Author Biography

IAN BILLINGS is an award-winning writer of books, plays, radio plays and pantomimes; a reformed juggler, actor, lecturer and general dabbler in many areas. When he is not at home writing or feeding his cat, Harriet, he is travelling the world making children laugh with his stand-up comedy show. So far he has performed in UK, Australia, Cyprus, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Thailand, Jordan, Oman, Vietnam, UAE, Uganda and Kenya. Ian's first title for VP is the brilliant, 'BILLY PLONKA AND THE GROT LABORATORY'. He was once described by an audience member as "The most imaginative adult I've ever met" and by one of his teachers as "Hopeless."HUNT EMERSON (Illustrator) is one of the most celebrated cartoonists of the 20th Century. He was closely involved with the British underground comics scene of the 1970s and 1980s. His earliest strips in the 1970s appeared in such British small press comics as Graphixus, Moon Comix, Yikes, Animal Bite Comix, No Ducks, Phobos, Streetcomix, Free Comix, Warrior and Fish and his many comic strips and graphic novels have been translated into numerous languages. A trip to the US put Emerson in touch with the underground comix publisher Rip Off Press, which published his Thunderdogs title; while Don and Maggie Thompson included him in their mini-comic series, for which he created Calculus Cat. Emerson's art also appeared in the US underground/alternative anthologies Commies from Mars and Eclipse Monthly. Dogman, and Large Cow Comix (a five issue series with separate subtitles) were all Emerson work cover to cover, but it was Knockabout Comics, a British comic book-sized, and later album-sized, anthology that featured some of Emerson's most notable strips, including the characters Alan Rabbit, Calculus Cat, Max Zillion & Alto Ego, Pusspuss, Momo and Fuzi, Charlie Chirp, plus the one-shot stories Cakes And Bricks, The Dentist, and Mouth City. The latter two stories spawned a series called Citymouth, and later a collected volume. In 2016, Hunt designed the Walsall Silver Thread Tapestries. He drew and created Ratz for The Beano, a strip about mean rats in a sewer. In 2002-2007, he drew Little Plum for that same comic. In March 2009, he revived the Fred's Bed strip. Hunt was acclaimed as one of the 75 European Masters of Cartooning of the 20th Century by the Centre Nationale de la Bande Dessinee et de l'Image, and he has won many other international awards.

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