The PiRATe CRuNCHeR!!

**LuYangartbox** · September 28th, 2009, 07:16 AM

nice work

**cakeypigdog** · September 28th, 2009, 10:24 AM

Top stuff mr Duddle. I shall get a copy post haste!

**artistcaleb** · September 28th, 2009, 10:46 AM

Ha! I love it!! 100% cool. Oh and, yarrr as well matey!

**mcunha98** · September 28th, 2009, 11:23 AM

Amazing work, greate colors and good composition !

Congratulations

**3dfreak** · September 29th, 2009, 07:45 AM

its lovely.........wow...........

**ValerioKientz** · September 29th, 2009, 07:50 AM

You're a Real Genius, I love it

**El Jeremie** · September 29th, 2009, 07:53 AM

Awesome.

**liquidwerx** · September 29th, 2009, 08:06 AM

Outstanding work dude!

**lordbiernac** · September 29th, 2009, 08:19 AM

I loved the original pirate muncher piece from the very first moment and now I see THIS!!! I'll definitely get myself one copy...

Love your work!

**TheGnoll** · September 29th, 2009, 01:58 PM

its AWESOME!

great backstory to it too!

**Ivan.R** · September 29th, 2009, 04:30 PM

It is really awesome! Great personages and mood! 5 stars from me!

**Clochette** · September 29th, 2009, 04:40 PM

Oooh so nice to read what you did from the COW entry to an actual children book.

This is great! I hope you'll do many others!

**JessiBean** · September 29th, 2009, 07:35 PM

I always loved that COW piece, the book just blows me away! Absolutely gorgeous.

**duddlebug** · October 23rd, 2009, 07:43 AM

First off, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply to folk. We had a baby girl last month, who has been taking up most of our spare time (as well as our four-year old daughter who started school and broke her arm!), so I've struggled to get online much since I posted this stuff...

Chupacabra: Thanks, and I'll try and keep up with the posting. I don't get online as much as I used to, but I'm gonna make more effort to post work and stuff.

Banhatin: Thanks! And I yup, I've got something in Spectrum 16, it's the cover for this book! I'm interested to see how it'll look on the page, because I'd imagine it'll be pretty tiny with the very wide format of my cover and Spectrum's portrait format pages.

Bendragon: Thanks! I'm not sure if I'll do another book inspired by one of my COW's, but I'm working on a new picture book idea based on one of my CGtalk challenges. We'll see.......

Posh: Ta! I'm going to come round your house and check your looking after it!

Lotet, WillertheKiller, Noah Bradley, Ostrander, [void], DavidSmit (I like your avatar!), Ivan.R, ValerioKientz, El Jeremie, Erishaham, Nub, Dizon, Borilius, Oblio, lewiston, chaves, LuYangartbox, cakeypigdog, artistcaleb, mcunha98, 3dfreak, lordbiernac, JessiBean: A big THANKS!

liquidwerx: Thanks! I hope your well, and work's going good!

Dave Kendall: Cheers, Dave! I hope you like it when you get it! And good luck on being a DAd. It's the best thing in the world! (When they let you sleep) And I have a bookshelf in my office full of children's books that's out of reach of my four-year-old. She's got loads too, but the out-of-reach shelf has all my precious hardback books, by Shaun Tan, Maurice Sendak, Mary Blair, Dave McKean, Adam Rex and the like. The stuff I don't want demolished! Is that bad?

Torstan: Thank you! I can't tell you how chuffed I was to be included in the Spectrum exhibition. To be on show in New York alongside some of my favourite illustrators is such an honour. The piece on show there was originally a portfolio piece and the image I showed to my publisher, Templar, that inspired the book. It changed a little in the final book, mainly to accommodate the dimensions and format of the book.

Nightblue: Thanks! And good plan, I'll post here when it arrives in the US. At the moment it's due in APril....

Matt: Thanks Matt! I hope you're well and the life of a freelancer is running smoothly! Any closer to the seaside yet? And I heard it was sunny at the Green Man this year, it'd have been nice to meet up...

hurricane: Cheers! Yup, get him a copy! Hugo's part viking, isn't he? He'll be able to handle the pointy-toothed monster!

thegrayslayer: Ta! And are you the Paule from Codemasters???

Clochette: Thank you! It's funny how something you do pretty quickly for fun can turn into something quite pivotal in your career. When I doodled the original pirate muncher pic, I had no idea it'd lead to my first book. I'm a big fan of your drawings by the way, love the stuff on your blog!

So along with the new baby and loads of work, everything's been a bit manic, and I had a bad bout of flu a couple of weeks back, and seem to be going down with another bout of flu now. Ho hum. I put the new flu down to a kids' party (full of pesky mini-pirates with mini-pirate germs) that my agent organised in London last weekend for the Big Draw, which was also a promotional event for 'The Pirate Cruncher' and the kids' books of some of Arena's other illustrators, such as Adam Stower, Alex T.Smith and Matt Buckingham.

I got dressed up all pirate-y for the occasion (thanks to poshspice for the coat and boots!), and read my book to a rowdy room full of kids, with the help of a couple of actors from the Discover Centre. They were brilliant!

Here's a photo...

**thegrayslayer** · October 23rd, 2009, 09:16 AM

Bloody hell, you make a good pirate!

Yes Jonny, it's the same Paule - and I'm still at Codemasters (well, back at Codemasters if you count the year away). Not many of us left there... but I sent your post onto Wayne and JimV also. Glad you and your expanding tribe are doing well.

~Slayer