ACHUKA Special Guest ~ Colin Thompson

1. Future Eden, the 300 word-a-day internet novel, which has been progressing since the beginning of the year, is to be published, simultaneously in both hemispheres, during December. Have you had any way of tracking numbers of people who have been logging on daily or less often to follow the developing story?

Yes. The hits have built up steadily and as Simon & Schuster in the UK have just printed over 300,000 postcards advertising the site and the book, the hits are continuing to rise. I had expected to get more hits over weekends, as I thought a lot of people would stop catching the daily episodes and just get the whole thing at the weekends, but this hasn't been the case. The weekend hits are actually less than the weekday ones.

2. This must be the first children's novel written in this way. It is a huge and brave undertaking to commit your work to a worldwide public in its very earliest state. Were the 300 daily words literally keyed into the computer and then uploaded directly?

It isn't really a children's novel - it's aimed at adults from 13 - death and beyond. I didn't actually write 300 words each day. When I began the online episodes, I had already written several thousand words.

3. Currently, pending publication of the polished and finished novel, you have removed the early chapters in their original form, and posted the revised Chapters 1-3, as they will be printed in the book. Do you see any value in eventually reposting the original instalments, so that readers of the printed book can compare versions?

I suppose I could if there is a demand for it. It's just that the internet version was very much a rough draft in that when I began it, I had no idea where it was going or what was going to happen next. It's full of contradictions and dead ends which have all had to be edited for the book. I've no objection to people seeing the early version, it's just that I got rather worried it mihjgt put them off the whole thing.

4. This is a new venture for you in another sense. It is a longish novel, for an older readership, compared with your earlier fiction. It also shares with a number of teenage novels published recently a dystopian vision of a decaying civilisation, with trees and vegetation gaining the ascendancy in underpopulated, under-resourced and chaotically crumbling cities. I have only read the opening, but is the vision of a disintegrating civilisation and social fabric one that you hold to be inevitable, or something you're writing about to ward off its occurring?

Well, it's bound to happen eventually. Just remember the dinosaurs were on planet Earth a lot longer that mankind has been!!

5. Let's go back to one of your earlier books, The Paperbag Prince. One of the pleasures of your artwork is in the detail and your depiction of the rubbish tip on the first major double-spread in this book is typical of your crowded, sharply focused style. It's the kind of illustration that repays repeated investigation, and with each intent perusal the array of rubbish reveals itself as more and more surreal. There is a varnished fingernail on the end of a solitary finger; a still-steaming cup of tea; a fried egg; an old dodgem car etc. Do you create this kind of illustration item by item, or is it constructed according to some masterplan?

My basic illustrating style is controlled by the 'well it seemed like a good idea at the time' method. I do have the very roughest of ideas of what the whole picture will look like, but when I'm doing a very detailed picture, I usually haven't the faintest idea what's going in it until I draw it.

6. The Paperbag Prince himself is an embodiment of the virtues of recycling and your website reveals that a landlady who recycled paperbags was your inspiration. Have other characters inspired different books?

Not usually one single person but rather bits and pieces from various people, often people I can't remember.

7. Sid the Mosquito and Other Wild Stories is another of your very early books, and rather different, in that it is a collection of prose, drawings and poems, and the illustrations are in a simpler, more traditional b & w style. When you began writing for children, is this the type of book you envisaged continuing with?

When I began writing and illustrating, I had to learn how to write, whereas I have always drawn pictures since I was tiny. I now think of myself as a writer who illustrates rather than the other way round. I enjoy doing both though I must admit, I get a bit bored doing the detailed pictures sometimes. I write far more than I illustrate. I also write for other illustrators and have just had a book of animal poems published in Australia (UK next year).

8. In Looking For Atlantis (1993) you began to have playful fun with book titles ('All Quiet On The Waterfront' etc.), something you took to joyful extremes in In How To Live Forever (1995), your picture book set in a library. Did you make all the titles up yourself?

I thought of about ninety percent of them with a bit of help from my children. My daughter Alice came up with the best title which was a sports one - 'One Flew Over The Snooker Rest'. Every time she and I sat down to think of a few titles we usually ended up thinking of ones that are far too rude to print.

9. In your most recent picture book, The Last Alchemist, apart from the Escher-type double spread in the library filled with staircases, you seem to have adopted a less hard-edged illustrative style. Has this involved a new way of working, and new art materials?

Not really, I think I'm pretty well using the same materials I did in my early books, it's just that I've had more practise and hopefully got better.

10. On your website, you mention that you work on a particular make of hard board or paper. Can you elaborate on this, and on your working materials in general?

The board I draw on is called CS10 board and had a very hard surface which allows me to draw over and over again without damaging the surface. Most of the colour apart from large washes, comes from Tombow ABT pens (fancy felt tip pens in 144 colours) and the pens I draw with are 0.1mm rotring technical pens with black ink and a grey ink I mix myself. My pictures are a lot bigger than the printed size in the books.
HOT EXCLUSIVE NEWS - I am 3/4 of the way through my next picture book - 'Falling Angels' and then I am planning to draw the book after that on the computer. I've been experimenting and practising and find I can get more detail on the computer, there are no pens to keep blocking up and I can now have pens with 16million plus different coloured 'inks' in any nib size I want. I will do a rough pencil sketch, scan it and then use it as a guide to draw the picture from.

11. Along with Future Eden your latest publication will be a collection of poetry. Did you begin writing poetry before you began publishing children's books?

No, I began writing poems when I wrote Sid The Mosquito. I'm now writing another book of poems to follow on from the recent one 'The Dog's Just Been sick in the Honda.' The new book's called 'I'll Show You Mine if You'll Show Me Yours'

12. While working as a potter in England, did you have any idea that you would welcome in the year 2000 living in another hemisphere, a highly successful children's books illustrator and author.

No!

13. Why did you move to Australia, and do you now initiate your publishing contracts there rather than in the UK?

A teacher librarian at a boy's high school in Sydney, bought a copy of my book 'Looking For Atlantis'. One of the boys asked if they could invite me to their school. The teacher said 'sure, but he lives in England, we'll have to buy him a plane ticket.' They sold millions of bars of chocolate and raised the fare and in March 1995 I came her for two weeks. In April this year, the teacher librarian and I got married. I am now an Australia citizen and living in paradise. Here's my question - why do so many people live in places where the weather is awful nearly all the time (the U.K?)
I currently have publishing contracts with publishers in the U.K. - Random House/Simon & Schuster - and publishers in Australia - Random House, Hodder Headline. I expect to keep these relationships going.

14. Are there any Australian author/illustrators that you think need bringing to the attention of UK readers?

We have this chap called Graeme Base who's pretty good. The illustrators I have worked with here are all terrific but Australia publishers seem to have a hard time getting their books accepted in other countries.

15. When will you next be in the UK, and do you intend repeating the exercise of writing a book online?

I don't know when I'll be in the U.K. next. We don't have any definite plans at the moment. I am now writing the second year of 'Future Eden'. I'm planing to write around five books in the series. I'm not sure if I'll put in one the net in daily episodes. I think it will probably be weekly. I'm also working on another series of books called 'Pepper Dreams' which I'd quite like to put on the net too.