David Trumble is grateful to his teachers at the Cherwell School, Oxford, who “grudgingly refrained from confiscating” his 200-page graphic novel Climate, started in a sketchbook in Year 12 and now, two years later, in print. Climate is fired by David’s passion for film, with references to Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Great Escape and (less obviously) It’s a Wonderful Life. He’s the latest winner of the Dan Hemingway Prize set up by the family of a former Cherwell pupil who died in a road accident on Christmas Eve 1991; there is a separate prize for short stories by undergraduates at St Andrew’s University, where Dan Hemingway was reading economics and philosophy at the time of his death.

The book is certainly a compelling film in waiting (one with a lot of shooting, swearing, double-dealing, body-snatching and the dodgiest motel owner since Norman Bates). Messrs Spielberg and Tarantino have no doubt already visited www.climatethenovel.com, where you can order the book for pound;15 inc pp.