Originally published in 2018, Gastronauts is back with a new full colour edition!
With colouring by Paulina Gamez and new covers designed by Rebecca Mills, this new edition is disgustingly good.
It even comes with an extra bonus story!
Continue reading “Gastronauts re-released in full COLOUR”
Originally published in 2016, Brobot is back with a new full colour edition!
With colouring by Paulina Gamez and new covers designed by Rebecca Mills, this new edition looks deliciously schmick.
It even comes with an extra bonus story!
Continue reading “Brobot re-released in full COLOUR”
Sally Tinker, the world’s foremost inventor under the age of twelve, is back!
She first appeared in my debut graphic novel – Brobot – released in 2016. The book was printed in black and white and just 112 pages long. Three sequels followed: Dungzilla, Gastronauts and Chickensaurus – each longer and more ambitious than the last – plus some full-colour short stories in The School Magazine. And that was it … or so I thought.
Then the wonderful team at Fremantle Press said, “Hey James … how about we rerelease the Sally Tinker comics in full colour?”
My instant and highly professional reply was, “heck yes!”
Then I looked at my diary and saw how busy I was already. I wouldn’t have time to colour them in. “Oh bottom,” I exclaimed in measured tones.
So Fremantle said, “what if we get some artists to help?”
And I remarked, “that’s a flippin’ excellent idea!”
So Freo asked an up-and-coming artist called Paulina Gamez to do the colouring, and the ever brilliant Rebecca Mills to redesign the covers. I reformatted the School Magazine stories to fit inside the new editions. And before we knew it, we had four revamped and beefed up graphic novels to release!
First up is Brobot on April 3rd, followed by Gastronauts on June 1st. Both feature new covers and extra stories. (No official release dates on the colour editions of Dungzilla or Chickensaurus, but rest assured they’re in the works). If you enjoyed Secret Agent Mole then you should love these comics too!
Pre-order your copies at the links below.
Published by Fremantle Press, 3rd April 2024.
ISBN: 9781760993115 (paperback)
Buy online:
Published by Fremantle Press, 1st June 2024.
ISBN: 9781760993122 (paperback)
Buy online:
Hello readers!
James here, finding a quiet moment while the toddler is asleep to update my blog. And there’s lots of news to share …
Funny Bones came out just this week. It’s a whopping 700-page kids’ anthology from the funniest Australian authors and illustrators, with all royalties going to the charity War Child Australia.
I’ve got a couple of pages of comics in there, but you’ll also find Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, Garth Nix, Jacqueline Harvey, Richard Roxburgh, Sally Rippin, Tristan Banks, Gus Gordon … you name them, they’re probably featured in here. It’s a brilliant book for a brilliant cause, and would make an absolutely brilliant Christmas present.
Grab your copy of Funny Bones here:
– Allen & Unwin
– Dymocks
– Booktopia (Aus/NZ only)
… or ask your local indie bookshop for a copy.
The next installment in the adventures of young hotel manager Chegwin Toffle will land in bookstores in January 2020. Words by the incomparable Tim Harris; illustrations by me.
This time around, Chegwin’s hotel staff are ‘reverse mugged’ by two mysterious men. Chaos ensues and it’s Chegwin’s job to get to the bottom of these attacks before Toffle Towers loses all its hard-earned guests. Meanwhile, the town of Alandale is preparing for the annual Great River Race. Once Chegwin discovers his saboteur is none other than Brontessa Braxton, owner of the rival hotel in town, Chegwin find himself preparing to go head to head with her in the Great River Race to save his beloved staff and Toffle Towers.
You can pre-order Toffle Towers book 2 here:
– Booktopia (Australia/NZ only)
– Angus & Robertson (Australia only)
– QBD (Australia only)
– Dymocks
– Readings
… or ask your local indie bookshop to order it in for you.
Look out for these projects coming next (I’m excited!):
– Chickensaurus (Sally Tinker book 4)
– Toffle Towers Book 3
– the follow-up picture book to cult favourite My Dead Bunny (more details on that soon)
– Stellarphant, a new picture book written and illustrated by me
That’s all the new book news for now! Thanks for reading.
– James
Sally Tinker and Brobot are coming to the West Australian newspaper’s ED! liftout every week in term 3.
It was a big challenge to reformat the story – I had to edit it down, rearrange the panels to fit the newspaper’s dimensions, AND divide it into 10 episodes.
Your school can get in on the action with an ED! section subscription: full details here.
My new book Gastronauts is out now in bookstores and online.
Today I’m taking you behind the scenes to show you how I illustrated the front cover.
Here’s my final rough:
Continue reading “Behind the scenes of Gastronauts, part 4: final cover illustration”
My new book Gastronauts is out now in bookstores and online.
Today I’m taking you behind the scenes to show you how I designed the robots and vehicles in the story.
Quick recap: Sally Tinker is the world’s foremost inventor under the age of twelve. In Gastronauts, Sally’s baby brother Joe swallows her latest invention. So Sally and her friend Charli shrink themselves down in a tiny submarine and journey into Joe’s body.
Here’s how I designed the cover.
Sometimes you get the cover idea pretty quickly and clearly from the start.
This was not one of those times.
I struggled with this a lot at first; I couldn’t figure out how to show the reader that Sally and Charli were inside a sub, inside Joe, and make Sally and Charli big enough so that they were recognisable, without being too big that the scale stopped being anatomically correct.
None of these ideas really work, but I’ve included them here to show you how a cover design process can go. There are usually lots of rejected, fairly ordinary ideas.
Continue reading “Behind the scenes of Gastronauts, part 3: cover design”
My new book Gastronauts is out now in bookstores and online.
Today I’m taking you behind the scenes to show you how I designed the robots and submarine in the story.
Quick recap: Sally Tinker is the world’s foremost inventor under the age of twelve. In Gastronauts, Sally’s baby brother Joe swallows an invention called the smartCHIP, along with a bunch of tiny robots called smartbots, and also a tiny shrunken submarine containing Sally and her friend Charli.
Here’s how I designed Sally’s SUB and the smartbots. But:
**SPOILER ALERT***
I’ll discuss plot points for the book, so if you haven’t read the book yet, go do that first, then come back.
All good?
Have you gone and read the book?
Ok, here’s how I designed the SUB and the smartbots.
Continue reading “Behind the scenes of Gastronauts, part 2: submarine & robot design”
My new book Gastronauts is out now in bookstores and online.
Today I’m taking you behind the scenes to show you how I made the illustrations.
Here’s one of my favourite spreads from the book. It’s where Sally leads her friend Charli into the SUB (Sally’s Underwater Boat) for the first time.
I thought it would be easiest to show the insides of the SUB by just drawing a massive cut-away diagram. Here’s how I drew it.
Continue reading “Behind the scenes of Gastronauts, part 1: illustration process”
My new book Gastronauts is out now in bookstores and online.
I’ve pulled together a bunch of free resources for teachers (and interested kids). You can find the full set on my website, but here’s some of my highlights:
Heaps of ideas for discussion and links to curriculum.
Download the teaching notes (pdf).
Read the first 16 pages before you buy the book.
Also great for using to read the start of the book to a class.
Download the free sample (pdf).
This is a super fun activity. You need scissors, glue, string and a piece of A3 coloured card – and a print out of the worksheet for each student. (And don’t forget to print the teacher cheat-sheet for you.)
You’ll end up with something that looks like this:
James Foley 