Liz Pichon and Peter Bently: Roald Dahl Funny Prize Winners

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Tuesday 8th November saw the fourth annual Roald Dahl Funny Prize ceremony, which again took place at the Unicorn Theatre. This year Chair, and instigator of the prize, Michael Rosen was joined on the judging panel by author and broadcaster Grace Dent, illustrator Tony Ross, Horrid Henry creator Francesca Simon and journalist/scriptwriter Danny Wallace. Between them they had put together two very strong shortlists for the 0-6 and 7-14 age groups.

0-6 shortlist:

Bedtime for Monsters by Ed Vere (Puffin)

Cats Ahoy! by Peter Bently, illustrated by Jim Field
(Macmillan)

First Week at Cow School by Andy Cutbill, illustrated by
Russell Ayto (HarperCollins)

Limelight Larry by Leigh Hodgkinson (Orchard)

Marshall Armstrong is New to Our School by David Mackintosh (HarperCollins)

A Place to Call Home by Alexis Deacon, illustrated by Viviane Shwartz (Walker)

Won by: Cats Ahoy! by Peter Bently, illustrated by Jim Field

7-14 shortlist:

Animal Tales by Terry Jones, illustrated by Michael Foreman (Pavilion)

The Brilliant World of Tom Gates by Liz Pichon (Scholastic)

The Get Rich Quick Club by Rose Impey (Orchard)

Letters from an Alien Schoolboy by Ros Asquith (Piccadilly)

Penny Dreadful is a Magnet for Disaster by Joanna Nadin,
illustrated by Jess Mikhail (Usborne)

The Wrong Pong by Steven Butler, illustrated by Chris Fisher (Puffin)

Won by: The Brilliant World of Tom Gates by Liz Pichon(Scholastic)

Arranged marriages used to be the de facto method of putting people together, and, if Peter Bently and Jim Field are anything to go by, this is still the preferred method used by picture book publishers. The two were paired up by their editor and art director at Macmillan, respectively Hannah Ray and Chris Inns, and hadn’t actually met each other until the morning of the prize. “If this was a wedding,” said Peter, “then the veil has been lifted and thankfully it’s a marriage made in heaven!”

While Peter has had books published under six imprints - from ‘A’ (Andersen) almost to ‘Z’ (Wayland); “I’m what is known as a tart, apparently,” he says - Cats Ahoy! is Jim’s debut. “I took my portfolio to Macmillan and Chris said he had this lovely text, would I be interested; I did some samples and away we went.” Something of a fairy tale beginning, then, for an illustrator who until recently worked as a commercial animator at the Partizan studios.

It was nothing more than geography that kept London-based Jim and Devon-dwelling Peter apart. “I suppose we could in theory have met up,” says Peter, “but actually it worked pretty well by e-mail and Internet.” Geography has also played a part in Peter’s early life, which entailed following his Army bandmaster father around the globe, notching up ten different schools in the process.

While Peter says that the musical gene, which is apparently everywhere in his family, seems to have effectively skipped him, might not the fact that he writes in rhyming text possibly contradict that? “Maybe…there is a music to language, and I do love the music of language. I did languages at University, and a lot of people who did languages often said they nearly did music, and vice versa. Words and music have an affinity; I suppose it’s about hearing things rhythmically, as well as entertainingly, in your head.”

Having come from the intense, 25-frames-per-second world of animation, how had Jim found working within the confines of a 32-pages-per-book environment? “It’s easy, a breeze, as it’s like doing just the first few frames of a film!” he says. “For me it wasn’t huge leap, because it’s still storytelling, but you have to try and tell the story in a very limited number of pictures. That’s the challenge. It was very important to me to get the mood, to give it a painterly look even though, apart from the initial pencils, it was all done digitally.” For Peter it was a tremendous process to watch. “I love the way the pictures are so animated, like frozen action in a way, the pictures are very lively.”

This new picture book duo is already hard at work on a new title, which is written and Jim is now illustrating. Peter wasn’t sure if he was allowed to tell me what the title was, but did so anyway. “It’s called Farmer Clegg’s Night Out, and includes a character called old Farmer Clegg, who was not topical when I first wrote him, but is a bumbling shambles who mucks in with a bunch of animals!” Art and life, always so close.

When author/illustrator Liz Pichon went to Camberwell art school her aim was to study illustration, but she was told by her tutors that she should do graphics instead as her drawing skills just weren’t good enough. “They were absolutely right, and I’m quite glad I did graphics in a way,” she says, adding that this was mainly because when you leave college, you still don’t really know much, and it’s easier to learn on the job as a designer.

Quite soon after finishing at Camberwell she got a job at Jive Records in Willesden, north London. “When I arrived for my interview the reception had lots of framed gold discs on the wall…then they took me downstairs, out of the building, past the bins and into the Portakabin. Which was the Art Department. It was just me and another guy and we did everything - had all the ideas, designed the covers, booked photographers, everything.”

After a couple of years of working with such artistes as Samantha Fox, Billy Ocean and a heavy metal band called Slave Raider, who had a one-eyed lead singer called Chainsaw Caine, Liz went freelance, as an illustrator. “I took on the label’s library music list, which no one else wanted; so I drew lots of covers, as I could do whatever I liked, and taught myself illustration.”

Books came into the mix when she started working for Camden Graphics doing greetings cards and people began asking her to illustrate their books. “So I started to think that maybe I could do books, and I began to get some picture book work.” Up until this point Liz had done everything by herself, but realising an agent might help, she approached Caroline Walsh, who represented an artist whose work Liz admired, and she took her on.

As she told the audience at the Funny Prize ceremony, Liz worked with Caroline on the idea for The Brilliant World of Tom Gates for quite a long time, and you get the strong impression that here is someone who does not give up easily and also takes things in her stride. Was she surprised she’d become an author? “I’ve never thought of myself as a writer, just as someone who’d have a go at anything; I was illustrating other people’s picture books and I’d think I could do that. I wanted to do funny things and I didn’t like sappy endings. I wanted stories with more punch at the end.” Was this need for humour, and a bit more edge, the reason why her lead character is a boy, rather than a girl? “No,” comes the reply, “Tom just seemed to fit the story better.”

The book, an amalgam of ideas that include scrapbooks, exercise books and doodles, is set in a typeface based on her own handwriting and is decorated with her drawings and added typographic ‘extras’, making it highly original, very funny and uniquely Liz Pichon. So, what’s next for this slightly accidental author? “Tom Gates, Book 3,” she says, “that’s what I’m working on at the moment.” Long Live Tom, and his brilliant world.