Chris Riddell

And he works with many, many artists in the different books he does.

And I think that's his approach.

He says, over to you, you interpret it in the way that you see fit.

And that gives one wonderful freedom to interpret these fantastic words.

No, no.

I mean, I do work with writers where we are, you know, very collaboratively sort of mixed up, if you will, where, you know, I will do a sketch and then,

A writer, a longtime collaborator of mine, Paul Stewart, we've worked for many years.

And Paul often takes drawings I've done and characters I've created and incorporates them within the narrative.

And so changes the way that he writes in order to sort of interpret what I've drawn.

And it's the opposite with Neil.

He gives me the fully formed piece and then allows me to get on with it.

So Odd and the Frost Giants was my sort of homage, I think, to the great illustrator Kay Nielsen.

who has this, I mean, I describe it as Nordic Baroque.

It's this fantastic sort of ice-cold art nouveau quality of design that this artist has.

And so I immerse myself in the world of Kay Nielsen, who does a mean frost giant, and very good on trolls as well.

But also, you know, and so there are a few illustrations in Odd and the Frost Giants that I'd wrecked

uh, steals from, from Kay Nielsen compositions.

Um, I'd like to say that it's a homage to Kay Nielsen, but, uh, uh, he was there with me as, as I illustrated.

Um, and Neil went with it.

He just spent fine.