Andrew MacBain is not afraid of a challenge.
Besides running the successful Pigeon Patrol bird control business for the past twelve years just across the US border near Vancouver , Canada, and a prime-time appearance on Dragon’s Den (link viewable in Canada only) for his De-Fence rodent and burglar deterrent, he has also branched out into publishing, children’s clothing and now his latest venture – building pinball machines.
It was when Andrew chose pinball as a hobby that he first came to our attention. He launched the Pinball Adventures series of pinball books back in October 2018, with much promotion by TNT Amusements’ Todd Tuckey who was to be the star of the first volume, talking about the pinball business, his landmark games and stories from his lifetime in coin-op.
That first volume caused some controversy when misunderstandings with Todd led to a public falling-out, while the quality of paper used in the first run was significantly below expectations.
But Andrew was quick to put that behind him and move on, telling Pinball News how he came to a settlement with Todd (even buying more pinball machines from him) and sent buyers of the first volume a new, re-written and higher-quality copy.
Since then, completion of volumes two, three and four have followed, with work on the remaining six under way.
The first four volumes of Pinball Adventures
Running alongside the publishing of Pinball Adventures was the creation of a series of children’s books and an associated clothing range using The Punny Factory as their theme.
The The Punny Factory book uses visual word-play to form ‘punnys’ and crafts a story about an explosion at The Punny Factory with the need for factory worker Casey to track down and recover all the escaped punnys.
The Punny Factory by Andrew and Veronica MacBain
The backstory to The Punny Factory
As with Pinball Adventures, the theme provided an opportunity for additional books in the series, so More!! Punny Factory and More & More Punny Factory soon followed. There was also the move into children’s clothing, using some of the punnys as T-shirt designs.
Not content with containing his pinball activities to
