Russell Ayto
About Author
Russell Ayto is best known for his anarchic and stylish artwork. He graduated from Exeter College of Art with a degree in Graphic Design and has since been delighting children all over the world.
He won the Gold Smarties Award in 2003 for The Witch's Children, and the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2008 for The Witch's Children Go to School. He has been shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal twice.
Before illustrating children's books, he worked for various magazines including Time Out and the Sunday Observer. Russell lives in Cornwall with his family.
Interview
THE MATCH
BLOOMSBURY CHILDREN'S BOOKS
MAY 2018
Young football fans will be thrilled by RUSSELL AYTO's new illustrated story about an underdog football team that is spared another humiliating loss by a new star player! Told through comic strips and using minimal text, and packed with humour and heart, THE MATCH has lots of appeal for children aged five years plus (and much older footie fans, too!).
We asked author and illustrator RUSSELL AYTO to tell us more about THE MATCH:
Q: The Match has a lot of heart. Has football always been a big part of your life?
A: A lot of my childhood was spent around football; from watching on the TV, going to games, playing, and of course Subbuteo. And football is still massively popular. It has become more of a commercial entity, but back then it all seemed so innocent and that's the feeling I wanted to try and recreate for the book.
Q: Did any particular incident inspire the story?
A: I wanted to tell a story about football from the point of view of ordinary fans. Fans who live and work to follow their team no matter what, even if they lose every week.
Q: The Match can be enjoyed by adults as well as children, but did you have young football fans in mind when you created it?
A: I just had football fans of any age in mind. I guess I wanted to create a book for them and about them.
Q: There are some lovely comic-style illustrations in The Match. Were comics what got you into reading as a child?
A: Ah, favourite reads were the Bill Badger books by 'BB' and the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton. There were many comics around at the time that I liked too, but Sparky was the one I chose to be delivered every week. I also remember finding a stack of American comic books based around World War II which I pored over for hours.
Q: The story follows 'The man' and his days at work before coming home to watch football with 'His dog'. How did you decide on the look of the 'The man' and 'His dog'and why don't you give them names?
A: As the book is really about the life of the ordinary supporter, the characters had to look as ordinary and normal as possible too. It also seemed to fit nicely with the idea of the ordinary being capable of the extraordinary, in this case the dog.
I didn't want to give them names and personalise them too much to try and reflect the sense of being part of the crowd, just two of many long-suffering fans in the world.
Q: The Match follows an unusual format, how did you decide on this way of telling the story through comic-style strips supported by pages with text?
A: I'd decided from the outset to tell the story with just a few words and lots of images so it was a bit like an old silent movie. But I didn't want it to be a long comic book. I felt it had to be more simplified than that so it could be read and looked at fairly quickly. In that way I hoped to reflect the faster moving world of social media and mobile phones.
So a basic 32 page layout was chosen, within which I could mix single images and comic style strips to vary the pace and tell the story I wanted to tell, while using the text like the titles to works of art and written captions in old movies.
Q: The text is minimal, how much harder did that make it to write?
A: I'd had the idea for the general plot and the idea that I wanted to write it in a slightly different way for a while, but didn't know how. So it was just kicking around at the back of my mind when the 'Work. Home.' sequence popped up.
It was then I decided to write it a bit like a poem or like the lyrics for a song, leaving parts out and not having to explain everything. The initial writing didn't take long, but getting the football-speak right, to follow the action, did. There were so many combinations I tried - it went to extra-time and penalties before I was happy.
Q: There are lots of warm and funny moments within the illustrations - how important is it for you to introduce humour to your stories?
A: For me, humour is everything. It's just something I enjoy doing and is very much part of who I am. I couldn't really envisage doing something without humour. Life's too serious as it is.
Q: How did you create the images? Do you have a favourite spread?
A: It's very important for me to have a handmade look to my work, so all the drawings were hand drawn in pencil, actual size. Then they were scanned and the green added on a computer.
It's difficult to pick a favourite spread, but I do remember feeling very relieved that I managed to draw the crowd scene without mucking it up.
Q: Will you be watching the World Cup matches from on OR behind your sofa?
A: Hopefully on! With a glass of something nice. But with a brolly by my side, just in case it's the same old 'same old defeat'.
Q: Where do you work, and what are you writing and illustrating now?
A: I work in my studio. Or rather a small outbuilding with wildlife in the roof space that I like to think is a proper studio. I'm lucky to have several projects on the go at the moment, with an online shop opening soon and my first young fiction book hopefully written this year. I've just finished a picture book called Cats and Robbers for Bloomsbury and now I'm on to Mouse In The House for Andersen Press. The downside is the garden is now very much like a jungle...
The Match
