Ted Sieger

As a child

Ted Sieger wanted to become a polar explorer but gave up on that idea when he realized that it was going to be pretty cold. He was born in a small harbour town on the pacific coast of South America and grew up in Chile, Peru, Australia and Switzerland. Sometimes the moving from country to country was fun and sometimes it wasn’t. As a child he liked riding across the Peruvian desert in a car, swimming the beaches of Sydney, building huts in the forests of the Swiss Alps, and he liked reading Dr Seuss. He invented his first cartoon character when he was eight. It was so fun he kept on drawing. It took him a long time to find out that drawing would become such an important part of his life.

As an adult

When Ted realized how cold it would be as a polar explorer (he was twenty at the time), he decided to go on a long trip to find something he would really want to do. He travelled a lot and lived in many places including Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Berlin, gaining experience in many different professions along the way: roofer, ferryman, farmhand, forest worker, street musician, night clerk, chestnut salesman, egg counter in an egg factory, horse groom and assistant engineer on a freight ship to Africa… Ultimately he found his way into animation, art and writing. Over the years, he has worked on children’s comics, on picture books and has created award-winning independent animation shorts and TV shows. He lives with his wife and two children in Switzerland.

As an artist

Ted Sieger has developed an artistic style characterized by unconventional philosophical humour and containing an element of poetical nonsense. His original stories deal with basic human issues: courage, stoicism, camel training and the most important question of all: “What’s for supper?” Inspired by The Story of the Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke, Ted has written, produced and animated a film called The Fourth King (on which the picture book is based), due to be televised in the UK over Christmas 2005.

Things you didn't know about Ted Sieger

1. Ted Sieger gets up very early when he feels like it and goes to bed very late when he feels like it.
2. He likes travelling, watching the stars and singing strange songs late at night.
3. He likes swimming in very, very cold rivers and skiing down very, very high mountains.
4. He likes playing with ideas, drawing and creating worlds.
5. He likes camels.
6. But only the two hump kind.
7. Nothing against the one hump kind.
8. But two humps are better.
9. He likes to think about things he doesn’t really understand.
10. He likes to understand the things he doesn’t really think about.