'Success still unreal' says Gruffalo artist before Hastings Storytelling Festival

The illustrator who created The Gruffalo and helped spawn a global literary phenomenon has said the series' popularity still "doesn't seems real".

Axel Scheffler, who drew the pictures for the best-selling books, first collaborated with their author Julia Donaldson, from Steyning in West Sussex, in the early '90s.

This weekend he will be appearing at the annual Hastings Storytelling Festival, of which he is patron, where he'll be reading, sketching and signing copies of some of his best known titles.

"To have had such huge success, especially worldwide, just seems completely unbelievable to me," he said.

With The Gruffalo thought to have reached up to 18.2m sales worldwide since its release in 1999, Scheffler explained how he first came up with look of its now iconic eponymous creature.

"I started sketching and thought, 'Gruffalo? That sounds like buffalo' - so I gave him some horns, a tail and some fur," said the 68-year-old West German.

"I also knew he needed to be threatening, but not too scary.

"Actually, when they saw my first draft the publishers asked me to make him a little less frightening," added Scheffler, who went through "10 to 15" versions of The Gruffalo before settling on the finished version.

"But whenever I do school visits and ask the children about this, they always go for the more scary ones. So publishers aren't always right."

With two sequels under his belt since then - including 2004's The Gruffalo's Child and this year's Gruffalo Granny - Scheffler considers books to be "more important than ever" these days.

"The statistics suggest fewer parents are reading to their children, who, in turn, are spending more time looking at screens," he said.

"That's why picture books are good at creating a link between adults and children when it comes to reading together.

"I like that they have images which don't move, because it really gets kids to focus on all the little details."

Scheffler added he is looking forward to appearing at Hasting's White Rock Theatre this Saturday.

"I get a lot of affection and admiration from the children at these sorts of events," he said.

"But it's the parents who are usually more excited to meet me."

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