Jim Smith

After graduating with a first class degree in advertising, graphic design and illustration in 1997, Jim Smith was spotted by the owner of a small coffee shop chain and brought in to fill the walls of their flagship store with his paintings. It was a three month contract; over twenty years years later, Jim is head of design at Puccino's Worldwide Ltd, now an international coffee shop franchise with stores across the world.

In the meantime he's illustrated kids' food packaging for M&S, drawn cartoons on the sides of PJ smoothies, created in-store graphics for Orange phone stores, designed book covers and branded a New York based Iced Tea company.

In 2010, Jim launched the hugely successful Waldo Pancake range of stationery and gift products, which sold across the UK, Australia, Singapore, Europe and the US.

'I am not a Loser' by Barry Loser - the first of a series of children's books 'spellchecked' by Jim - was published in 2012, having already sold rights to nine countries. The sequel, 'I am Still Not a Loser’, was the winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2013. In 2017, Jim won the Scholastic Laugh out Loud book award for ‘Future Ratboy and the Invasion of the Nom Noms’.

After writing the ‘Super Weird Mystery’ trilogy, Jim went on to create three full-colour Barry Loser graphic novels. He is now working on two new full-colour series - ‘How to be a Genius Kid’, published by Faber under his pseudonym, Waldo Pancake, and ‘My Big Fat Smelly Poo Diary’, published by Scholastic.