With the help of a wisecracking, steampunk robot, two accidental superheroes discover that they have inherited some amazing, if unusual, abilities. Computer whiz Megan can fly (mostly sleep-flying, but she's working on it) while her best friend Cameron can (in theory) transform into any animal, but mostly ends up as a were-hamster.
Together they must protect the source of their ancestral powers from a wannabe evil mastermind and his gang of industrial transformer robots who've disguised themselves as modern art installations on their Greenock estate.
It isn't easy to balance school and epic super-battles, not to mention finding time to search for other super-talents and train with their Mr Miyagi-esque were-tiger coach. Can Megan and Cam beat the bad guy, defeat his robot transformers and become the superheroes they were born to be? Kelpies Prize shortlisted author Paul Bristow creates a hilarious tongue-in-cheek superhero mash up with a dangerous twist!
My first children's book, The Superpower Project, will be published by the wonderful Floris Books (Kelpies) on February 18th 2016. You can order it from the Discover Kelpies website and Amazon.
This is the start of a festive tale I've been working on, featuring a variety of Scottish, Nordic and Icelandic Christmas characters and traditions...uhm...I haven't actually finished it though. So for now, it's just a bit from a thing...
1 - The Clanging Chimes of Doom
Clarence had been trouble from that first
Christmas morning. Kyle's dad had got him from the cat rescue as a last minute
surprise. Clarence had burst out of a big pile of Christmas wrapping paper
looking all cute and tiny and Kyle's little sister Holly was so excited she had
just burst into tears. Within five minutes, Clarence had peed on Kyle's
playstation, knocked over the tree and smashed a scented candle, briefly
setting fire to the advent calendar until dad doused the flames by chucking
Kyle's hot chocolate over it. Everyone laughed about how they would have to get
used to having a cat around the house, but not Kyle - he knew then.
That was almost three years ago, and since
then, Kyle had got used to the ear piercing early morning shriek which meant that
Clarence had left them another 'present' downstairs; voles, bats, frogs...they
had seen it all. In one particularly epic battle, the catflap had snapped right
off the door as Clarence had charged through it with a huge angry crow. The
crow had flown into the toilet and it just sat there all day - glaring,
flapping and cawing. Everyone held it in for as long as possible and just when
they all thought they might have to move house rather than deal with the crow,
the RSPCA turned up and took it away. Somehow, Kyle still ended up last in the
queue for the toilet, so the whole thing annoyed him more than everyone else.
This morning's shriek seemed more shrill
than usual, but that was possibly because Kyle had a thumping sore head. He had
been off school with the cold for two days already and he didn't much fancy
trudging back through the snow to go back today. There was going to be more
Christmas Party social dancing rehearsal. Who
rehearses for a party, thought Kyle, practicing
fun in case you get it wrong. Mental. Although, he supposed he should be
grateful that Mrs Nickneven was allowing any fun in her school at all - even
carefully organised fun.
Kyle sat up in bed a little too quickly and
white spots floated in front of his eyes like little sickly snowflakes.
"What's he brought in this time
mum?" shouted Holly as she bounced down the stairs.
"Oh I can't even tell," wailed
Mum. "A robin maybe? Don't come down here just yet love. It's like a
horror movie. Honestly, that cat needs to go."
She
always says that, thought Kyle, but he's still here.
"Oh Kyle come and get these please
will you?" shouted Mum. "Dad's already away and you know I can't face
it."
"But I'm not well!" said Kyle.
"Exactly," said Mum. "So you
probably can't feel any worse."
Kyle shuffled out of bed and wobbled
woozily downstairs, holding on to the bannister.
"A robin. Seriously?" he said
"Very Christmassy. Maybe we're supposed to hang it off the tree..."
Mum was waiting at the bottom of the
stairs, looking the other way, "Thank you sweetheart," she said,
giving him a kiss, a dustpan and a binbag, "I'll make you some
porridge."
Through half closed, still blurry eyes, Kyle
looked around for Clarence's horrible Christmas gift. There really wasn't much
there - no feathers at all in fact. There was a lot of glitter, and rather
strangely, a little green Santa hat with a bell, but that was all.
"Mum there's nothing here," said Kyle.
"I think he's just broken a tree decoration, or knocked something off the
shelf again."
"Are you kidding?" shouted Mum
from safely inside the kitchen. "There's...stuff...everywhere. Just sort
it out please."
"Fine," muttered Kyle, brushing
up the glitter and some torn cloth. "At least it's not another
squirrel."
It was the kind of classic sick day when
Mum didn't even ask if Kyle felt well enough to go to school, she just sent him
straight back to bed after breakfast.
"I need to nip to the shops for ten
minutes though," said Mum. "I want to get some disinfectant to properly
clean up downstairs. Will you be okay?"
"Fine Mum," said Kyle, "I'll
just try to get back to sleep."
He didn't even hear Mum lock the door...
...Kyle woke with a start.
Bells. He could hear bells.
He sat up and waggled his finger in his
ear. The bells kept ringing.
Kyle blinked and rubbed his eyes, slowly
the bedroom flickered into focus. And that's when he saw it.
There was an elf standing at the bottom of
his bed. Rosy cheeks, curly shoes, cute nose - the works. An elf. An elf who
was angrily jangling the bell on her little green pointy hat.
"Your stupid cat killed me," said
the elf. "Now what are you going to do about it?"
Here's Bjork singing a song about one of the characters in the story, Jolakotinn, the terrifying and merciless Yule Cat...
Here's a strip Mhairi and I did for the Thought Bubble Comic Competition this year. I also got to go down and present a paper at the Comics Forum, 'Secret Identity - Community Comics and Cultural Heritage'.
I hope we can revisit Loola at some point, she's one of HG Wells classic Martian invaders, a recurring theme for me :) Sure there's scope for a Christmas On Mars story at some point. Though of course it would be very hard to top the classic below...
The Wonderful Worlds of Alice - Alice and the Time Pirate
artwork by Mhairi M Robertson
"Ah!' said the Time Pirate, "If I keep drilling, then I'm sure to remember when I buried my treasure eventually." "But yesterday is now completely full of holes,' said Alice, 'and bits of next week keep tumbling in."
The Wonderful Worlds of Alice is a range of gifts celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Alice's first adventure, by imagining what other strange worlds she may have visited.
The Wonderful Worlds of Alice gifts are produced by Inverclyde based social enterprise Newark Enterprises, and available to purchase from The Dutch Gable House shop in Greenock.
As well as creating our own comics, Magic Torch Comics can help you tell your story too - we deliver sessions and classes for schools and community groups, and can also deliver sessions for teachers on using comics to develop creative writing and developing a graphic novel library for class. If you are interested, drop us a line...
Over the last few months, as part of Magic Torch, I had the opportunity to work on a graphic novel based on the Gallipoli Campaign. The book Achi Baba, will be released in July, and free copies will be available at Glasgow Comicon thanks to the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The book explores the complexities of the Gallipoli campaign using documents from that period of history, including letters home, war poetry, military records and propaganda.We hope it will open up that grim chapter of history for new readers.
The short trailer below showcases some of Andy Lee's excellent artwork for the project.
Here instead, are a few test pages created by artist Mhairi Robertson, for a wee comic I wrote just for fun with Kidd's Oak Island treasure being the site of an adventure for time travelling hero The Doctor...in both his First and Tenth incarnations. Seemed like that fitted better over on this blog with the other fan fiction, rather than on the respectable folklore based website that is Tales of the Oak.
Before anyone gets too hung up on the historical accuracy of Captain Kidd meeting Doctor Who, let me remind everyone about the time pop culture pirate Kidd also met Batman...
We never quite got around to finishing it...but who knows...maybe next year. Right now, Mhairi and I are working on a new comic project, Rowan Tree Legion, which we totally are going to finish.
In May 2017, Magic Torch will be publishing I Thought I Was Undone...a full length Captain Kidd graphic novel, exploring the truth and the legend of the unfortunate Scottish pirate...
