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Sat 03 Mar 2007Landy lands seven-figure book dealLoose Leaves:Dublin screenwriter Derek Landy's debut children's book Skulduggery Pleasant has become a runaway success before it's even published next Monday, with news that he's been signed up by publisher HarperCollins for a deal including two more books worth more than £1 million (€1.47 million).Landy, who worked on the family farm for six years before meteoric success struck, can put it all down to his protagonist - Skulduggery Pleasant, a magician with a penchant for fire, who also just happens to be dead. He's got a sidekick, a 12- year-old girl called Stephanie, and both of them are hell-bent on defying evil. They're a double act we'll be hearing a lot more about, with a publicity campaign that includes MySpace and Bebo pages, a video posted on YouTube, music downloads and an online treasure hunt to lead children to the book. Not since the success of Eoin Colfer has an Irish children's author been signed up with such elan and Landy seems also to be pioneering a hard-to-define genre of comic-Gothic-horror adventure.