Paul Coomey is an all-round talented writer and illustrator who spends his hours doodling and creating stories. Paul is from Cork, Ireland but now lives in London and STICK BOY is his debut novel, If your kids love Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Tom Gates or Timmy Failure, they'll love this exciting and funny new world for middle grade readers.
You can watch Paul reading a chapter in the video below or you can download it here.
Hello! My name is Paul Coomey and I wrote Stick Boy. I drew the pictures too – and I’m going to talk about some my favourite ones here (without spoilers!).
Welcome to Little Town
This was great fun to draw. It took a long time to figure out where to put all of the buildings in the story – I drew this at least ten times before I got it right. The buildings are all a bit like buildings I’ve seen in real life, with some changes to make them feel different, like changing the colours. I picked colours that were in the comics I read when I was small – bright and simple, like on toys. Download this picture from https://stickboy.tv and colour it in yourself!
School Assembly
This is one of the first times we see Stick with his mates Nic and Ekam, and Alannah is in the crowd too. I loved drawing the different students here too, experimenting with different heads and body shapes and hairstyles, and it was a good challenge to make everyone look different. How would you look if you were drawn like this?
The Mega Mall
Baron Ben’s Mega Mall is the biggest and most ridiculous building in Little Town, and I had a lot of fun thinking of odd things to put on it like the weird windows and the huge slide, and of course lots of ads because the Baron loves money. The last thing I added was the streaks of pigeon poo. If you were going to create a ridiculous building, what would it look like?
Stick’s Dream
Because Stick is dreaming here, I was able to draw him doing things that he can’t do in the real world – like grow as tall as a skyscraper! He’s super strong here too, able to pick up Gretchen and Sam and rip the satellite dish off the top of the mall. In the first frame I imagined seeing Stick from the ground so he really towers over everyone, and I loved adding the detail of Gretchen and Sam escaping at the end.
Stick’s Desk
This might have been my favourite one to draw, and it is one of Stick’s favourite places to be. Where’s your favourite place to draw? I enjoyed picking some of my favourites books to put on the shelf, next to a very simplified minifig. On the drawing board you can see just a bit of the Spider Princess that Stick is drawing so you have to imagine the rest. On the wall, there’s Stick’s version of a painting by an artist called Piet Mondrian who liked to work with just red, blue and yellow. Next to this is one of Stick’s self-portraits. Like a selfie, but it’s a drawing. Stick is easy to draw, and easy to give expressions to – go to https://stickboy.tv/downloads.html to find out how!
Stick Boy
It's tough fitting in when you're born to stick out!
From the moment Stick Boy and his family move to Little Town, there is way more to worry about than being the new kid. There's a mysterious plot involving Baron Ben's new Mega Mall, pop star Jonny Vidwire and the highly suspicious HomeBots that are infiltrating every home in town. Can Stick Boy and his friends uncover the evil plan behind it all before it's too late?
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