Guest Post – Graffiti – Valuable Street Art? – Or Antisocial Crime? by Matt Dickinson

I’m super excited to have the brilliant Matt Dickinson on Tales again today, but this time with a fab guest about research for his brand new teen / YA thriller Lie Kill Walk Away.

Lie Kill Walk Away was released on the 6th October in paperback and ebook and looks absolutely fantastic!

I cannot wait to read this book and with today’s guest post I think you will all be intrigued too…..

LIE
I check the Range Rover dash. The keys are in there.
The sirens are closing in. There s a police helicopter coming over the hospital

KILL
I have to decide. Decide right now. I can keep out of trouble. Not get involved. Just run away through the park and go home and pretend none of this has happened.
Or I can help Becca.

WALK AWAY
I stare into her eyes. Those deep blue eyes. Just for a split second.
I tell her, get in the car .

Joe and Becca uncover a deadly secret. A lethal bioweapon is about to be unleashed. Millions will suffer a terrible death.

Now they are being hunted down.

And their problems have only just begun …

GRAFFITI – VALUABLE STREET ART – OR ANTISOCIAL CRIME?

One of the research topics I got into while I was writing Lie Kill Walk Away was the controversial subject of graffiti. The reason for looking into it was that my character Joe in the book is a graffiti artist who finds himself addicted to the clandestine thrill of putting his art out there on the walls of London.

How many ‘Joe’s are there in the UK? TENS OF THOUSANDS, spending an estimated fifty million pounds a year on their hobby. If you google spray can companies you will find dozens and dozens of companies (with wonderful names like Kobra, Flame, Clash and Montana).

Personally I don’t have a problem with graffiti. In fact I like and admire it. It’s become a part of the urban landscape and ‘taggers’ like Joe are expressing themselves with art in a way that they may not be able to do at school.

The public, however, seem to be split. A yougov.org survey two years ago found that 34% of people who answered the survey agreed that ALL GRAFFITI IS VANDALISM. 58%, however, said that SOME GRAFFITI IS ACCEPTABLE.

Tellingly, only 2% of people said that ALL GRAFFITI IS ACCEPTABLE

Some parts of the world have adopted a ‘zero-tolerance’ stance on graffiti. In New South Wales in Australia, for example, a person under the age of eighteen caught carrying spray-paint cans in public can be fined $440 or receive six months imprisonment … and that’s before they’ve got anywhere near a wall!

The most famous graffiti artist of all time, of course, is Banksy, the elusive street artist whose works can sell for six figure sums at art gallery auctions. Brad Pitt is even a collector of his work!

Banksy is a rare example of a graffiti artist who has gone mainstream. By far the majority are kids like my sixteen- year-old character, Joe, out there every night doing their thing, secretively and permanently on the look out for the cops.

It’s a game of cat and mouse which seems a bit crazy. Why not make graffiti legal on public walls? That might cut down the amount of graffiti on private buildings, right?

Some schools even have graffiti walls … a great idea!

Matt Dickinson’s new book Lie Kill Walk Away is published now by Shrine Bell, an imprint of Vertebrate Publishing.

You can buy a copy here

Check out a previous guest post from Matt – A Tale Of Yesterday…From The Top Of The World by Matt Dickinson

Or Himalayan Megaquake! by Matt Dickinson 

About Matt Dickinson

Matt Dickinson is an award-winning writer and filmmaker with a passion for climbing and adventure.

During his filmmaking career he has worked as a director/cameraman for National Geographic television, the Discovery Channel, the BBC and Channel 4. His film projects have taken him to Antarctica, Africa and the Himalaya, often in the company of the world’s leading climbers and expeditioners.

His most notable film success was Summit Fever in which Matt reached the summit of Everest via the treacherous north face. His book The Death Zone tells the true story of that ascent and has become a bestseller in many different countries.

Matt is currently Patron of Reading at Lady Manners School in Bakewell and continues to climb and explore. In January 2013 he summitted Mount Aconcagua, which at 6,965 metres is the highest peak in the world outside the Himalaya. Currently, he is planning an ascent of Denali in Alaska, one of the ‘Seven Summits’.

Recently Matt has started writing fiction for teenage readers. His debut thriller series Mortal Chaos was well received by critics and readers alike. Matt followed this up with the first of three The Everest Files books, which has proven to be very popular. North Face is the hotly anticipated second title in the trilogy.

When he’s not writing, Matt tours the UK, speaking at schools and colleges and inspiring a new generation of adventurers.

You can find out more about Matt by visiting his website here

Blog Tour

Catch up with the rest of this fab blog tour at the following stops!

Another huge huge thank you to Matt for a fab guest post and to Lorna at Vertebrate Publishing for organising!

Check out a previous guest post from Matt – A Tale Of Yesterday…From The Top Of The World by Matt Dickinson

You catch another blog post by Matt about the Himalayan Megaquake here

Are you a Matt Dickinson fan?  Have you read any of the Lie Kill Walk Away or any of Matt’s other books?  What did you think?  Has this guest post intrigued you?  I would love to hear from you!  Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of the page or tweet me on twitter using @chelleytoy !

Happy Reading!