moore has been overlooked, it's so easily done, I think it was his height.'

James De la rue. James has had two pieces selected for the children's books section.

Both images are part of the 'Gladiator Boy' series, written by David Grimstone, published by Hodder and commissioned by Leilani Sparrow and Laura Richardson.

The above image was also selected to go into the exhibition as well, which will tour around the U.K. from 26 September 2011. If it is calling in around your area do not miss this opportunity to see some great work.

Well done to all and best of luck for 'IMAGES 36'.

Donough O' Malley

VG Lee's Guest Post

2011-10-28T16:32:32+01:00

I am a writer, but for the last two years I’ve also been a stand-up comedian.

At the age of fifty my first novel ‘The Comedienne’ was published, ten years later in my sixtieth year a friend enrolled me on a comedy course.

“You’re hilarious,” she said.

Eight weeks on, our friendship faltering it was a case of “But surely you used to be hilarious.” And me snapping back, “Well maybe I did, but I’m not now!”

However at the end-of-course-show I gave myself options, a) walk into the sea never to be heard of again, b) go home and admit to everyone who’d told me how brave I was being, that I was in fact a snivelling coward, or c) do my best. The show went well. I lampooned my friend sitting in the third row back who fortunately rather enjoyed the limelight.

After that I set myself a target of sixty comedy gigs to complete in my birthday year - by the end of the year had done nearer ninety, travelling all over the south coast, plus Oxford and to the Edinburgh Festival with my friend Karl, the two of us performing in front of very drunken people who daily took shelter from the almost continuous rain.

During that first year I put on a stone, (foraging for food at 11pm after a gig, when all that’s open is Burger King), my friends grew to dislike me because I was constantly tired and complaining about putting on a stone, also I stopped working on my novel.

Writing stand-up comedy is very different from writing prose. With stand-up if you can’t make the audience at least relax their features within the first three seconds of your material, you’re done for. Returning to my manuscript I found that paragraphs now eluded me. What was the point of all this description stuff? Who cared if the sky was blue and the sea was green? Sentences seemed far too long, and where was the punch-line? From recounting the poignant yet gently humorous tale of a ten-year old child and her curmudgeonly grandmother, every bit of dialogue was now reduced to a sub-standard Wood & Walters routine.

Fortunately after that first year I adjusted. I stopped accepting any and every gig and got back into writing. My publisher Tollington Press suggested they re-issue ‘The Comedienne’, to celebrate its tenth anniversary but also with an ‘Afterword’ linking it to my new stand-up career.

I wouldn’t say the last two years have been happy ones, they haven’t! But I wouldn’t change them, because they’ve changed me. My confidence has improved; I’ve broadened my horizons at a time when I was in danger of perhaps reigning them in. I’ve done the Edinburgh Festival two years in a row. Who would have imagined that girl with very few ‘O’ levels and no immediate talent for anything would - ?

The friend I lampooned two years ago at my very first gig, (see below in top hat) is looking over my shoulder.

She says, “Steady on. Don’t go getting above yourself, you’re still a misery and actually Val, you put on a stone and a half.”

When VG Lee is not doing stand up comedy, she is the author of such books as The Woman in Beige, The Comedienne, both published by Millivres-Prowler Group, and As You Step Outside, published by Tollington Press.

Many thanks to VG for a wonderful post.