Hey, we're Nico & Candy.
Author | Designer | Comic Artist | Creators
We're a husband-and-wife creative duo originally from New Zealand and Hong Kong, but now living on a thickly forested hill in Mount Helen, Victoria. We met in high school art class in the year 2000, the distant future, in Collaroy, Sydney. We shared an ice-cream in Manly, shopped for Roxy swimsuits at the Corso, got a puppy in Neutral Bay, and the rest is history. At one point or other, at a cool old building in Melbourne, we both became Robertsons.
Our toy designs have been stocked everywhere from one-star-rated eBay sellers to fancy museums like MoMA, NYC. We've had work featured alongside some pretty famous brands, but we're most proud of being on wedding and birthday cakes. Oh, and read as someone's favourite book. That is just incredible!
Want to hear a funny story? Years ago, we once went to not one, but two (!) massive conventions in Los Angeles, where we booked double-width booths only to have absolutely nothing turn up! Yep, all the comics and products we were shipping over couldn't make it. Talk about ugh! Now, 20sqm might not sound like much space, but in a convention swarming with thousands of people packed in like sweaty sardines, it was an oasis of blissful emptiness. Just a pretty backdrop, some cardboard cutouts, and two jet-lagged designers sitting at an empty desk wondering what they were going to do for the next six days. In hindsight, we probably should have set us an impromptu workshop for everyone to make comics or something. That would have been fun. And worth it.
Anyway, so we're the creators of Noferin, the Pecanpals and the Jibibuts. We're also the creators of Roobee Roo (21 books with Hachette), and the hilarious early reader graphic novel series, Archie & Reddie (as Candy James) (4 books with Razorbill and HarperCollins ANZ).
We love science, nature, art, good design, great children's books and other stuff like Mr Bean, Fawlty Towers, the Simpsons, Dr Slump, Ranma 1/2, Nicholas, Moomin, and more.
