Southampton writer's character
Marvin the sheep is a global success
Senior Feature Writer
HE is an international star.
He has fans in China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Holland, Iran, Slovakia, France – the list goes on.
And he comes from
Southampton . Or rather his creator, Joseph Theobald does.
Marvin the sheep became known globally by children aged between two
and eight thanks to the huge success of Joseph’s first book Marvin
wanted MORE!
Since that first hit, which was a best-seller for publisher
Bloomsbury, selling some 300,000 copies and being translated into ten
languages, two more Marvin books have hit the shelves, Marvin Gets
MAD! and Marvin and Molly, which came out a few weeks ago.
Joseph published Marvin and Molly himself. It is new territory for
him, as is the App that he has also published, giving children the
chance to have the book ‘read’ to them by a narrator.
Joseph, 37, has always been a keen painter. He decided to go into
writing and illustrating children’s books after a chance meeting with a
successful children’s writer.
“I was studying illustration and living on a houseboat in Falmouth
when Jane Simmons, creator of Daisy the Duck, parked her houseboat next
to me,”
“She thought that my style would be good for children’s books because
it was bright and colourful. She taught me everything she knew.”
explains Joseph, who lives in Portswood.
Joseph wrote and illustrated his first book while still studying and
secured an agent when it won the prestigious Macmillan Prize for
unpublished children’s authors.
“I was doing my dissertation about environmentalism and corporations
and the question came to me ‘why do people want more when they’ve
already got so much?’. I was thinking about greed and the
mindless search for power. Trying to put that into a children’s book
was quite a feat but then I got the idea for a sheep, which is a
metaphor for the way humans sometimes are, consuming without
thinking. But I didn’t want it to come across as being political for
kids.”
As well as writing and illustrating the Marvin books, Joseph has
illustrated other people’s books and has written and illustrated
educational books for children.
It’s a career he loves, but in the ten years he has been working in
the industry he has seen it change, with book shops closing and
publishers reducing their output.
This prompted him to publish the third Marvin book himself.
The book was printed in Southampton by Indigo Press by Joseph’s new publishing company Sheepsy.
“I had some money and some time so I thought I would give it a go,” he says.
“There is a growing interest in Apps (software for mobile devices) and
I knew some people who were interested in getting a children’s book App
out – a company called Pekingese Puppy – so we got
together and did that as well.”
Being a children’s author is the kind of career that many people dream
of and Joseph admits that when it’s good, it’s very good.
“At times it’s the best job in the world,” he says with a wide smile.
“My favourite part is the painting. Once I have the story ready, I
love that – waking up, taking a few steps to my desk and painting.
“I paint in acrylic on watercolour paper. All I need to work is a
small desk and my paints. Quite often I take the work and live somewhere
else for a while. I’ve combined it with travelling to
places like India and Asia. I usually spend a few months somewhere I
like and do my painting or writing there.
“The frustrating part of the job is when you don’t have any ideas. At
the beginning I used to get more frustrated but once I started combining
the writing with going off to live somewhere beautiful
and peaceful I stopped getting so frustrated!”
One of the other frustrations is condensing a story into the right length for a picture book.
“It can be difficult getting a proper story with a beginning, a middle
and an end into three to four hundred words and having it there in 12
double page spreads,” he says.
“I’ve had to reject my own stories that I’ve tried and tried to fit into that format but haven’t been able to get to work.
“That’s an interesting thing with Apps, that you can use sound and
animation. It can be difficult to describe a lively scene or some action
in a book, but you can show it with a twosecond
animation.”
Bloomsbury have shown interest in publishing Marvin and Molly, which
Joseph says would be appealing as it would mean he had more time for
writing and painting, but he plans to carry on developing
educational Apps.
In the meantime he needs to sell at least a third of the Marvin and
Molly books he has had printed to make his money back – not that that is
likely to be too much trouble, given how many fans the
series has.
Among those fans are his niece and nephew, Marianne and Jon, to whom he has dedicated the most recent book.
“Marianne’s school friends never believe that I’m her uncle,”
he says.
“That’s why I put her name in to prove it!”
* For more information and to download a free App or buy the Marvin
and Molly App visit sheepsy.com or find Marvin the Sheep on Facebook.
Marvin and Molly 
By Stuart Dredge
View/buy app 
We were lucky enough to
have a visit from the Marvin and Molly creator, Joseph Theobald as
part of our Book themed week. The pupils have loved listening to
Marvin Wants More and Marvin Gets Mad as part of their storytimes
over the years and so were very excited to actually meet the author
and illustrator.
Marvin the Sheep makes his first appearance for young children and parents in the newly-launched app ‘Marvin and Molly’. A worldwide bestseller in the picture book market, Marvin’s humorous adventures are written and illustrated by Joseph Theobald. In this new app Marvin has to win the heart of Molly, and after a number of helpful encounters triumphs with a dazzling display of sheep-dancing.
This is the first project of Pekingese Puppy Publications, working in conjunction with Sheepsy Publishing. Jacqui Lyons, founder of Pekingese Publications, said, “The Marvin stories have captured the imagination of their young audience all over the world. This new app allows children to enter into Marvin’s world in ways that develop their visual sense as well as their grasp of words and their meaning. The emphasis is on fun, but there is a learning process which parents will be able to share and enjoy with their children.”
HE is an international star.
Marvin Wanted MORE! 
