The world of Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam - a guest post by Steven Lenton - Nosy Crow Skip to content
Posted by Steven, April 30, 2013

The world of Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam – a guest post by Steven Lenton

A guest post by Steven Lenton, illustrator for Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam.

This week is terribly exciting for me as Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam is published on Thursday.

Growing up in the family pom-pom business surrounded by promotional items I have always loved a character-based product and a bit of quirky marketing.

I couldn’t resist therefore, making some fun little bits and pieces for Shifty and Sam.

Here are some of the things that have kept me busy in the (dog) lead up to the book’s publication.

My wonderful dad Martin bought me the best Christmas present this year – plush robber dogs! These gorgeous toys have accompanied Tracey and I to all the Shifty and Sam events so far – they will be exhausted by the end of the year!

I thought it would be fun to put up some WANTED posters a few weeks ago to introduce the characters.

I then designed some flyers and posters advertising the ‘Art of Shifty and Sam Exhibition’ – currently on at The Haberdashery in Crouch End. My little dog Holly and I spent a lovely sunny Sunday last week popping flyers through letterboxes and talking to shop keepers about the book.

Next, I designed some fabric featuring Shifty and Sam and got it printed by a great company in the US. My lovely mum Barbara then helped me to sew them all together – we had a lovely time chatting, drinking tea and eating her delicious home-made banana bread – thanks mum!

The book launch takes place on Thursday at the exhibition space so this week I have been preparing little party SWAG bags containing some little treats – badges, bookmarks, stickers and pom-pom spiders!

Also on publication day Tracey and I will be launching ‘The Robber Dog Blog’ which will be the best place for Shifty and Sam news, events, activity sheets and fun facts!

As soon as I started designing Shifty I knew I wanted to create a fun book trailer. I direct and design animation for television, so it was lovely to animate Shifty, Sam and some other naughty characters!

Creating this book with Tracey Corderoy and all the team at Nosy Crow has been a fantastic experience and I really hope that children and parents will enjoy the cheeky robber dogs’ antics!

Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam is out on Thursday. You can pre-order the book here, and take a look inside below.

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