My last review here was Peter in Peril, a story about a Jewish boy living in Budapest during World War Two. I was sent a copy of the book by the publishers and asked if I wanted to interview the author, well I enjoyed the book so of course I said yes.
You can read the review of the book here but as a brief reminder, it's told from the point of view of Peter and is suitable for ages 8 up. Here go the questions:
You can read the review of the book here but as a brief reminder, it's told from the point of view of Peter and is suitable for ages 8 up. Here go the questions:
Q1. I understand that Peter in Peril is your first book and that you used to be an architect. How did you get into comics and did being an architect have any influence on how you approached constructing the comic pages?
I gave up my architectural career after 10 years to do a degree in illustration and I initially illustrated some children’s books for Frances Lincoln and Harper Collins. The Peter story was done as a student project initially but in a very different form. I was thrilled when I got the opportunity to work with Janetta Otter-Barry to produce it in a way that would suit 8-10 year old children and the graphic story form seemed to be the one that best suited the complexity of the subject and the age range. I used more text than other graphic stories, as I wanted to allow the book to be read to a child. I also felt it was important with the subject matter to adequately explain to children what was happening in more detail.
I think my architectural background has quite an influence on my drawing style - drawing with a black line is a very big part of architectural drawing and I always tend to gravitate to that way of drawing… even though I’d quite like to have a looser style … but drawing is pretty much like your handwriting - it’s very personal to the individual.