Come See Me! And Julie! NCTE! NYC! This Wee(kend)!

A friendly reminder to the half a dozen people who may be reading this. I will be at NCTE (National Conference for Teachers of English) in New York this weekend. I'll be at the Houghton Mifflin booth, #228-234, on Sunday November 18, 11am-12, signing copies of my new book, THE MOON IS LA LUNA. Well, technically, it's Houghton's book. And technically I didn't write it. That was the job of Jay Harris. But I drew about 30+ swell pictures that are printed in full color in said book. Gimme some credit! So, I'll be signing these books. Come see what all the fuss is about. I promise, I won't bite. Well, I could if you wanted me to. Actually, I won't. I'm germophobic. I'll shake hands instead. See you there!


My lovely wife, author Julie Halpern, will be signing her brand new Feiwel and Friends published Young Adult book, GET WELL SOON at the Macmillan Academic Library Group (F and F's parent co.) booth, #307-309 on Saturday November 17, 10:30-11:30 am. Get there early, folks, and get a good spot in line! Big ups to Feiwel and Friends for sponsoring me (paying my way in to the con).

New Music on the Cheap

I used to buy cd's all the time. Not anymore. I don't follow music as feverishly as I used to for one (I used to be a big indie rock dork). And I don't spend money like I used to either. But I still really like music. Only not indie rock. I get about 95% or so of my music now from my local library. They have a pretty great selection of stuff and it's free. Provided I get it back in time before late fees kick in. Then I just rip it into my iTunes library and it's there for as long as I need. My latest finds were some Nina Simone stuff and this collection of Django Reinhardt. Both really great. I'd always heard of, and occasionally heard, Nina Simone's music but never committed to fully listening. That's where music-on-the-cheap comes in handy. And then the Django stuff. I'm blown away by it. I had heard the name once or twice and I saw that Woody Allen movie, Sweet and Lowdown, that talks up Django. But man, it's so great! What a time. Even Julie liked it. We danced a jig or two the other night, it's true.

Dirty Old Nibs

Lately I've been experimenting with my line drawings. My usual reaction is, when a nib gets old and crusty and cloggy, to throw it out and replace it with a shiny new one. Then the ink flows better, lines crisper, cleaner, the way it ought to be. But one day, for fun, I put one of my old nibs back in the holder and started sketching with it. It flows like junk, but the line variation is amazing. It's almost like drawing with a stick. Only the flow is better than a stick. The texture and inconsistency of the dirty old nib is kickin butt! I draw with two different size nibs. I use a B-5 1/2 for most stuff and a B-6 for detail. Luckily, I had crusty old nibs in both sizes. Crust on, nibs! Crust on.

NCTE New York this weekend

Julie and I will be in New York this weekend for the National Conference for Teachers of English (NCTE). I have one book signing scheduled for Sunday morning 11-12 at the Houghton Mifflin booth for my new picture book, THE MOON IS LA LUNA. I'll also be signing copies of another Houghton title of mine, TOBY AND THE SNOWFLAKES. If you're heading out there, please come stop by and see me. I'm friendly.

Also looking forward to catching up with my old buddy, Will, who's living there now and seeing some top notch William Steig drawings, some folk art, and if there's time some pickles.

Red!

Yesterday, Julie and I had a book reading and signing at one of my all time favorite book stores, The Book Stall in Winnetka, IL. We've had a few events there and it's always been real cool. The staff is so great (yesterday was Liz Moore's birthday!) and the store itself is all nice and cozy and classy-indie at the same time. Yesterday's event was part of a book fair put on by a Winnetka pre-school. A friend and fellow librarian to Julie, Katie Wright, invited us to be part of this happening (Katie's son is a student at the pre-school). Julie read from our book Toby and the Snowflakes, as well as the two picture books I have out this fall. I did some drawing, and we signed some books. It was a great success. I was surprised to see the kind of crowd that turned up. We sold lots of books and talked to lots of cool kids and parents. It's been a while since I've done one of these things, so I forget what it's like to be around lots of kids. My favorite moment of the night was when Julie was warming up the crowd and she asked the kids (they were tiny) if they knew what an illustrator does. A little girl raised up and answered, "RED!".

Cheers for RIGHTY AND LEFTY! Steig in NYC!

This just in. Great reviews for RIGHTY AND LEFTY:

from Publishers Weekly, 11/5/2007

In this funny, ingenious take on the meaning of friendship, Vail (Sometimes I’m Bombaloo) and Cordell (Toby and the Snowflakes) muse upon the way that two very different feet manage to get along—a good thing, since they belong to the same person (seen only from the waist down). Lefty likes lingering under the blankets and wearing only galoshes, while Righty, an early bird, revels in all the possible shoe choices and secretly wonders what it be like to take a beach vacation without Lefty. Vail’s deadpan prose evinces a sly comic mind and a wonderfully ticklish system of logic: “Outside, Righty and Lefty race. Sometimes, Righty wins. Sometimes, Lefty wins. It is always close.” Cordell’s watercolor and ink cartoons prove he’s up to the challenge of focusing on two characters who can express their emotions only through their toes—and the occasional thought balloon. For making kids laugh, this one’s a shoe-in. Ages 3-5. (Nov.)


And from School Library Journal, 11/1/2007

A slight story about two busy appendages. Though they have different likes and dislikes, Righty and Lefty (the latter has an ever-present, identifying bandage) recognize the need to cooperate. The feet belong to the same person (who is never shown in full), but are complete opposites. Righty likes to wear different types of shoes, but Lefty's first choice is always the green galoshes. At times, the odd couple cause one another grief—as when one or the other crosses the finish line first—and Righty dreams of being on vacation alone. Just like siblings, though, they rely on each other for fun, and for keeping warm at night. Large expanses of white space showcase the humorous pen-and-ink and pastel watercolors. While one foot is active and adventurous, and the other is satisfied with the status quo, the two really are best friends and incomplete without their mirror image. The third-person narrative lacks tension and a substantial plot, thereby limiting its child appeal.—Maryann H. Owen, Racine Public Library, WI


Ok, so the SLJ has a couple of barbs thrown in here and there. But not too shabby.

Also, recently discovered that there's a brand new William Steig show up at the Jewish Museum in New York. Luckily, Julie and I will be in town soon for NCTE. So this works out perfectly. I'm a huge fan and I've never seen any Steig originals so this is definitely going to be a real treat.

Harmony in the Workplace

A couple of months ago, I ran across a comic strip by one of my heroes, French cartoonist Lewis Trondheim. It's a wordless strip about how he was trying to work in his sketchbook, but his cat kept wanting to be petted. He'd pet the cat a bit, then try to work again. But it never worked cause his cat kept pawing at him when he stopped. I feel your pain, Monsieur Trondheim. Ever since I started working from home, our cat Tobin goes ballistic at 3:30 everyday. We have an automatic feeder that dispenses his din at 4:15 and he can sense it. So he keeps assaulting me with his craziness and jumping into my lap while I'm trying to work, over and over and over... Then, exactly at 4:15 he hears the food drop and he tears through the house into the kitchen to feast up. Naturally, I had to draw my answer to the Trondheim strip in homage to Trondheim and in homage to the cat.

Philip Pullman and Hot Shredded Wheat

Being the hubby of a hard-hittin YA librarian and author, I often find myself accompanying Julie on various YA lit related wild rides of parties, conferences, and dinners of sorts. It's actually great, though, since some of our worlds collide–me being a children's lit illustrator and all. This weekend, Julie was invited to see Philip Pullman speak, as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival, at the Harold Washington Library downtown. Philip Pullman, case you don't know, is author of the wildly successful book series, HIS DARK MATERIALS (see that crazy movie coming out next month, THE GOLDEN COMPASS). The invitation came from Tim Ditlow, of Listening Library fame (Julie's also on a YALSA selection committee for best YA audiobooks of the year). There was a nice lunch arranged after with the whole group. This was really her deal, but she asked if I could tag along and Tim was gracious enough to accommodate.

I haven't been much of a YA reader up until recently. I mostly read graphic novels (which, actually... some are YA) and "grown-up" stuff. But I was looking for something to read, and saw laying around Sherman Alexie's new book THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN (admittedly curious cause of the Ellen Forney drawings–cartoonist and all). I really liked it, so ever since, Julie's been feeding me more and more YA stuff.

Knowing I was going to be seeing author of THE GOLDEN COMPASS speak, and after seeing that crazy movie trailer and wondering "what the heck is this?!", I knew I had to read at least one of the HIS DARK MATERIALS books before I saw the presentation. So I read THE GOLDEN COMPASS. And, honestly, I got lost at times, but I really liked this book! I know, positive reviews at this point are not breaking news, but it was new to me. Recommended! And so his presentation–actually more of a Q and A setup with this intellectualish dad/daughter team–was really great too. Pullman's funny, humble, and doesn't take himself too seriously (my impression anyways). For writing that style of book, I think that means a lot. So I'm sold on reading the rest of the series.

The lunch afterward was so great! There was a group of about 15 or so mostly Chicago area children's lit, YA audiobook types, librarians, and book review publication writers assembled at the Russian Tea Room (Julie and I had never been). The food, and the tea, was dang tasty! I really wouldn't have guessed it. I'm a vegetarian, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But there was much to choose from. And the company was so much fun. We met a couple of hilarious reviewers from Booklinks and Booklist who were so much fun to talk to and get to know. And the Booklist writer, Gillian, just happened to be the reviewer who just gave Julie's novel GET WELL SOON, that awesome review a couple weeks back! Good times, man. Good times. Thanks much to Tim Ditlow for putting that together and for letting me party it up with the team.

In other news, I saw a shredded wheat commercial yesterday talking about how good it would be to eat "hot." So, being a sucker for a commercial and for trying some new cereal gimmick, I heated up my milk this morning and poured it over the cereal. Don't do it. I mean, I don't recommend it. It was way nast.

Post What?

I never thought of myself as a post-it type of guy. When I used to work in an office, I'd sometimes see fellow designers with these sticky scraps of paper all over his/her computer, desk, workspace, etc. and the clutter grossed me out. But a few years ago for my birthday, Julie's aunt gave me a cube of Frank Lloyd Wright inspired post-it's and I use them a lot to jot notes, to do lists, or make quick sketches (a never ending cube at that). As I'm cleaning up, I assemble here a fine selection of actual scraps scattered about my desk–primarily useful notes, sketches, and unfortunate to-do lists.

Cause I'm a Creature of Habit

Behold. My watercolor arsenal. Don't judge. I first started using these when I got out of school and was saving a buck and didn't want to buy the "good stuff." These student grade pans are definitely not the best, but I'm used to 'em. I've tried to take it up a notch, quality-wise, but the fact of the matter is, I like the junkers. Yesterday, to replenish my supply, I even traveled an hour out of my way to get the to same art store I bought them at when I was penny-saving. It took me a while to relocate the aisle where they were stocked (had to get out of the top dollar paints and mosey into the kiddie ones). When I found the place, my heart nearly sank when it looked like they didn't carry them anymore. But on closer inspection, there they were, waiting for me, sandwiched between two other brands that only looked identical. Maybe someday I'll brave some better pans, or heck, even some highfalutin tubes. But in the meantime, if it ain't broke don't fix it.