Blowing off the cobwebs!

If there is such a thing in the worldwide tinterweb of an organisation that protects against the misuse and neglect of sorry, sad blogs, then I suspect I should be looking over the shoulder right now, waiting for a booted foot to come crashing through the front door as the blog police come and liberate the poor Badablingthing blogspot. I have, of course, been a bit busy - which is grand - but that's a feeble excuse for not keeping up to date on here with my happenings and goings on.

Big news on the business front is that I now have a new literary agent, John Jarrold. I met up with him for the first time a couple of weeks ago in Lincoln and enjoyed a tremendously pleasant evening in his company, as we outgeeked one another over all things fanboy. John is best known in the literary world as uber-editor of all things fantasy, scifi and horror. It's quite a departure from Laura Cecil, my previous literary agent who specialised purely in childrens literature. John is a dedicated adult fiction editor/agent, but he's been very happy to take me under his grown up wing. Which sounds rude. But isn't. Do check out his website for more about the fellow and the staggering list of famous authors he's edited, not least Iain Banks, Tad Williams and Terry Brooks.

The Animex Festival in February was fantastic as always, this time round the speakers' highlight was dinner at the Dun Cow Inn in Sedgefield, the infamous pub where Tony Blair took George W Bush for a meal of fish and chips towards the end of his tenure as prime minister. I was the only Brit in a party of fourteen, most of who were liberal Americans and staunch anit-Bush types. We asked the owner if we could purchase the chair that "Dubya" sat in for his meal, but he declined. Then we asked for just a wee stool, and still he said no but seemed to waver. When questioned we admitted that we planned to burn it in the street. This put an end to the prospects of us acquiring any furniture from the Dun Cow that evening...

I'm about to embark upon a trio of paintings based upon the fairies from Sleeping Beauty: Flora, Fauna and Merryweather. If you're liking the look of these and are interested in the originals, let me know. It's the Biteneck Beatniks hurtling headlong into the Grimm Faerie Tales. They're red, green and blue respectively. Or at least will be when I'm finished!

My Art Show is now in full effect in that there London. If you're in the capital, be sure to visit the Animation Art Gallery in County Hall, next to the London Eye. The original Frankenstein's Cat paintings and the Biteneck Beatniks show will be hung together there for the next month until mid-April. There are also limited edition giclee prints available of the nine Cat paintings.

New properties in development include a show that Jetix are just about to option, plus HIT Entertainment have picked up a preschool show from me directly and are optioning another exciting property too - more on this in the coming weeks!