I said, "Woof! Be mine!" and you gave a wail

Emily and I have made a new zine, Les petits chiens en costume. The title is in French - not because we are pretentious, but because Emily's boyfriend is French, and he will like it.

As the title will suggest to the bilingual among you, the zine is a book of illustrations of dogs wearing clothes. For £2.50 you can buy the concertina zine from dear Reena Makwana at the Nest Gallery - they will have a stall at this year's Sister Sledge Christmas fair on the 11th December at the Sassoon Gallery in Peckham, London. There are eight different front covers, so feel free to collect them all, like tazos or pokemons. Also, the illustrations are hand-finished, in colour!

Here are some pictures:

I'd pay to visit you on rainy Sundays

The night before I flew off to Chicago, Emily and I attended the private view of Spin Spun Span at Bolton Museum & Archives. It was really interesting to see the new gallery complete and with our funny little film showing as one of the exhibits. Would you like to see it? Well you can now, and I think if you go the Museum's website you are bound to find instructions on how to do so.

Here are some photos we took on the night:

Some people watching the film.

Some of our merchandise in the Museum shop. Badges, flipbooks, letter writing sets, jewellery and postcards too, although you can't see the postcards here.

Emily and I, looking a little bedraggled, but at least we are colour co-ordinated. It was yellow that day. We are happy because we have read our names. Simple pleasures.

Come on! Feel the Illinoise!

I'm back from Chicago International Childrens Film Festival, and it was lovely.

I saw loads of really good films, but my favourite was Googuri Googuri, a Japanese animation about a little girl and her grandad taking a nap together. The technique was painting on glass, and it looked brilliant - lots of energetic, swirling transitions. The sound design was spot on too, made up partly of murmuring voices of the little girl and grandad, whispering "googuri", their secret word. I just loved it. You can see the trailer for it here:



I also really liked The Boy & the Beast, a German animation for TV which won an award at CICFF. The animation style was quite fresh looking, and I loved the story. Here's the trailer:



I had a good time doing the Q&A for the young audience at CICFF, and also met lots of fellow filmmakers and festival folk. One was Christina, who wrote about A Film about Poo on her blog, which is quite ace and is here.

Thanks to all at CICFF for a great festival!