Dr Don’t Know wants the world to be as stupid as he is.

‘This beautifully written dynamic book is perfect for kids and adults alike. It’s quirky and offbeat with a big heart. It has all the wonder and magic of classic children’s books with the innovation of contemporary literature. Falcon Boy is not to be missed!’

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Don’t let stupid win!

Dr Don’t Know hates knowledge.

He wants to steal the answer to every question ever asked.

Dr Don’t Know wants the world to be as stupid as he is.

We can’t let this happen!

Only Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird can save the world from Dr Don’t Know. The bad news is that they have been kidnapped. The good news is that they can’t stay kidnapped for long otherwise this story will never get started.

Will Dr Don’t Know succeed with his evil plan?

There’s only one way to find out.

Read on and remember.

Don’t let stupid win!!

Available NOW for order in all good book stores and online.

Pearly Stockwell Finally Realizes How Cruel the World of Contemporary Publishing Really Can Be (Update)

By way of further news on progress so far with The Brothers Revoltable Travelling Circus and Other Crazy Fun with Special Guests (Volume II of the Falcon Boy series) I thought I would give you an update on the future of Pearly Stockwell.

As many of you will know Pearly Stockwell is a child detective who makes her debut appearance in Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets (Volume I). Together with the Interesting Twins, Pearly manages to solve every case she applies her big city ways to. If you want to catch up with her adventures to date then please feel free to follow the links HERE (US) and HERE (UK).

However, as the following excerpt  indicates, the future for Pearly Stockwell is as insecure as it is for the rest of us.

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The Brothers Revoltable Travelling Circus and Other Crazy Fun with Special Guests (excerpt)

IT Publishing, the company behind the Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Wonder Detective Comic Book Super Series which begat the Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Detective Comic Audiobook Series ceased trading a while ago and everything related to the series is now little more than the occasional question at a very dull public quiz for people who are very dull.

The final ever episode in the series, Pearly Stockwell Finally Realizes How Cruel the World of Contemporary Publishing Really Can Be opens with our eponymous heroine bemoaning the state of contemporary publishing, a subject which, and even despite her big city ways, Pearly had never shown any interest in up until this final episode.

‘Our time has come, boys,’ says Pearly to the Interesting Twins. ‘Even before our time has really come.’

Pearly plants her feet and stares defiantly into space reads the caption.

‘I should think that the people making these short-sighted decisions really don’t know us at all!’ she snorts. ‘In fact, what do they know about anything anyway?’

Wes is really angry.

‘I’m gonna grab them and box them and fight them until they beg me to stop,’ he exclaims forcefully. ‘And even when they do beg me to stop I ain’t gonna stop for nothing or no-one not never!’

Pearly smiles at her loyal friend.

‘You’ve been a loyal friend for all of these adventures,’ she says kindly, ‘and we are all really going to miss your overly aggressive, small-minded and yet sometimes effective ways.’

‘Say the word, Pearly,’ says little Windy with a big tear in his small eye. ‘Say the word and I will run for you like I always do.’

‘But where will you run?’ replies Pearly. ‘The people making these decisions have made it very plain that there is nowhere left for you to run to and no-one would be there even if you ever arrived.’

‘But there must be something we can do,’ says the eviction notice Pearly had thrown angrily onto the desk. ‘We can’t just let them shut us down.’

‘You are right, as always, my fine, wise Wanderley,’ says Pearly sadly, ‘but not even your alarmingly outrageous propensity for disguising yourself in the most unlikely but nevertheless convenient disguises is going to make any difference here.’

Pearly looks directly out the frame.

‘The only thing that can save us all is if someone decided to continue our adventures as a small, independent online venture, perhaps using a free online publishing platform.’

Pearly shakes her head ruefully.

‘But that will take an awful lot of effort to keep writing our adventures, publishing our adventures, promoting our adventures and trying to get people to read our adventures knowing full well that a thankless venture like this will only ever be a tiny digital drop in the vast and thankless virtual ocean.’

Again, Pearly looks straight out of the frame of the comic.

‘Does anyone know how hard it is nowadays to even get someone to visit your site let alone stay long enough to read something?’

THE END FOREVER MORE? reads the final caption.

Pearly and the Missing Magic Ring

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As everyone knows, the Pearly Stockwell adventure series was published by IT Comics and in their early days the company really struggled. Pearly and the Missing Magic Ring was a desperately misguided attempt to reach a wider audience with the Pearly Stockwell series.

Without even the slightest hint of professional shame, Pearly is ‘allowed’ to discover a magical kingdom while clearing out one of her wardrobes. Never one to refuse a challenge, Pearly sets off to see what she can find.

Unsurprisingly, Pearly finds a world gripped by a struggle between the forces of good and evil. Grimdulf Gloompants leads the good guys. He is a long-bearded wizard who rides a giant talking lion. A one-eyed witch called Sharon is in charge of the bad guys.

As the plot thickens, Pearly and the Interesting Twins are asked to deliver an important message to someone important quite far away. On the way, they are captured by a gang of nasty Noblins and imprisoned.

Everyone manages to escape but Pearly gets separated and begins to wander lost in an underground network of caves.

Even loyal readers of the comic book series found it hard not to consider cancelling their subscription at the moment that Pearly stumbles upon a ring and, without thinking, puts it in her pocket.

Unbeknown to her, the ring is the property of a pathetic-looking creature called Gallop who manages to trap Pearly in his dank, dismal, fish-stinking lair.

‘You have something that is very precious to me,’ says the pathetic-looking Gallop to Pearly, without even a faint glimmer of irony. ‘It is mine, it is.’

‘Is it?’ replies Pearly quick-wittedly, stunning the pathetic creature with the authority in her voice. ‘How precious exactly?’

Gallop isn’t sure what to say.

‘Very precious,’ he ventures, ‘very precious, indeed.’

But Pearly has the upper hand now and probes the pathetic creature further with her penetrating questions.

‘Just how precious?’

‘Very!’

‘How precious is very precious?’

‘Very, very!’

‘But is that precious enough?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why don’t you know? I thought you said it was precious?’

‘I did!’

‘Then why don’t you know?’

‘I do! I do! I do!’

Gallop gets very angry and it is at this point that Pearly knows she has him.

‘You don’t know, do you?’ she says.

‘No,’ says the pathetic-looking creature pathetically.

‘I’m going now,’ says Pearly firmly. ‘Don’t try and follow me.’

Gallop says nothing. He sits snivelling on a slimy rock. Pearly leaves to find her friends and continue the great adventure.

It was only by sacking the writing team, promising faithfully to never ever do anything like this again (and also offering a year’s free subscription to every reader) that IT Comics survived the fallout from Pearly and the Missing Magic Ring.

What’s on TV Today? – Paint Tales Season 12

PM5544_with_non-PAL_signalsNow in its twelfth season, the premise of Paint Tales is a simple one: a single tin of paint is followed from the factory where it is made to the place where it is used, via the shop where it is sold.

For enthusiasts of the programme, the joy of the journey is immense and somehow almost immeasurable. As a result, Paint Tales has now become a global, if somewhat esoteric, phenomenon. Discovering that the tin of paint you thought was going to be used as a humble undercoat turns out instead to be the final flourish of a ceiling in a converted bathroom can be close to life-changing for aficionados of the programme.

For anyone else, the premise of the programme is almost as disturbing as actually watching an episode and both the existence and continuance of Paint Tales has become a major topic of cultural debate. For some it is the ultimate guilty pleasure, for others it is the producers who should be feeling guilty.

What’s on TV Today? – Concrete Superstar

PM5544_with_non-PAL_signalsMany media experts believed that Concrete Superstar was going to be the next big thing in format television but the programme only ran for a single season. As a result, the five episodes that do exist have achieved cult status.

Each week, Concrete Superstar challenged three celebrities to lay the perfect concrete patio. Aided by experts, a whole range of stars of stage, screen (both big and small), music and anywhere else mixed, shovelled, poured, levelled, screed, bull-floated, hand-floated, rounded (if required), cut-in, and broomed their concrete in a race against both the clock and the other contestants.

The locations chosen were both indoor and outdoor and for the second season, it had been proposed that the programme go to different locations around the world so that factors like local building customs, union regulations and temperature extremes could be brought into play. Sadly, however, this was never to be.

Many people (but sadly, as it turns out, ultimately not enough many people),  found Concrete Superstar really exciting because you could never really tell which one of the chosen celebrities would be the best at pouring concrete just by looking.

For example, who could have known that Dame Circular Rosetwine, opera singer and biscuit entrepreneur, would beat upper body muscle model and self-confessed DIY enthusiast Flint Roland in the first episode?

‘I thought I had it in the bag,’ said Flint afterwards, ‘until one of the production crew told me that I had poured the concrete upside down. It wasn’t until I had ripped everything out and started again that I realised they had been pulling my leg.’

In the second episode, renowned aristocratic bad-boy ventriloquist Sheridan Shaw and his foul-breathed puffer fish puppet, Puff the Puffer Fish, lost out to one-time pop sensation Dorothy Sister, lead singer of the reasonably-famous (and reasonably-named) Dorothy Sisters.

Puff the Puffer Fish refused to cooperate during the aggregate mixing phase and allowed Dorothy Sister to win by a technical default, even though she had managed to bury one of her high heels beneath a crazy-paving slab.

The Interesting Origins of Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins

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The adventures of a supercilious six-year old child detective who solves crimes with the help of the three Gordy boys, Wanderley, Windy and Wes, (who call themselves the Interesting Twins) first came to my attention via the Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Wonder Detective Comic Book Super Series, a reasonably unsuccessful series of black and white comics published by the extremely obscure IT Publishing.

As you will know if you have read the series, Pearly moves to Fallstown following a commuter train tragedy that killed her parents. Fallstown is a small place in the middle of nowhere that is somehow a perpetual magnet for all minds and matters criminally oriented. Pearly doesn’t have much to bring to her new home apart from the fortune she inherited from her parents and her big city ways.

Appalled by an unfortunate incident which resulted in her suitcase being mistakenly switched, Pearly takes it upon herself to establish a detective agency by placing an advertisement in the Fallstown Provider looking for like-minded individuals.

‘Experience not essential but you must have a belief in truth, justice and an aching desire to find out things’

Her advertisement is answered by the Interesting Twins and the rest is history.

The comics only ran for a single series before the paying public decided that Pearly’s big city ways were just too much for them. For completists everywhere here is the full list of published titles:

1. Pearly Stockwell and the Letter from the Past

2. The Octopus and His Evil Plans for Pearly Stockwell

3. The Lost Treasure of Fallstown

4. Pearly Saves the Seaside

5. Windy Wins the Deadliest Race of his Little Life

6. Pearly and the Merchant Bankers

7. Pearly and the Missing Magic Ring

8. Here Comes the Interesting Twins to Save the Day

9. Pearly Meets the Ghostly Angler

10. We Really Hope You Can, Pearly Stockwell!

11. Pearly Stockwell and the Letter that Was Hidden But Everyone Could Really See

12. When Toyshops Attack

13. Pearly and the Harvest Moon

14. Pearly Stockwell and the Fate of the Fête

15. Pearly Breaks a Leg

16. The Circus has Lost a Clown

17. Pearly Lose the Plot, Or Does She?

18. Pearly Squares the Magic Circle

The comic book series was turned into an audio book series and if you scour the thrift shops or look online you might still be able to find the recordings somewhere.

There has been a very recent upsurge in interest in Pearly Stockwell and her adventures and I even read a rumour somewhere that there might be plans for reviving the series. There does also seem to be some very recent online activity.

Currently these are only rumours but they do also extend as far as tentative suggestions about a screenplay also being produced. I will look into this and if I hear any more on this topic I will let you know.

Until then, beware The Octopus and ‘his eight mean legs of greed, theft, evil, selfishness, anger, violence, meanness and insanity’.

Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Wonder Detective Comic Book Super Series

CeLEhc6W8AANLy6.jpg_largePearly Stockwell is a six-year-old girl who solves puzzles, saves the day and achieves countless major triumphs that are forever beyond the adults who populate the world of these stories. Wes, Windy, and Wanderley Gordy are the Interesting Twins and the fact that there is actually three of them and that they aren’t twins is apparently what makes them interesting.

Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets (Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero Book 1)

Hi Everyone

With Dr Don’t Know now in custody it appears that the work of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird is done for the minute. I hope you enjoyed the serialization of the first volume in the series. I am currently two-thirds of the way through Volume II and I plan to have that finished very soon.

23431919Until then, and if you felt moved to do so, Volume I is FREE for download on Amazon here (UK) and here (US). As you will see, Volume I has received some glowing reviews and some not-so-glowing reviews – the book was particularly savaged by someone on goodreads but that’s all the fun of the fair.

If anyone felt so moved as to download the book (for FREE) and then upload a review that would be a most welcome and generous gesture. In order to help you make such a momentous decision I thought I would leave with some real quotes from real people who have really read the book – including Mr-Terrible-Review whose words are now being used to market the very thing he disliked intensely:

‘Extremely funny stuff. I have enjoyed every silly word of it. I only give “five stars” to Shakespeare and Dickens, so…’

‘It’s like reading Terry Pratchett for kids’

‘A wonderful book for both children and adults’

‘This book is beautifully written. It’s highly imaginative and richly descriptive.’

‘I highly recommend this stunning novel to all readers everywhere!’

‘Falcon Boy is an incredibly amazing novel that readers will fall in love with.’

‘This is a book that all readers can enjoy reading!’

‘[Falcon Boy] bounds with creativity.’

‘This is a book you do not want to miss out on reading! I rate this novel a 5 out of 5 stars.’

‘We all agreed that this story and these characters would be great transferred to the screen.’

A ‘stunning novel’ with a ‘unique and interesting plot’ for ‘all readers everywhere.’

I will now be taking a brief blogging break before returning very soon with a brand new series for you all. Until then, thank you everyone for your kind support and attention.

Lots of lovely love,

Barnaby

Falcon Boy: Vol. 1: 72 ‘Here’s That Man Himself’ Part V

Falconb Boy 1The music started playing again and Doodah began to dance. Davey, Deirdre, Daphne and Donny all turned to the side of the stage and beckoned to Ellis to come out and join them.

‘How exciting,’ Ellis thought, as she went out to join in the encore.

‘Wait for us,’ said Falcon Boy wanly. ‘We were heroes too!’

Ellis rolled her eyes but even despite Falcon Boy’s obvious failings, she was becoming very fond of this fairly hopeless hero. Bewilder Bird tried to dance but as you know by now, his boots make it very hard for him to do anything properly.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter as at this point in the story, no one is really going to start quibbling about whether or not superheroes should be able to dance properly. Let’s just sit back and enjoy the rest of the show.

‘Here we go,’ said Davey to the watching world. ‘1, 2, 3, 5 …’

We are One-Thumb, Two-Thumb Good,

Bringing joy to the Neighbourhood,

Nothing ever stops us smiling,

Nothing ever could,

We just keep on going because

We are One-Thumb, Two-Thumb Good

THE END