Do you want this? Yes or no, QUICK…

Clearing out the studio unearthed a dummy of rough drawings and inkjet prints of an early stage of The Frank Show pasted into a printer's blank. It takes me back to when I was thinking about how the book could work. The text was at a stage before a merciless edit by Helen (you know who you are) the editor. I wonder what she did with all those words she took out? I'm going to keep it because the drawings are from a notebook and I've lost the notebook. Probably when I was clearing out the studio sometime before.

…raeB ehT dna eihcrA : WON TUO

In the book Archie and The Bear, I show Archie unpack his backpack. Inside are the survival essentials for small boy leaving home, on his own, into a wilderness:

a bar of chocolate, a torch, a whistle, some sandwiches, an apple, and a book.

I think Archie took a book he had read and re-read, and is a favourite. Something familiar and comforting and something he knew like the back of his hand. I was recently on a train journey when I reached into my backpack only to find that I had forgotten to bring the one thing I wanted there to be in there: my unfinished crime novel. I had twelve or so pages left to read. I really was alone with my thoughts. 

The new book is out now in a wilderness near you in a handy backpack-able size.

 

archie and the bear david mackintosh

Thinks: "I like the next bit."