Fun with Children’s Books

Above is the wraparound cover of my children’s book proposal/dummy-book called “Prince of the Trees.” Since it wraps around the guts of the book, the front on the right, and the back is on the left, get it? Anyway, we had to create a proposal for a children’s book. My concept was a liberal reinterpretation of Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees. It’s one of my favorite books, and I highly recommend it. I thought it would be a fun book for kids because the idea of living up in the trees is a powerful one, and it turned out to be fun to draw too. The bulk of it is just rough pencils, but the covers, first page, and one interior spread needed to be finished in the style that we would have ideally created the whole book in. Here’s the first page:

Timmy isn’t exactly Calvino’s enlightenment protagonist, but the plot begins the same way. Disgusted with living on the ground under a system he hates, a boy flees from the dinner table and takes to the trees. Up above the ground, the boy stubbornly, or righteously, decides to never set foot on earth again. Here’s that critical moment in my book, shown in a spread of two pages (click to enlarge):

I’ll let you read the original to find out how it ends. Because of an intermediate deadline, the order of creating this book progressed in a rather unusual way. The bulk of the pages were actually redrawn after I finished the colored pages, and the last step before binding was cutting out the type and pasting it onto the pages. My tiny workspace became crazy-crowded, and longtime readers of this blog will know I am fascinated by workspaces. Take a look for yourself.

Most interestingly, take a closer look at my poor, tortured mannequin. (That’s really how I found it him laying there!)

Comics Update

Though I haven’t written about them in a while, comics remains a very big part of my life. Here are some bullet points about concerning comics, myself, and the intersection of both.

• I’m almost through with a new mini comic called “The Black Squirrels of Washington, D.C.” which is in black and white and fits on both sides of an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper. This is the first time I’m actively designing a comic in InDesign and actually spending a good ammount on time on the drawings (the image above is an example). I’ll give it away free and make it available here.
• While I haven’t yet read this, one of my favorite illustrators, Jillian Tamaki, has a new graphic novel called SKIM that she did with her cousin, Mariko Tamaki. It has been reaping awards, but in an almost textbook example of comics not being understood, it is often called a children’s book. Worse yet, the book recieved a Governor’s General Literary Award in Canada, but only Mariko, the writer, was awarded. Check out this star-studed open letter of protest.
• Publications about comics are notoriously lame. Either you’re very high brow like the Comics Journal, or rediculously low brow like Wizard, but never in the middle. Now there’s Comics Foundry, which I’m proud to report is really good. It is interesting, funny, and has great puns. Keep your eyes peeled for that one.
• Jesse Reklaw is another great comics artist worth watching. His weekly syndicated comic, Slow Wave, illustrates his readers’ dreams, and his unbelievably quickly updated comics diary is really interesting and amusing.
• Recently I went to the Small Press Expo, or SPX, in Bethesda, where I met a lot of people I’d heard of, including the artists mentioned above. I also bought a lot of minis and saw great panels on topics like collaboration and indie publishing. Alt comix rulz!
• Several major comics opportunities loom on the horizon for me, not least amongst them the Center for Cartoon Studies, of which I’ve written about previously. I’m going there this weekend for their portfolio day and to decide if I will apply for next fall. Wish me luck; more updates to come.

The Little Flower That Might Have, Had It Been So Inclined

The following is in response to illustrator Adam Rex’s Character In Search of a Story #8 posted on his blog Editpus Rex. He’s a fantastic artist who’s always coming up with new ideas.

George the farmer loves to plant flowers. Big ones, short ones, purple ones, blue ones—every kind. But his favorite are chrysanthemums. He loves the bright colors and cute little button flowers. Every August, George goes to Flowers, Etc., his local flower store and buys a couple large bunches of mums to plant next to his fence in front of his house.

One time, several years ago, he noticed that one bunch of mums had one flower that was a little bit taller and bigger than the others. “That’s strange,” he thought to himself. “I guess the rest will catch up soon.” But as the days past, the one chrysanthemum flower only got bigger and bigger. George noticed this and also that some of the little flowers in the larger flower’s shadow were becoming wilted because they weren’t gettting enough sun. And mums love the sunlight.

So, George dug the bigger flower out of the bunch and put it in its own little pot next to the other ones. Its former neighbor flowers didn’t miss it at all and quickly filled the space—you would have never known it was there in the first place! But soon, the long mum outgrew its little pot and George had to put it in a large pot. He thought this was quite strange because he had never seen a chrysanthemum grow so large before.