MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
(right click on the pic below and open in a new window to read this Monkey Nuts card updated from the Etherington Archive!)
Festivals - We appeared at the Hay Festival for the third year in a row - during which we played to our largest ever crowd (900 giggling children and adults) and the Edinburgh Festival for the third year in a row. The Phoenix comic hosted its first comic festival in Oxford which was a complete success. We appeared at the Imagine Festival, The Beverley Literature Festival and, possibly most memorable of all, we traveled all the way to Singapore to host live shows and masterclasses as part of their Writers Festival.
Schools and Tours - We toured Scotland with the Scottish Book Trust, Fife with the Cultural Trust and Nottingham with the NCSEP. Over the past year we've met over 15,000 children in Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales, and introduced the joy of creativity, imagination, reading, writing, drawing and laughing (not to mention comics) to a new legion of young creators.
The Phoenix - Long Gone Don returned to the pages of the most remarkable comic in children's publishing with his second book-long adventure, and Lorenzo's Von Doogan continued to fox both kids and parents alike with weekly problematic puzzles. The comic itself hit the big 100 ISSUES, which is some sort of an incredible milestone.
The Dandy - Our one comic series yet to be collected was brought together in magnificent style as the Dennis and Gnasher Megazine published the complete YORE! stories in a super exclusive 32 page comic. All Etherington, no filler. It was something to see.
Star Wars and Transformers - More lightsabers, more metal-on-metal smackdowns. Robin continued to bring the fun and his stories were published for the first time in German and Russian! Hooray!
The BBC - We filmed a live show in Edinburgh for BBC iplayer and the Author's Live portal. We also shot a secret pitch with the BBC which is still under wraps. Hopefully we'll have more to share next year.
Film and TV - As it's now up on IMDB we can announce that Robin wrapped story and script work on the BBC wildlife movie, Enchanted Kingdom, which is set for release next year. The film uses groundbreaking 3D technology to provide a whole new perspective of Mother Earth ... and I do mean groundbreaking! Much more about this in the new year!
Elsewhere Monkey Nuts developments continue to bubble away in the background in serious fashion. We still can't say much but (fingers and toes crossed) 2014 could prove to be really rather interesting for Sid and Rivet.
Charitable work - Robin was honoured to became a Trustee for the Bristol Story Lab charity; a fantastic initiative which aims to encourage reading and writing for pleasure, self expression and confidence to young children in the Bristol area - for many of whom English is a second language. Sam and Dave have done some amazing work in bringing this project to life and Robin hopes to be able to continue supporting their efforts.
The New Year - A number of projects are nearing the end of production, including two books from Robin with different publishers - one for release in 2014 and a different series launching in 2015. We can't say anything yet, but all the work is coming together beautifully. Our third volume of Long Gone Don is also looking fantastic and will be appearing in the pages of the Phoenix around Spring.
We'll be back on the road visiting lots of schools and festivals and taking our furthest flung tour ever, as we head to New Zealand (and possibly Australia) in May.
Plus ... and this is the BIG one ... a brand new baby Etherington will be joining the ranks in March. Wow!!!
Thank you all for the support and the inspiration. We look forward to bringing you more fun next year.
~ Robin and Lorenzo
