www.horridhenry.me wins huge following

Novel Entertainment’s hit Bafta-nominated animated property Horrid Henry is proving to be an online sensation since launching its own dedicated website in November. To date, www.horridhenry.me has attracted nearly 40,000 visitors viewing over 200,000 pages and 1800 kids have already signed up as recruits to Henry’s Purple Hand Gang. The second series of Horrid Henry is currently airing on CITV until 2010 and is now an iconic property and the channel’s most successful show ever.

Produced by Novel’s Lucinda Whiteley and Mike Watts, the show is also proving to make waves across all media in the UK and internationally. With a total of 104 episodes now available, broadcast deals have already been secured for the 2D animated show with Disney Channel in France, ZDF Germany, RTE Eire, RUV Iceland, NRK Norway and YLE Finland, MNet in South Africa, RTP Portugal and Digiturk in Turkey with new deals to be announced imminently.

A number of key licensing deals have already been signed by Novel’s licensing partner Copyright Promotions for Horrid Henry, including a master toy license deal with Re:creation and an apparel deal with Mothercare, as well as an electronic game deal with Asylum Entertainment to produce for Nintendo platforms. The debut game Missions of Mischief launched this month and was the number one new release on Amazon in its first week.

Novel has also secured a DVD distribution deal for the second series of Horrid Henry with Abbey Home Media Group and other key partners include EMI as record licensee, Universal as music publisher, and Stella Projects as licensing agent for the brand in Australia and New Zealand.

Henry is also currently in Manchester with the next leg of the touring stage show ‘Horrid Henry – Live and Horrid!’ produced by Novel Entertainment and Watershed Productions in association with Sheffield Theatres. The show will run from 10 December 2009 until 3 January 2010 at the Dancehouse Theatre and Henry’s stage persona also turned on the Christmas lights in Manchester attracting huge crowds of fans.

Horrid Henry stars a headstrong boy constantly raging against the tyranny of adults, his irritating brother Perfect Peter and Moody Margaret, the infuriating girl next door. Based on the books written by Francesca Simon and illustrated by Tony Ross (published by Orion Children's Books), Horrid Henry is now a worldwide publishing phenomenon, with sales exceeding 15 million books in the UK alone, and is available in 27 countries worldwide including the US. It has been translated into 22 languages, where Henry has assumed many different national identities including the gloriously named Pablo Diablo in Spain and Rico Le Peste in Italy.