“Can we not call it a coffee table book – that’s a bit grand for a cartoon, and it’s more likely to be read on the toilet. Anthology is good, or collection. It’s not a best-of, ’cos some of them are a bit rubbish.”
Jo Burt is typically self-effacing as he describes the tome he’s been working on for the past 10 months. But this isn’t just any old book.
'Lost Summers and Half-Forgotten Afternoons – A Mint Sauce Collection' is the work that fans of the off-roading ovine have been clamouring for, for more than three decades. A veritable treasury of illustrations and annotations, documenting the adventures of the world’s favourite mountain biking sheep and his myriad companions
Why’s it taken so long to put together, when there’s so much Sauce – sorry, source – material to draw upon? “This is a lifetime of work, so we weren’t going to cut any corners,” explains Jo. “Max, from Isola Press, and Jimmer [former MBUK art editor James Blackwell], who’s doing the design, I can’t stress how hard they’ve worked.
"Everyone’s going to be surprised by how colourful and detailed it is, and on proper paper, too. It should be sumptuous! It’s a combination of stuff people might remember, stuff I really liked, and stuff I’d forgotten about and thought, ‘Oh yes, put that in!’. If I haven’t included your favourite, I’m really sorry – maybe that’ll appear in book two."
You can preorder 'Lost Summers and Half-Forgotten Afternoons – A Mint Sauce Collection' now at www.isolapress.com. MBUK readers can get 10% off by entering the code MBUK10 at checkout.
To read our full interview with Jo, grab the latest copy of the mag, MBUK 440, which is in shops now.
