11:41am UK, Wednesday February 27, 2008

Paul Harrison

The writer behind the hit Christmas film, The Snowman, has told Sky News he fears drawing is becoming a dying art.

Raymond Briggs says he also "regrets" the fact modern children spend so much time in front of a computer screen.

180 The Snowman cartoon Raymond Briggs

Snowman still flying at 25

"You should be able to feel what the character isfeeling from the way it's drawn - you've got to be inside it like an actor is," he said.

"Not many people can do that among present day illustrators - that's something that has disappeared."

He added: "People don't even draw in art schools any more as far as I can see - it's very peculiar."

Written in 1978 and adapted for television four years later, the Bafta award-winning and Oscar nominated film has been broadcast all over the world.

To mark its 25th anniversary, a special audio CD of The Snowman is being released, narrated by Cold Feet and Murphy's Law star James Nesbitt.

Says Briggs: "I don't know why it's been so successful. People keep asking me, but I don't know - you just do the book, design it, write it and illustrate it and hope the publisher takes it.

"You don't think further than that - the movie, theatre, merchandising - you just do it and this all happens afterwards.

"Innocence and adventure - I suppose it might have something to do with that. It does have a more old-fashioned feel to it compared to the more hard hitting stuff of today."

Of  today's children, he says: "I do rather regret that it seems they spend all their time looking at screens - playing computer games with people all over the world whom they've never met."

Briggs, who also wrote Fungus the Bogeyman and Father Christmas Goes On Holiday, admits he's a little out of touch with kids these days.

He rarely watches television - because he hasn't got one. But if he could sit down and watch a movie this Christmas, it would be Brief Encounter, the Noel Coward tale about unrequited love.

"It's about restrained English middle class people - trying to behave decently, although they are filled with desire for one another.

"Its all very tight-lipped and careful as things used to be."