Bantock attended schools in the northeast suburbs of London, and later an art college in Maidstone, Kent. He began a career as a freelance artist at the age of 23, producing 300 book covers in the ensuing 16 years. In 1988 he moved to Vancouver, and soon after to the nearby Bowen Island, where he had the idea that became the Griffin and Sabine series.

In 1993, he won the Bill Duthie Bookseller's Choice Award for Sabine's Notebook.

In 2006, he adapted the Griffin and Sabine series into a play, also called "Griffin and Sabine", which premiered in Vancouver at the Granville Island Stage and ran from October 5-November 4 2006.

In 2007, he resumed painting full-time, and opened a studio-gallery, 'The Forgetting Room', on Saltspring Island.

• The Griffin and Sabine Trilogy
• An Extraordinary Correspondence (1991)
• Sabine's Notebook: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine Continues (1992)
• The Golden Mean: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine Concludes (1993)
• The Morning Star Trilogy
• The Gryphon: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine is Rediscovered (2001)
• Alexandria: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine Unfolds (2002)
• The Morning Star: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine is Illuminated (2003)
• The Egyptian Jukebox (1993)
• Averse to Beasts (1994)
• The Venetian's Wife (1996)
• Paris Out of Hand (1996)
• Capolan ArtBox (1997)
• The Forgetting Room (1997)
• The Museum at Purgatory (1999)
• The Artful Dodger: Images and Reflections (2000) - a visual autobiography, and retrospective
• Urgent 2nd Class: Creating Curious Collage, Dubious Documents, and Other Art from Ephemera (2004)
• Windflower (2006) - with Edoardo Ponti

Popup books

• There Was An Old Lady (1990)
• Wings (1990)
• Jabberwocky (1991)
• Runners, Sliders, Bouncers, Climbers (1992)
• Solomon Grundy (1992)
• The Walrus and the Carpenter (1992)
• Kubla Khan (1993)
• Robin Hood (1993)