Happy Bank Holiday weekend friends!

I’d like to bring your attention to an interview I did almost a year ago now, it was with a lovely young lad called Chi, he’s the son of a very good Folksy friend, Mandy of Cheerymishmash fame.

Chi was also kind enough to do a little review of Waldo the Worm as well…Here is his review

Waldo the worm is a worm with a fin who has to sort out the problem of bullying. A nice story with good poems and funky illustrations and lots of things to look for. I like the way it was written with children and that there are things in the book that appeal to all ages. I’m giving this book 9 out of 10, and think that kids aged 3 to 9 would enjoy it most.

This is my favourite illustration

9 out of 10 says Chi… I can’t argue with that!!

And here we have the interview with my lovely self; I think I’m on particularly witty form:

How many children were involved with making Waldo the Worm?

Its hard to say exactly, as the workshops were essentially drop in sessions, sometimes young people would come in, do a doodle, and disappear without writing their name on it… so it was hard to police in that respect, there are 20 names listed in the back of the book. They are the ones that consistently contributed each week.

Did the children help with the illustrations as well?

No, I did all the illustrations myself, the programme I use (Adobe Illustrator) is a tricky piece of kit, its taken me about 5 years to get where I am with it. I’m still learning myself, so here’s hoping the next book looks better.

Is there any reason why there are venus fly traps everywhere?

No reasons as such, they are a common plant form in the world of The Nosuch Disco.

Why does the moon have a bite out of it?

He’s not quite a full moon, he’s 3 quarters, I think the technical term is a Waxing Gibbous!

When did you first come up with the idea for making Waldo the Worm?

It was about 3 years ago, I had been doodling characters with no real direction. I noticed that they were quite child friendly, so to make a children’s book seemed like a natural progression.

Are there going to be any more Waldo the Worm books?

Yes, hopefully. I have written the story for Waldo 2… its come out a bit long at 44 pages, I need to trim that down somewhat. I’ve done a couple of illustrations, as well. I wanted to have it ready for before Christmas. I don’t think I’ll finish it till Janurary though. Seems a shame as that would be a bad time to launch a book, but I don’t want to wait till the following Christmas to get it out there ☺

Are you working on any other books at the moment?

Kind of, a friend of mine also writes children’s books. She has asked me to bring some of her characters to life. I think that project is on the back burner at the min, would be nice to see where we can go with that as I cant drawn worms forever!

Why didn’t you just write the book yourself?

Well technically I did write the book myself, I had some funding to do the workshops, and the kids there put in some good ideas, but when it actually came to writing the story, all of these came from myself.

How long did it take to put Waldo the Worm together?

In total, about a year. Maybe just under… I wasn’t able to work solidly on it, as I have a 9-5 job that takes up a lot of my energy.

What was your favourite book as a child?

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. I remember having it read to me by my teacher in year 2 at school and then again by my dad a few years later. Tolkien can pack in detail like no other writer.

What did you want to be when you grew up as a child?

Rock Star!!! Still do to a certain extent! I can’t sing at all mind!

What is your favourite joke?

I can never remember actual jokes, so I would say I don’t have a favorite. I like funny situations, Friends makes me ‘belly laugh’ like no other comedy.

Why are you called The Nosuch Disco?

I think it’s a far more interesting name than David Burgess… I saw Nosuch written as one word once and I really liked the look of it, it needed another word to go with it, so ‘disco’ seemed to fit, and the ‘the’ is there just to make me seem a little more important.

and, Why did you choose to write a book about bullying?

Well as I work a lot in the community, it seemed like a good idea to do something socially aware, bullying is quite a pertinent issue for all ages, so its something that we can all take something away from.

To top it all off, Chi did his on drawing of Waldo that I must add is really cool!

Thanks for reading,

Dave.

So a friend of mine recently got into Hama Beads and making oversize pendants in a Flavor Flav sort of fashion! I was really inspired by this idea so decided to steal it! (Some of the greatest ideas ever are stolen you know).

Anyway, I got involved and experimented with my very own Giant Waldo Pendant! I tried to make one that was the shape of Waldo’s body to start off with, but he’s a bit of an awkward shape, so I opted to do one like the Toast Print, I feel it came out really well!

I had to borrow my mum’s old iron and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing so all things considered this has been a right success.

I forgot to order any jewellery supplies and when I went to a local supplier I got so confused I decided to leave in a mood. I used a chain that I already had and never worn to create this listing, it’s a ‘one off’ at the moment, so its probably going to go pretty fast. I think I will try some smaller, sensible, Waldo heads next.

Also, note the picture of me wearing the necklace, I had to put my t shirt on backwards so the design didn’t clash with the pendant, hope its not too obvious!

As I only have one, I have listed it on my Folksy Shop, Click Here to have a look at it and more importantly, BUY IT!

Thats not what my mate Jen says!

She has very kindly sent me some pics of her Waldo Scarf, one in Brighton and one in the Pub, although I must add, Waldo does not drink!

Incidentally, this Waldo Scarf made it to the Queen Exhibition a whole 2 weeks before I did! The bloomin’ cheek of it!

Next I’m hoping for an international Waldo Scarf, maybe he could go skiing, if you have any pics! please get in contact

Dave.

Hello Friends,
It’s been a while since there was a Waldo Blog, This is actually the first one of 2011. I’d like to say I’ve been working on a lot of Waldo based stuff, but I haven’t, I plan to change this in the coming weeks.

Anyway, my friend Lucy bought her family Waldo T Shirts before Christmas and sent me this lovely picture of what I would like to call TEAM WALDO!

From left to right we have Lucy, Sue, Uncle Kev, Aunty Cadle and Grandma Polly.

Seems like a lovely Waldo/Christmas moment

Dave

Happy New Year Waldo fans!!!

As a quirky little treat for you all, I thought I would share the top 3 stupidest messages I have received in the last 12 months. Here you go and enjoy.

Number 3:

Message body:

he’s a nice guy but when is he gonna man up and shoot shelly and kelly for being nasty little bitches.

Number 2:

Message body:

Oh hi there guys,

I was Just wondering why u guys have spent time creating such a gay Parody of a worm!

looooooooool

Number 1:

Message body:

I am writing this message to express my concern about the phallic nature of your character, “Waldo the Worm” whom my children have taken to calling, “Waldo the Willy”.

I tried to tell my children that such a name was inappropriate, that was untill of course, I saw the picture.  I dont know where you get off showcasing this disturbing content to my children.

On a side note, my wife was wondering if you had any toy reproduction models.

Thanks.

Hello there people.

Hope you are having a tremendous day, Waldo is!

Here is part 2 of your Christmas present! MORE rejected pages!

This is pages 3 and 4 of what would have been Waldo 2. I quite like these pages as they have a little song on it, you can sing along to it, just make up your own tune!

The process of making this page slowed my machine down to such a point, it was quite crazy, all those little dots were individually placed and based on the screen you get when you load a Playstation up!

Enjoy!

Greetings all!

Here at Waldo HQ, we were struggling to figure out what we could give you as a Christmas present this year. But then we cracked it…

Below you will find the rejected pages 1 and 2 for the new Waldo adventure! WOW what a treat? rejected pages!
Basically I wrote the story earlier on in the year, started to illustrate it, then realised it was rubbish!!

There were going to be 2 new characters, Layka the Ladybird and Furni the Fish! but they’re not happening now, maybe somewhere in the future, or in another adventure.

On page one you will be able to catch a glimpse of Gargantua, but he won’t feature in Waldo books now, he will feature in something Nosuch Disco based in the futre.

So enjoy the picture, there will be another one posted tomorrow!!

Merry Christmas.

Dave

Today was the final date of Waldo’s Pink Bed Sheet Tour and the last fair of the year (awwwwwwwwwwwww).

I was happy that it was at Burslem, as it felt like a homecoming gig after doing so many out of town. As an added bonus, my office was so close by I could jump on the wifi and spend time on the internet during the quiet parts.

It was a good day all in all, a lot of people had already heard of Waldo the Worm. It seems he’s quite famous in Stoke on Trent now.

What pleased me the most was how popular ‘Toast’ has become. Earlier on in the year I had two A2 prints made up Banjo and Toast. Bajno is a generic shot of Waldo and the gang, and is very reminiscent of the front cover of the book. Toast on the other hand is a bit more abstract. I wanted to make to contrasting designs to not only please a broad customer base, but to also make myself happy. After all, its supposed to be an art project. At the time, the response to Toast was somewhere between lukewarm and freezing! People felt that it would scare kids and be too plain for adults; initial sales reflected this. In the past couple of months Toast has really done well, and has now overtaken Banjo in terms of sales! It does particularly well at fairs and remains my (current) favourite Waldo item.

I’m really looking forward to doing some fairs next year, maybe i’ll get a different colour bed sheet for that!

In case you were wondering what Toast is, THIS! Available in the shop.

So this weekend it was onto Didsbury for the Dignity Fair. I had a good feeling about this fair from the off as it was organised by my good friend Amanda of Gimme That Thing fame. There were 2 rooms for this event, a regular room and a Folksy room. This was great, as I knew I would be with lots of familiar faces.

When I got there I set up next to Claire from Realicoul, she introduced herself and said “I heard something about you bringing a bed sheet?” she was damn right! I’m glad that my bed sheet tour is getting some serious recognition!

The Folksy room was packed with excellent sellers, there was Claire, Sarah and Laura from The Doll House , Liz from the Little Bead box, Amada, Mary from Quite Contrary Crafts, Lynsey from Purple Shmurple & Michelle from All The Cute Things! – I’ve probably spelt something wrong in this bit, if you’re a seller and you’re reading this, I’m sorry.

Despite being freezing I thought the day was really good, Dignity was able to raise a lot of money for charity, so that’s always good!! I heard some random women turned up with loads of stuff demanding table space! Bonkers!

I met a lot of cool people and probably drank too much coffee so started to shake near the end!!

Sarah took some great pictures that I think you will agree make me look terrible!

The last stop on the tour is Burslem, feels like a bit of a home coming gig. It will probably be the last fair I do for a little while, ahhh such a shame.

Dave.

Oh, special thanks to Liz, who probably paid for my stall fees with the amount of Waldo stuff she bought. Woop woop!

Hello!

Last Sunday Waldo was at the Trafford Centre in Manchester to do a book signing!

The lovely people at Waterstone’s provided me with a table and a black cloth, I felt like an actual superstar!

They did a fair bit of promo too! check out this pic… I thought it was rather a nice thing to do!

It was a great afternoon, plenty of people came up to me and asked what I was doing and what Waldo was all about, only one person thought I worked at Waterstone’s this time! I didn’t mind, I pointed her to the Twilight books as requested.

As always I had plenty of activities for children and young people, lots of Waldo drawing and colouring in went on, it seems people always want to see a blue Waldo, rather than his usual black.

I do love going to Waterstone’s, sometimes it doesn’t matter how many get sold on the day, its all about exposure! plenty more people know about the little fella!