The Unlikely Outlaws, written by Philip Ardagh, illustrated by Tom Morgan-Jones and published by Barrington Stoke has just been released.
Here the brilliantly bearded Philip talks about the release of this book.
"The Unlikely Outlaws, illustrated by Tom Morgan-Jones is an interesting book for me. It's made up of three books: two previously published and one about to be published, all about The Green Men of Gressingham and all illustrated by Mike Phillips. The Green Men of Gressingham are a bit like Robin Hood's merry men, except that they wear brown -- the Green Men that is -- because it's cheaper and hides the dirt better. And their boss is a lady called Robyn-in-the-Hat. With me so far? Good.
Anyway, I was well used to Mike's interpretation of the characters. Then along came Tom who made them all his own. Of course, Big Jim had to look big and Friendly had to look friendly and the evil Marshal Guppy had to look evil, but Tom's style is very different to Mike's, so The Unlikely Outlaws has a very different feel to it. It's loose and crazy and zingy and zappy and all those other terms which are useless unless you've got the Tom Morgan-Jones illustrations in front of you but, if you DO have them in front of you, you'll know exactly what I mean.
Tom's fab pics add to the pace and comedy of some very silly adventures indeed. What a pleasure doing business with him."
Here's a link to the Barrington Stoke page (just look at those end papers...)
Philip Ardagh
Illustrations by Tom Morgan-Jones
