Superpigs – from page to pixels
How one picture book spawned a series of great Superpig titles and inspired an amazing Fairyland metropolis.
When Fourth Wall’s illustrator, Claire Evans, wrote and illustrated her picture book ‘The Three Little Superpigs’, little did she know then what a monster her creation was about to become!
Originally published in September 2016, Claire’s story is a lively reimagining of the original Three Little Pigs tale, but brought up-to-date with a fun superhero genre. Having captured the Big Bad Wolf and built a wall of bricks around the City to secure Fairyland, the grateful citizens award the pigs superhero status, and so The Three Little Superpigs are born! Rather than relying on incredible abilities or amazing superpowers though, the Superpigs success in overcoming the bad guys is usually down to their co-ordinated teamwork and quick-thinking!
The characters have a real charm, and have really struck a chord with youngsters, which no doubt led to the book being included in the ‘Summer Reading Challenge of 2017’ – a nationwide initiative aimed at encouraging school children to read more during the end of term holiday. Claire was naturally thrilled that her three little pigs had been included for the prestigious listing under the Animal Agents theme – “I was delighted that my book was chosen by The Reading Agency, and that The Superpigs would be doing their bit to improve children’s literacy. Now they really are superheroes!”
A total of 761,758 children across the UK took part in the 2017 Summer Reading Challenge, at their local library, an increase of 6,550 on 2016’s total. Research showed that only 1 in 4 boys read outside of school every day, but during the Challenge, reports showed that 44% of Animal Agents participants were boys.
In 2018, Fourth Wall Publishing began a working partnership with Scholastic USA, the world’s biggest children’s publisher, who acquired the rights for The Three Little Superpigs in the US and North American territories.
The book enjoyed over $2.5m in sales revenue for the media giant in the final quarter of 2018, demonstrating the popularity of Claire’s characters. Fourth Wall is now working with Scholastic to confirm The Three Little Superpigs publishing plan for the next three years. Two further Superpigs titles have been acquired by Scholastic and are due to be published in 2021.
During 2018, Fourth Wall’s animation team were busy developing the property in order to reposition it as a more cinematic experience. The Superpigs were reworked to ensure their new models could deliver a range of dynamic movement and facial expressions that a TV series would demand, and a 3D animated trailer was produced, which generated huge interest from global media companies, broadcasters and licensees. In 2019, Fourth Wall signed a license and merchandising deal for The Superpigs with Grupo Planeta, a world leading media group whose clients include Dreamworks, following which, the project gathered pace and work began on the creation of the Fairyland World – the urban metropolis that our crime-fighting superheroes would inhabit.
The creative team’s vision for Fairyland would see old, medieval buildings juxtaposed with modern skyscrapers, blending together to create a vibrant cityscape backdrop to the show’s flavoured storytelling.
Characters from fairytales and nursery rhymes were reimagined to give them new roles and jobs within the city –Mother Goose now runs a children’s nursery, The Muffin Man has a bakery franchise, whilst Jack’s magic beans are now used by baristas across the city in Fairyland’s coffee bistros. This has led to an extensive library of brands being created with carefully designed identities, which in some cases mimic real-life brands for an extra sense of realism and fun. The Three Little Superpigs brand has indeed come a long way from its modest picture book roots, a journey which has only just begun for the three hog heroes. Watch this space!
