Loveable spaceman Bob is an escape from Simon Bartam’s “quite boring” life, as TAMZIN LEWIS hears

FOR children’s author Simon Bartram, a picture book is a bit like a classic comedy duo. “You have a straight man and a funny man,” he says. “The straight man is the text, which is deadpan, and all the fun is in the pictures.”

He adds: “The text has to be in a strong marriage with the pictures but, in my books, the plot and story are played out in pictures rather than words. Sometimes what is happening in the story is not even mentioned in the words, just the pictures.”

Simon is a kind of “authorstrator” as he writes and illustrates his own books, usually featuring his childlike hero Bob, the Man on the Moon.

Bob has just celebrated his 10th anniversary in print and Simon says he is nowhere near being bored with his character.

“The universe is quite big and he is a bit of a mate now. Bob is just a normal fella as far as he is concerned. He has his eggs for breakfast and then goes to the moon and comes home. I like mixing the mundane things in life with the big universe.”

Simon, who lives in Gateshead with his family, grew up reading and obsessing over weekly comics such as Roy of the Rovers and Tiger.

“Comic strips were like soap operas, ending on cliff hangers,” he says. “I would read them and then draw boxes and try and imagine what would happen next.”

He adds: “I suppose I write stories because my life is quite boring. I sit in the shed all day and think I would much prefer to be going to the moon.”

Simon got his first pay packet for illustration aged 15, doing portraits of footballers for Sunderland Football Club’s match day programme.

He did a visual communication degree (graphic design and illustration) at Birmingham Polytechnic and then worked as a freelance illustrator for publications such as the Radio Times and Evening Standard.

In 1998, he was asked to illustrate a version of Pinocchio and some other children’s books before his publisher said: “Have you got any of your own ideas knocking around?”

Simon says: “I had always doodled in sketchbooks and had this character, the Man in the Moon. I wanted him to go to the moon but I needed him to do something. One day, I was at my old school, St Joseph’s in Hebburn, and I saw the caretaker. That is when I realised Bob could be the caretaker of the moon.”

Since Bob, Man on the Moon was published 10 years ago, Simon has completed two more picture books. Bob and the Moon Tree Mystery was published last year.