Thomas ‘TomSka’ Ridgewell has spoken to TenEighty about his upcoming book Sam Kills Christmas.
Sam Kills Christmas is the title of Tom’s upcoming book and is inspired by his Christmas experiences growing up. Due for release on 8 November 2018, the book features protagonist Sam on a quest to stop the Christmas madness.
Speaking to TenEighty, Tom revealed that “The story is ultimately inspired by my anti-Christmas, Jehovah’s Witness upbringing. It’s a “bit” that I’ve been doing since my earliest online work and I can’t shake it.”
When asked about the process behind the book, Tom said “I was contractually obliged to write a second book after Art is Dead but I really didn’t want to. While trying to worm my way out of it I suddenly came up with the idea of an alternative kid’s Christmas picture book and got really excited about it.”
“I plotted out the narrative and each of the pages on a plane and asked my co-writer Eddie Bowley to build the rhymes with me and after a dozen revisions it was finally ready to illustrate!”
“Eddie and I sat and stared at 3 webpages (RhymeZone, Thesaurus, SyllableCounter) for days and days to put the manuscript together. It was as whacky as it sounds.”
Tom also revealed that the story behind the illustrations: “I approached Dorina to illustrate the book after she sent me a wonderful watercolour fan art to my P.O. box. She’s brilliant and every one of the book’s illustrations range from stunning to cool as hell.”
The protagonist, Sam, is neutrally gendered throughout because Tom wanted the story to “appeal to anyone, regardless of their sex and Sam is only 10-years-old so they’re naturally quite androgynous.”
When asked about continuing the series Tom added “if people really enjoy Sam Kills Christmas, well, there are plenty more holidays I wasn’t allowed to celebrate as a child.”
Sam Kills Christmas will be released 8 November 2018.
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