Here's something for the Clive Barker fans out there... Back in 2005 there was an intial launch of Jump Tribe. Each box contained a plush toy with an accompanying book with a short story related to the plush character. I picked up one from Forbidden Planet in London which had come from the 2005 San Diego Comic Convention and kept looking out for more but they didn't materialise. I subsequently found out that 4 characters were made out of a possible 240 designs. The books with each story were a separate tale but could link together. Anyway after finding out these were hard to track down I looked on ebay last year and there all 4 were - Yaboo, Kungu Nah, Twoth & Billum - 3 good guys and one baddie!
I guess the best conceptual description of the books would be 'Clive Barker does the Mr Men' in that there would be a whole pantheon of bizarre creatures to collect - although the stories are aimed at a higher reading level, have a really inventive otherworldy concept one would expect from Clive Barker, and feature an alphabet which the reader can decode much like Tolkein's runes in The Hobbit. It's just a shame that the presumably children's fiction series didn't take off, but then I recall reading in an interview that selling a plush 'larvae' in a toy shop may have a somewhat limited appeal! One can only hope that one day more of the Jump Tribe will appear and their story will continue...
Anyway when I looked today there were some very reasonably priced on ebay so catch them while you can.
