My name is Mike Bender and I’m an author and content creator. I just finished a book called The Kid, The Troll, The Wolf and The Hearse.

The idea for this book came to me during the lockdown period of the Covid outbreak. Like everyone, I was feeling the doom and gloom in the air and was feeling conflicted by those emotions.

Around that time, I had been gifted a copy of the international bestseller The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. I absolutely loved it – the simple beauty of the drawings, the powerful messages of optimism, and a storytelling style that reminded me of Winnie-the-Pooh.

But my brain works in strange ways and of course, I thought about a parody. I thought about how it could be really cathartic to just write a book that lets the cynical side of myself play and have free rein.

More info: kickstarter.com | Instagram

The format of Charlie’s book was a perfect structure to work with. I reached out to my talented friend, Ted Intorcio, at Tinto Press to illustrate the book and as always, he was up for a challenge and a journey into randomness.

I knew that I couldn’t author the book from my own perspective so it was important to create an alter ego and that’s when I discovered Eddie Ornery. Living in the rainiest region of England, Eddie is the “Bizarro” Charlie and an unapologetic jerk who thinks that the end of the world is always around the corner.

Ultimately though, this is a book about the “Eddie” that lives inside all of us and having a good laugh during these uncertain times. If there’s anything we all need these days, it’s to keep laughing.

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