Jim Smith
About Author
After graduating with a first class degree in advertising, graphic design and illustration in 1997, Jim Smith was spotted by the owner of a small coffee shop chain and brought in to fill the walls of their flagship store with his paintings.
It was a three month contract; fourteen years later, Jim is head of design at Puccino's Worldwide Ltd, now an international coffee shop franchise with stores in the UK, Europe and Egypt.
In the meantime he's illustrated kids' food packaging for M&S, drawn cartoons on the sides of PJ smoothies, created in-store graphics for Orange phone stores, designed book covers and branded a New York based Iced Tea company.
In 2010, Jim launched the hugely successful Waldo Pancake range of stationery and gift products, now sold in the UK, Australia, Singapore, Europe and the US.
And in May 2010, 'I Am Not a Loser' by Barry Loser, the first of a series of childrens' books 'spellchecked' by Jim, was published in the UK and sold to eight other countries. The second of his books, I Am Still Not a Loser, went on to win the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2013. Barry Loser is destined not to live up to his name!
Author link
Interview
BARRY LOSER: I AM STILL NOT A LOSER
JELLY PIE
DECEMBER 2013
The side-splitting I AM STILL NOT A LOSER won the 2013 Roald Dahl Funny Prize - so we've been speaking to Barry Loser's author Jim Smith. He tells us about how he started to write as well as illustrate his own books, how he uses people he knows to create his own characters, and about big noses....
Q: Congratulations on winning the the Roald Dahl Funny Prize! Was it a surprise?
A: Yes, I was very surprised! It's one of those awards where you really don't know the results before they are announced at the ceremony.
The last time I won something was when I was at school and it was something like the 'most improved award' and I was so surprised that I said, 'What...me?' when the teacher called out my name. I felt a bit like that all over again with this award! But it was a brilliant celebration, I was thrilled.
Awards like this can be life changing because it's harder to get your books recognised if you're writing books that are funny. When you think about it, funny films never win Oscars, either.
Q: How hard is it to be funny?
A: I don't find it hard to write things that are funny, hopefully it just comes naturally and what I write isn't just funny to me but to the readers as well!
My dad is always saying things that are a bit stupid but also quite funny and I guess I caught the habit from him. I used to crack up with the giggles at what I'd written when I was younger although I don't do that as much now.
I couldn't ever see myself writing a serious book....
Q: How do you make ordinary things like school and family interesting?
A: I try to make the plots as eventful as possible so while the story is all about everyday life, I give it a twist of craziness.
One of my favourite episodes in this book is when Barry goes to Gordon's house with Bunky thinking he's going to stay for a sleepover but Gordon doesn't want him there and he sends him away. One moment he's really excited, the next he's packing up his torch and leaving.
Q: Were you anything like Barry when you were a child?
A: No, I wasn't like Barry at all! I was into art and writing and I was a normal kid - not a loser! I'm still friends with people I was at school with in London. I have very clear memories of that age and being really happy.
I remember reading comics like Mad Magazine from the US - it was all farts and burps - and I think these days children enjoy diary-style books because those comics just aren't around any more.
I also loved school at that age; it was all writing stories and drawing pictures and that suited me down to the ground! It wasn't until I was at university that I could do that stuff all over again.
I'd love to be able to write serious novels about 20 year olds but I think I'm stuck with writing as a nine year old....
Q: Do you ever base your characters on people you know?
A: Yes, all the time! My friends often ask me to put them into my stories and I've already done that with some of them, like Ben who was my best friend when I was a kid. I have pretty much based Barry's best friend, Bunky, on him and they are pretty similar. Luckily, Ben doesn't mind!
In book three, the next one, I've got a new girl character coming in called Nancy who is a thinly disguised version of a girl from my school days, we used to be pen friends.
I combined her and my wife to make Nancy and she's a bit brighter than some of the characters in the book. It's so nice to have someone with a brain in the stories.
Q: Don't you illustrate as well as write the books?
A: Yes, I did a graphic design and illustration course at university. I was really into the idea of advertising when I started the course but then I found that the students who wanted to do advertising were turning up at college every day wearing suits - but I felt more comfortable with the people who were scruffy and had paint in their fingernails. They turned out to be the illustrators.
I always look forward to the bit when I do the illustrations for a book - that's the most fun part, I can relax a bit and listen to podcasts while I'm working, which you can't do while you're writing.
I have hundreds of sketch books filled with big-nosed characters and silly ideas. I always have a notebook with me, my pockets have been stretched to notebook-sized pockets. I still sketch, things I see out of windows or stuff that pops into my head, and even if I'm out with a group of mates I will be sitting there and making notes.
Q: What's with Barry's big nose?
A: I did that because all my favourite cartoonists give their characters big noses, so I took that a bit further and gave my characters enormous, Olympic-sized noses!
These days I show children at my events how to draw Barry and his big nose and then a few days later they generally start to send me pictures showing them and their mates with big noses; the big nose virus is infectious!
Q: And why does Barry say 'keel' all the time?
A: It's something I say. Me and my friend Ben used to say it at school because he wanted to be American and thought that that was how they pronounced 'cool'. So we both said it and it stuck.
Q: What will we see next from Barry Loser?
A: I'm working on the next Barry Loser book at the moment. In this story, Barry is going on a caravan holiday and he wants to take Bunky, his best friend with him, but Bunky has fallen in love with a girl so Barry ends up taking another girl on holiday with him instead and it brings all kinds of challenges for him....
I've also written a World Book Day book about Barry Loser - so look out for that in March next year.
I enjoyed writing that one; it's a bit shorter than my other books so I wrote it very quickly and I was excited knowing that a certain number of people would definitely end up reading it!
Q: If you weren't a writer, what would you be doing?
A: I've been writing fulltime for two or three years now but I have done other work. I designed displays for coffee shops, I created my Waldo Pancake gift range and M&S kids' packaging, and stories for Orange phones. And I painted these enormous canvasses that are now safely tucked out of harm's way under my bed...
But if I wasn't doing any of these, I think I'd be working in a greenhouse somewhere, planting things. I think that would be my dream job!
