Gothenburg Book Fair

When New Writing North asked me if I’d like to go to the Gothenburg Book Fair my first impulse was to look up exactly where Gothenburg was. I’ll admit I had no idea. It sounded like it could be in Germany, or maybe even the home to a well known Caped Crusader. I quickly discovered it’s in Sweden, has no known masked vigilantes and is in fact a very beautiful city, so I agreed to go.
I was reliably informed by Wikipedia that The Gothenburg Book Fair is an annual event held in Gothenburg, Sweden, since 1985. It started primarily as a trade fair (for librarians and teachers), but is now the biggest literary festival in Scandinavia and the second biggest book fair in Europe after the Frankfurt Book Fair. As a newly-published author, and a newbie to literary festivals, it sounded like the perfect place to go!
Before I knew it I’d arrived alone in an unfamiliar city, not knowing any of the 100,00 visitors to the fair, and not speaking any Swedish. But I soon realised how friendly everyone was, and they all spoke perfect English. New Writing North had already introduced me via email to the organisers of the fair and I was looked after from arrival to departure – I even had a driver waiting for me at the airport!
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I took part in three talks and a book signing at the fair, and a presentation for the Anglo-English Society nearby in Gothenburg. I made some really good contacts, especially with Scandinavian publishers, and I’m hopeful that the trip will prove to be beneficial to my writing career. But sometimes it’s the strange unplanned encounters that can be the most interesting. Late one night I began chatting to a group of American tourists who, having discovered I was a writer, were very keen to buy copies of my book as gifts for their children. I’m not yet published in America so I reckon I’ve increased my US readership by a huge factor! Who knows what impact those three new readers might have…
I returned home exhausted but invigorated by the experience. It was a fascinating trip and somewhere I’d love to go to again.

Cover Reveal – Sorrowline Thailand edition

Not only is Sorrowline being published in the UK, it’ll be out in Germany next month and Thailand soon after. So I’m delighted to be able to share the Thai variant cover with you!

Sorrowline Thai cover

It’s by Thai artist Gratuaidong and even features a nod to my Northern Promise Award! I’m sure New Writing North will like that!

Sorrowline Thiland by gratuaidong

I can’t wait to have a copy of this and the German edition to put on my shelf next to the UK version. There’s also a Braziliian version to come some time in the future. What do you think? Which is your favourite cover?

Sorrowline foreign covers

Beneath The Ice

If you’re interested in my work on the animated Ice Warriors episodes here’s the making-of doc from the DVD.

Ice Warriors production sketches

If you’re a Doctor Who fan you might have heard me shouting about the release of The Ice Warriors on DVD recently. Like many early Who stories some of the episodes are missing from the BBC’s archive. The Ice Warriors, first broadcast in 1967 is a six part story with episodes 2 and 3 lost to the ether. So in order to complete the story for release on DVD BBC Worldwide commissioned the production of animated versions of the missing episodes. Along with documentary maker Chris Chapman I produced the animated episodes. Director Chris Chatterton led the character design effort but this was something I was also involved with in the early stages. The hardest part was agreeing on a look for the Doctor, and our work went through many iterations. Here are a few of my sketches from that early period in production.

Doctor facial sketches

Most of these are face studies using photo reference. We were trying to capture the essence of Patrick Troughton’s performance in a stylised form – not easy! Chris took these drawings and combined them with his own studies to create the final artwork used in the animation.

Doctor body sketches

I also did some turn-around artwork for the Ice Warrior, Varga. This is an early rough. 

Rough turnaround of Varga

Rough turnaround of Varga

Finally here’s my artwork for Victoria. By this stage Chris had set the tone for the designs so my work on Victoria is a more finished, following in the the set style. Each piece of character art has to be broken up into various components in order to be used for animation. This means that the foot, calf, knee and thigh all become separate pieces of artwork, one overlaid on top of the next, so I couldn’t resist adding in a bit of extra hidden detail onto Victoria’s foot.

Work-in-progress art of Victoria.

Work-in-progress art of Victoria.

The Ice Warriors is out now! Here’s a clip from the animation:

Radio Tees Interview

Last week I spent an hour with BBC Radio Tees presenter Bob Fischer on his show. We talked about animation, comics, Doctor Who and writing. Here’s a short clip from the interview when we talked about Sorrowline.

Niel Bushnell Radio Tees Interview from Niel Bushnell on Vimeo.

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