SCBWI-ing

Last Friday, Julie and I sat in on a Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) event panel of four authors to discuss the topic "What's the worst that could happen?". Rounding out the panel were two more Chicagoland authors, the excellent Stephanie Kuehnert and James Kennedy. We fielded questions like, "what if you had a reading/signing and no one came?" or "what if your editor quit or left the co. mid-way through a book?". Stuff like that.



The panel discuss was held in cool indie bookshop, 57th Street Books, put on by their fab resident book buyer and book connoisseur, Angela Sherrill, and mediated by Illinois Chapter SCBWI-er Kate Hannigan. (Readers of this blog may/may not remember I was invited down there last fall for a very cool children's book fair.)

Julie and I wondered on our drive down, "what if no one showed up to this event?". Wouldn't that've been ironic? Luckily a sizeable crowd turned up and a lively discussion ensued.

Angela used her powers and influence and somehow got this mentioned at Publisher's Weekly! Thanks to Angela and Kate for getting Julie and me on board. Twas a nice evening.

Harvey Pekar

For the past couple of days, I keep remembering off and on that Harvey Pekar is no longer with us. I never met him, or even saw him in person. However, the openness of his books, the humor, the sincerity, raw reality and the sometimes bleakness, you really feel like you get to know him.

The world of comics and the world in general will be a little less interesting without him and updates of American Splendor in it. Here's just a handful of people and places around the web who are remembering "our man" and his work.

Allison Bechdel

Jeff Smith

Anthony Bourdain

Tom Spurgeon

The New York Times

Cleveland

I got this.

I want you to know I appreciate you for periodically returning to this space to see if I've blogged. I want you to know that I have been busy and this is why I have not blogged. I want to show you some proof so that you do not think I'm lame. (I mean, if the "proof" is lame, well, there's just not a lot I can do about that.) But a couple of excerpts from days and nights past:






I'll be back.

Top Ten (June 2010)

My favorite things from last month, in no particular order.




1. GOLDEN LEGACY: ORIGINAL ART FROM 65 YEARS OF GOLDEN BOOKS. Checked out this traveling exhibit at a local museum. Absolutely freaking cool. Original artwork from Golden Books classic creators like Garth Williams, Mary Blair, Martin Provensen and Gustaf Tenggren. Afterwards, Romy had some kicking play time in the kid-friendly, Golden-inspired activities space set up by the museum. Wow.




2. ZEITOUN. In keeping with my New Orleans and post-Katrina New Orleans fascination, Julie picked up this newish Dave Eggers nonfiction for my second Father's Day. Very, very well told account of Syrian born, New Orleans contractor Abdulrahman Zeitoun. Beyond Zeitoun's epic storm and flood survival, it's a scary (perhaps cautionary) tale of some outrageous immigrant discrimination.




3. DIARY OF A WIMPY KID. These words, "diary of a wimpy kid" have been buzzing around my ears for some time now. Finally, I know why. Incredibly funny. Incredibly well-written. I was pleasantly surprised to see that these books showcase some clean and superstylish cartooning and outstanding graphic design. Jeff Kinney, I am officially recruited.




4. WIPEOUT. Despite Julie's "over it" attitude, I can never get enough of an everyman taking solid hits and falls on the most insane obstacle course in the country. As a kid, I LOVED Nickelodeon's "Double Dare". Anybody else? Genius!




5. THE BIRD NEST. A mama robin set up a nest atop a hanging flower basket on our front porch. I could've tossed the nest and been done with it, but it was such a beautiful nest and it went up so freakin fast. I have been obsessed with watching this whole show go down. Eggs, baby birds, now adolescents. The whole thing only took a few weeks! Only two babes seem to be left in the nest now. They grow up so fast.




6. AT-AT DAY AFTERNOON. Creator of this viral vid, Patrick Boivin, says, "When I was a kid, there are two things I wanted badly and never got... A real dog and a Kenner AT-AT Walker." Love this. I never got my AT-AT either!




7. FUNNY PEOPLE. I don't care what the critics said, I liked this movie. Sandler's George Simmons kinda reminds me of an old burned out Dylan. If Dylan made crappy comedies. There's some unlikeable souls in this flick for sure (tho Seth Rogen's Ira Wright was a sweet loveable loser for me), but I'm guessing it's pretty true to life. Extreme success has a way of creating an unlikeable soul. "How would you know?" you may ask. Fair enough.




8. SOUTHER SALAZAR'S TIME LAPSE ASSEMBLAGE OF "ALEJANDRO AND THE IDEA MACHINE". I'm sorry, but Souther Salazar and this vid (and music!) are out-of-control cool.




9. TOY STORY 3. This is the best movie I have seen (will see?) this year.




10. RICHARD THOMPSON AT COMICS REPORTER. I'm pretty sure that Richard Thompson is the sweetest, coolest, smartest, funniest, humblest, most talented syndicated cartoonist working today. Man he is good. And in this interview with Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter (my favorite comics news source!) you get it all. Here's an excerpt about why he chose pre-schoolers as characters for his masterpiece, CUL DE SAC.

My daughters were in pre-school. I remember one day in particular. My daughter was four maybe, and my younger daughter was one. My wife was taking me to the train station, I was going up to New York for a weekend. This is back ten years ago or something like that. The kids were running around loose, it was kind of a frantic day for everyone. I was there for like 15 minutes and there was one mom dropping off her daughter. She was like a single mom with her daughter and she could not handle her daughter too well. They had this hamster ball thing, where the hamster could roll in this ball. The kid was chasing it around. The mother picked it up and said, "Oh my God, it's alive!" and dropped it. [laughter] It was like, "I gotta go to work, get me out of here!" I looked around and there was all this action and nothing was meshing at all.

Top Ten (May 2010)

As always, in no particular order:



1. THE ENEMY. Serge Bloch is awesome. I'm not sure who this book is for. Poignantly written by Davide Cali. Perfectly illustrated by Bloch. It's the format of a picture book and it's published (American) by Schwartz + Wade (kid bookers, though they certainly do some interesting, edgy stuff--I'm a big fan). It's about two soldiers fighting each other in war (ultimately, it's peace). I think the word "kill" is used more than once. For kids? Pretty brutal, methinks, for young 'uns, but I'm really digging it. And anything Bloch's doing, I'm all over it.




2. MIKE AND IKE BUBBLE GUM. It's no secret--I like gum. I found this new gum. It's the best of two candy worlds. Classic bubb gum, with the flavors of original Mike and Ike chewy candies. Have you ever had those awesome "hot dog" gums? It's like that. But fruity flavor. Oh yes.




3. THE CARDTURNER. The best way to describe this new book by Louis Sachar is, simply put, ballsy. Sachar has taken a chance here and written a book for young readers that is heavily about a game of cards called bridge. I didn't know much about bridge before I read this (still don't), but what I knew is that old people like it. I believe this may be true, but can't say for sure. Anyhow, it's a ballsy book and it's got a cool core of characters, twisty plot, and a very weird, overly complicated game of cards (plus a very unique and clever way to get around the card stuff if it absolutely don't interest you).




4. MEMORIAL DAY PICNIC. For Memorial Day weekend, many of Julie's fam flew in from various corners of the country to pay homage to the late, great family matriarch, Sylvia Halpern. It was a wonderful weekend, as many of us now have varying ages of wee babes. And we see so little of each other. Very fun.





5. THIS TREME VID: As reported last month, Julie and I have been swept up by HBO's new drama, Treme. I simply cannot say enough good about this show. It's so freakin right. Sometimes it just chills you right to the bone. This is one of those moments. In New Orleans, even a funeral procession (2nd line) can be drop dead gorgeous. Here, it's beautifully shot. Beautifully edited. Just plain beautiful.





6. REBIRTH BRASS BAND (in the vid w/ TROMBONE SHORTY). TREME has inspired me to dig around for some New Orleans music. It helps that the show has lots of great music and easy leads to kick off from. Rebirth, for one, is a good place to start.




7. KALA. Better late than never? I just heard this not-so-new album from M.I.A. Like her first one, it's a crazy combo of hard-hitting politics and hard-hitting hip hop (dance?--forgive me, I'm old). Liking it.




8. DRUMS, GIRLS, & DANGEROUS PIE. It's so cool being married to a librarian. And Julie is amazing at finding the right book for the right person. In fact, she's gifted. I actually had heard of this book, by talented Jordan Sonnenblick, years ago, but never got close enough to it to read. All along, I thought it was just another book about a teenager who goes through the usual "stuff". Little did I know it is not.





9. OOH POO PAH DOO. One more TREME nod this month. One of those chilling moments is when an airport band performs this New Orleans classic. I wish I could find a vid snapshot someplace, but I could not. Here it is done up old school, by Jessie Hill. Great song.




10. WILSON. I am not a HUGE Daniel Clowes fan. Don't get me wrong, I am certainly a fan. He is an amazing cartoonist. But what separates me from huge and average fandom is the gut-wrenching bleakness of his stuff. Man can get you down. But I definitely enjoyed this book. I had many laugh-out-loud moments while reading. Pretty bleak. But pretty funny. I'm sick.

The Art of Shipping Art

Yesterday, I finished up a batch of original art for my next picture book. I'm really pumped about this particular book. But that's not actually why I'm here today.

I'd like to share a part of the illustration process that's likely been neglected. Too boring? I guess. But I take it very seriously. It's the part of the process when the art is completely done, yes, but it still needs to make it to the publisher. Seeing as this illustrator lives nowhere near his publisher, the art has got to be shipped.

What to do? What sort of packaging is worthy enough to hold these precious pieces of paper I've lived, loved, and screamed at for the past several months?

Here's how I do it.


Exhibit A: The "original art". As you can see, my work is done on paper. And that, my friends, is why it's gotta be shipped. If I worked new-fangley and on the computer (think J. Otto Seibold), I could just zip it all out via email. But I don't roll that way.



Here's the whole book. I think for this particular one, there's about 45 or 50 originals in this pile. I need to divide this up so I can get it in a not so shuffley state.



So, first I separate the big pile into little piles by size. At the end here, I usually have a variety of paper sizes to accommodate for different size drawings--smaller stuff (spot illustrations), medium size (one pagers), and big ones (full spread drawings). Hmm. Looking at this picture, it sure looks rather insignificant. Hard to believe there's about a year's time laying there on the rug. Ah, well. Moving on...




Once the piles are stacked and jogged, I unroll a large roll of white butcher paper...



...and tightly wrap up each stack like little Christmas gifts (Hanukkah ones, for my Jewish family). Tightly wrapped because I do not want any papers sliding around, rubbing ink or color up on each other. That could get ugly.

Then, I'm off to find some large pieces of cardboard.



Luckily, with a 19 month young babe running around the house, we've had lots of recent purchases that came in large cardboard boxes. Large panels of cardboard I've hoarded for just these occasions. I cut down four identical oversized panels of cardboard and set them aside.



On one piece of board, I then slap strip after strip of white paper tape to each xmas gift, securing each into an unmovable position. I don't want anything sliding around in transit. Like I said, no papers sliding around rubbing ink or color together. And none of those xmas gifts should be sliding around either, getting knocked corners or bruises. I sometimes include a full set of the latest round of sketch revisions for the art director to refer to when laying out the book. I did that here. And I always include a letter with some (meddling?) notes to my A.D..



Next, I squeeze all four cardboard pieces together like a tasty sandwich--two boards on each side of the art, for extra-double protection. Then tape, and, tape, and tape some more. Re-re-reinforce.



All that's left is to slap the shipping label on the top of this hopefully-sturdy-enough, custom-made carton.

The package is dropped off at the shipping center by my house. A whole lotta faith. A little bit of prayer.

And there you have it. Tomorrow, I will be tracking the package to check for its delivery, followed by an email or two to my lovely editor, Liz, until I know the mailroom has brought it up for a final stop at her desk.

But now, for some much-needed studio clean-up time. What a dump.

State of the State

I'm almost done with illustrations for my second written/illustrated picture book (it's about sheep). So close, so close. What's that they say about "close"? Only counts with hand grenades and horseshoes? Is that how it goes? And what weirdo came up with that?


Here's what my desk looks like when I work on one picture book followed immediately by another one. I have another lined up right after this. What will my desk look like then?

I'll let you know.

Children's Book Week, The Book Stall

While Romy's napping, I'm gonna attempt to post some pics from the panel discussion last Saturday at The Book Stall as part of Children's Book Week.


Distinguished panelists (L to R): Me, Aaron Renier, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Janice M. DelNegro. I showed some early JUSTIN CASE character sketches I worked on with my editor, Liz Szabla, and Rachel Vail, JUSTIN's mighty scribe. Apparently no one was comfortable enough to sit directly in front of me.


One more like before, sans J.M. DelNegro.


Afterward, we signed some books. Fastest hand in the midwest.

There would've been more pics, but our photographer, my lovely wife Julie Halpern, was mostly doing her best to keep up with our 18 mth old, who, at one point, burst into the panel to greet Aaron Renier.

Special thanks to Robert McDonald from the Book Stall and the folks at the Children's Book Council and Macmillan who helped me get in on this! Lots of fun.

Top Ten (April 2010)

Top ten things I was into, month of April.



1. TREME. The new HBO David Simon drama about post-Katrina New Orleans. And also just about New Orleans. Brill-i-ant. A big focus is the tremendously fascinating distinctive music and culture of New Orleans, which I knew only a little about. Julie and I visited New Orleans shortly after Katrina for an ALA conference (the first large event scheduled in the city after the storm). Perfect time and place to film and write about. Awesome cast, real musicians, sweet cameos and top notch writing. Love this show.




2. WHEN YOU REACH ME. I'm usually late on stuff like this. But ain't it cool to be late to the party? For those not in the know, this took the Newbery for '09. Being married to a school librarian, I just noticed it laying on the floor one day and gave it a read. Really cool. Sort of a new-school mystery. I like how it was all twisted up and the characters and writing were not all babied down. Nicely done. I don't read a whole lot of middle-grade fiction. And I don't review books. Can you tell?




3. CROW QUILL. I have held a grudge against these nibs for many, many years. Hunt 102, crow quill. It may have been my first experience with pen and ink. College. A self-teach session. I promptly broke a couple of the nibs by bearing down too hard. (Amateur.) Ink in the face. Never went back. But lately, I've decided to change up my line for the art I'm currently working on. Still loose, but fine, fine and fine. Nothing heavy here. Took another stab at the crow. I ain't mad atcha.




4. THE BOYS. This is my pal Jeff Newman's newest opus. This pic book came out in late February, but I had not seen Jeff or a finished book until recently when he handed over a signed copy. This dude's a dang talent! Congrats, Jeff.




5. SKYPE. Seeing as my folks (and most of the fam) live about halfway across the country from me... seeing as they don't often get to see their one and only grandbaby... seeing as this whole web cam thing has been around for..how long?... it was about time we got plugged into the internet streaming video phone thing. How cool is this? Not to sound like a total n00b (did I use that right?), but it really is the next best thing to being in the same room. Thank you, Oprah.


6. ORIGINAL WEDDING BAND. Last month, I lost my wedding band. (Not, like, cheesy cover music wedding band. I mean my wedding ring.) Julie's and mine--matching white gold with Mark Twain inscriptions. I was seriously, seriously bummed. Losing something that small, you really feel like you'll never find it. And it wasn't like I took it off. Somehow, at some point, it slipped off. And to get a replacement, it ain't the same (plus the cost has more than doubled in the last 7 years!) Anyhow... long story short, I found it! What a relief. Like a part of my soul that got clipped out, just got spliced back in.




7. CHILI MANGO JELLY BEAN. This new flavored bean from Jelly Belly is an absolute new fave. Spicy and sweet. It is currently in second to my reigning champion bean, the Black Licorice.


8. TUBE W/C PAINTS. After being completely loyal to my ¢heapo pans, I finally bit the bullet and paid up and bought a full pallette of tube watercolors. Now... I did not rock out with the Winsor/Newton Artists', but I'm at the next best place. And I like it! Full disclosure: I still am using some of the pan. Don't hate.




9. ELVIS COSTELLO, SNL. I do not recall how I stumbled on this musical moment in time last month. Apparently, in 1977, Saturday Night Live needed a last minute replacement for the Sex Pistols. Elvis Costello and the Attractions stepped in. I guess they wanted to play Radio Radio and were told not to (since that song is kinda giving the finger to "the state"). They agreed, it seemed, and started up with another tune. But seconds in, Elvis cut it off, shouted back to the band and they pounded out Radio Radio instead. I don't know if any of this is true, I was never much of a fan, but I thought it cool.




10. HENRY IN LOVE. I really like where Peter McCarty is going with his newest picture books. Sparse. Experimenting with line and with background elements (loose v. tight). Drawing focus to certain areas with intense attention to detail. JEREMY DRAWS A MONSTER is another of similar appeal. Cool.

JUSTIN CASE drawings, pt III.

The third and final installment of favorite drawings from the all new JUSTIN CASE: SCHOOL, DROOL, AND OTHER DAILY DISASTERS. My latest, greatest, collab with author Rachel Vail. Speaking of Ms. Vail, head over to her excellent interview just posted with Publisher's Weekly. Find out how JUSTIN came to be!

Now for some drawings (click on images to zoom in)...













Lastly, a little reminder to please come out this weekend to The Book Stall in Winnetka. I will be on a panel of authors (Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Matthew Cordell, Aaron Renier, and Janice M. Del Negro) talking about JUSTIN CASE and children's books in general. I mean, they aren't talking about JUSTIN CASE. They are talking about their books.

Here's the info:

Saturday, May 15, 11am

THE BOOK STALL
811 Elm Street
Winnetka, IL 60093
(847) 446-8880

I got a new haircut yesterday, special for the occasion. Julie said I was looking, "fluffy". So you'll come, you'll get a look at my new haircut.

See you there!