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Friday, 31 October 2014

Halloween Spotlight - Don't miss the "Night Post" by Benjamin Read and Laura Trinder - Coming soon from Improper Books!

Posted by ReadItDaddy at October 31, 2014
"Night Post" by Benjamin Read and Laura Trinder (Improper Books) - Properly gorgeous!

While you're gadding around as beastly ghoulies or shambling monsters, you'd better not miss out on a Halloween treat. Wednesday 12th November sees the launch of "Night Post" by Benjamin Read and Laura Trinder, coming up from Improper Books and available through cool indie comic outlets like Gosh! (in London), Page 45 (in Nottingham) and Orbital Comics (London again!)

What's it about? It's a twilight gaze behind the scenes at "The Other Postal Service" - A service that takes place during the wee small hours, to ensure that witches, werewolves and ghosts all get their mail. 

Look at it, I mean just LOOK AT IT! It's eye-meltingly gorgeous comic fare (and those witches are GLORIOUS!)
 This is a comic suitable for all ages - and there's a twist. We see the night-time world of "Night Post" through the eyes of a central character (the night postman), and the tale is told entirely visually. No speech balloons, no dialogue, just glorious and gorgeous artwork to impart the postie's tale as he ensures the night mail is delivered on time. 

"Night Post started from my longstanding childhood belief that midnight is a special hour, and strange things can happen as it strikes,’ said Benjamin, about this amazing wordless comic ‘The story of our beleaguered Postie has offered a wonderful chance for me and Laura to explore our mutual love of the spookier side of things, whilst having a great deal of fun at the same time. Building the world of the Night Post and then watching Laura bring it to life or, in some cases, death, and layer it with the most painstaking details - watch out for the Infinitesimal Animals - has been brilliant"

"I'm a huge fan of Raymond Briggs and we wear our influences unashamedly on our sleeve with Night Post - it shows a slice-of-life of a man's day at a very special job, and is told purely by pictures. No captions, no word balloons, just intricate, detailed art. It's the kind of book I adored as a kid, and still do now, and it's been a pleasure to write."

Such exquisite detail and some brilliant nods to Ben and Laura's influences in this (that wardrobe looks familiar as do those little folk! :)


Laura adds, ‘For someone who loves fairy tales as much as I do, working on Night Post seems too good to be true. Ben has brilliantly combined favourite characters from folklore and myth with a central character of his own creation, meaning we can visit ghosts, vamps, fairies, swamp creatures, seemingly innocent old ladies and a whole host of other beasties through a new pair of eyes, more specifically, the eyes of our night postman.’

‘The real joy is working with Ben, his passion for comics informs every step of the creation process. With my main source of inspiration having always come from storybooks, I love how we've managed to combine an illustrative style reminiscent of this within a comic book format. I just hope that people will enjoy exploring the story as much as we have loved creating it.’

You know that thing you sometimes get when you see something SO GOOD that you can hardly breathe until you've shared it with EVERYONE? Yeah, that's "Night Post". 

Laura's artwork is glorious, riffing on tons of childhood influences and there's quite a few panels that made me giggle with delight (so you can only imagine what Charlotte thinks of this, she was completely and utterly entranced by "Night Post")

"Night Post" will be available from Improper Books on the 12th November 2014. Do NOT miss our full review coming up on the blog very soon!