Five years ago today, SUPER HAPPY MAGIC FOREST was released It was my first published book and it sounds dramatic and corny to say but it changed my life So here's a kind of retrospective on SHMF and how it came to be

The idea for SHMF emerged while I was trying to figure out a picturebook about a tree.

I didn't have much confidence in the tree idea and instead started doodling stuff that would eventually become SHMF. This is the double page where the idea was born and I always like to show it to kids on school visits

Some more development pages. At one point I explored the idea that Old Oak had transformed the SHMF into a theme park while the heroes were away. That's why the pixies are working at burger stalls.

I had the Bologna Children's Book Fair '14 as my goal for presenting the book. I'd probably still be tinkering with the idea if I didn't I made a dummy book to take with me.

The dummy was fully illustrated and was designed to give publishers a clear idea of how the book could be.

Four of the dummy spreads were full-colour and later had to be completely recreated to work in a larger format

I took it to the 2014 Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy. I had arranged meetings with publishers in the months before. Or in the case of @OUPChildrens , the week before. I almost didn't bother emailing the editor @Peter_Marley_ because it felt embarrassingly late to do so

So I met with Pete, my last meeting on one of the last days of the fair, when the stalls were emptying out. I remember being very hungover for the meeting but don't tell him that.

There and then he made an offer for two picturebooks, including SHMF! Unknown to me, he had gotten everything prepared before the fair, after I had sent him a pdf of the book. What a guy

I had a blast working on the book in the summer of 2014. I remember my macbook on my lap colouring while watching the World Cup in Brazil with a beer in one hand and pen in the other. Not great for photoshop hot keys but I was living the dream, damn it.

The final book was a much larger format to the dummy, and had an extra page that showed Old Oak getting displaced, just to help the pacing at the end. Maybe this *was* the tree idea all along.

Just as an aside, I don't think I've put an image in a speech bubble since

SUPER HAPPY MAGIC FOREST was published in a few different places, including the USA and South Korea!

It was also shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize in 2015 but lost to a piano playing bear

Five years later there are two more SHMF picturebooks and a young fiction title - Humongous Fungus - with a second book due for release next month. And I'm currently writing a third!

You always remember the first, though. Thanks to everyone who joined the quest

Big thanks also to @Peter_Marley_ for commissioning and editing the book and @harrididit for handling the design