I suppose it's the fact that my BFA was made in design, but I love hand-lettering. In some (most?) cases, I prefer it. For any readers who have seen any of my previous book covers, you may have noticed some bit of hand-lettering going on--or not, depending on how much you appreciate such a thing.
It's fun to draw letters. I guess, in part, it's cause they don't judge. A "T" is a T. Just cause you draw it one way or another, doesn't make it not a T. I think, from now on, when someone asks what is my favorite thing to draw, I will say "Letters.". So, there.
Below are some sketches I whipped up for possible hand drawn title treatments for author Rachel Vail's and my forthcoming middle-grade one.
Below, below, is the standing font treatment. We'll see what happens.
1. GOOGLE'S HOMAGE TO E.C. SEGAR. Someone at Google has good taste. First they get it with Sesame Street, now they mark Segar's b-day (115!) with this one. Nice job.
2. RICHARD THOMPSON'S ANECDOTE REGARDING BRANT PARKER. I really enjoyed reading this blog post from the great Richard Thompson about when he was a young, aspiring writer/cartoonist and he met cartoonist Brant Paker--creator of THE WIZARD OF ID. A very vivid memory. Just cool.
3. GRIT COOKBOOK. The Grit, in Athens, GA, is the best vegetarian restaurant that I've never been to. (Whatever that means.) I got this cookbook for xmas and it's got some cool, savory stuff to do with tofu. Some of it looks fancy-complicated, but I'm game. We kicked it off with a dang tasty tofu ruben sandwich last week.
4. JOHN BURNINGHAM. Genius, genius, genius. How have I gone this long without knowing about the children's books of John Burningham? All I can say is this guy has got GUTS.
5. GOOGLE IMAGES. Just finished drawings for a pic book, and Google Images was with me all the way (apologies for two Google endorsements in one Ten). Whenever I need an image ref, Google Images is the place to go.
6. FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES BY OLD CALIFORNIO. A Facebook friend posted this video. I had never heard of Old Californio, but it seems that they are an up-and-coming CA band. This song--I like it.
7. MAP OF MY HEART. John Porcellino's King Cat is the king of the zine and mini-comic. When I first moved to Chicago in '99, I discovered his books at Quimby's. His drawings are so elegant, and his observations just sweet, simple, and often heartbreaking. Drawn and Quarterly has been so good as to reprint King Cat in book form. This is the second collection of such.
8. STONEWALL'S JERQUEE. Who'd a thunk it? Vegetarian "beef" jerky that actually tastes like beef jerky. I was a fool for some jerky growing up. But once I hit 18, I went vegetarian and never touched the stuff. When I turned a ripe 34, I started eating the occasional bit of bird. No beef, no pork, no fish. As weird as it sounds, this stuff is good (and frighteningly addictive).
9. WHALE TALK. Julie gave me a stack of YA novels to read recently-- one of which was this one from Chris Crutcher. My first Chris Crutcher. Very intense story about swimming, bullying, racism, and tearing stereotype to shreds. Really good. Hurts to read something like this, but it's good to hurt sometimes.
10. ROMY'S EVER-EXPANDING VOCAB. Hi, light, bottle, night-night, Mama, Dada, girl, good girl, num-num, bye-bye, more, more please, purse, wow, cat. And she's a heck of a mimicker. Babies are cool, man.
Let's ring in 2010, here on the blog, with a little bit of "whatchu know good?". Down south, where I'm from, that roughly translates to "what's the good word?". Here's some latest and greatest in word.
1. Just finished finals (all but jacket) on my latest illustrated picture book. Titled LEAP FROG. Written by Lauren Thompson, illo'd by yours true. I'm quite happy with the end drawings. A very sweet book, this one, and thrilled to have been invited.
2. Julie's new one, INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER, just got short-listed for the CYBILS (Children's and Young Adult Bloggers Literary Awards) best YA fiction. Only a handful left in the running, in this category, and I think my babe should win. Git er done, CYBs?
3. One of my previous collaborative pic books, RIGHTY AND LEFTY, (written by my pal, Rachel Vail--we also recently teamed up on her über-cool forthcoming middle-grade novel, JUSTIN CASE) just got picked up by a Korean publisher. Which means it'll be getting some fancy Korean type-treatment for this foreign release. Can't wait to get a look at this!
4. Currently kicked into high gear for my next author/illustrator picture book. The text is mainly wrapped. Just a few tweaks left to tweak. Which means now I'm off and into sketches. Super-psyched here. Pumped.
These are the highlights of the moment. Shall we start this new year? We shall, and right. Onward, folks!
Julie, Romy, and I are about to head down south for some holiday festivity. For those who do not know, my people are from South Carolina. We were planning on boarding a flight that left Chicago this afternoon, but it's been canceled due to some snow. A white Christmas cancels flights, people.
But looking forward to a fried turkey and various other southern-style (probably not good for my cholesterol issues) sides and desserts.
This just in! TROUBLE GUM was selected by BookPage for a short list of this year's best picture books. In case you missed it, I was in the magazine back in September for their supercool "Meet the Illustrator" column. Check that out here.
I forgot. Make it Top 11 this time. A Facebook friend posted this earlier this month (and another posted just now and I remembered...), and all I could say was "wow". Up for auction is original art by the greats. William Steig, James Marshall, Maurice Sendak, and many more. All you can do is salivate, cause you know you can't afford these pups. But a girl can dream, can't she? By all means, go crack this catalog and dream.
I can't believe a month has blown by since my last Top list. I guess I've only blogged a couple of times since then, too. Heck.
Well, it's been a good month with some prime pickin'. Let's see:
1. GOOGLE SESAME HOMAGE. In case you missed it, Sesame Street just celebrated it's 40th anniversary this past month. Google knows a good thing when google sees it, so Google did a week's worth of Sesame-inspired Google logo treatments. Good on ya, Goog. (Now, pardon moi for all the scrolling...)
2. CHICAGO HUMANITIES FESTIVAL PANEL. The title of this panel discussion, from Nov 7, was The Not-So-Funny Situation of Alternative Comix. It was a dream panel. Lynda Barry, Jules Feiffer, Chris Ware, and Matt Groening. The discussion was comics, specifically the demise of the comic strip in alt-weeklies like the Village Voice and the Chicago Reader (panel was moderated by Chicago Reader's Michael Miner). Lots of talent, lots of laughs, lots of fun. One of my favorite moments was when Chris Ware stepped off-stage for a few minutes, then came running back on when it was time for his slide show. And said, "when you spend a lot of time at home, your bladder shrinks down to the size of a shallot."
3. CANON EOS REBEL XSi. Our first digital SLR (single lens reflex). Takes a great looking picture. And it's so much better in low light situations than our old point 'n shoot. Even though this cam's, like, amateur hour for you serious photographers, it's fits us nicely in performance and price.
4. CAKE BOSS. Julie's got me watching TLC now. Which I think (ironically?) stands for The Learning Channel. Which doesn't quite add up because it basically seems like a "reality show" cavalcade of hot tempers, multiple pregnancy families, little people, overweight people, BBQ competitors, and bikers. Nevertheless, a personal favorite in "learning" is the CAKE BOSS. Billed as a bakery reality, it's painfully obvious when there's a blatant setup, plot fix or unreal moment happening. And it's spilling over with Jersey Italian stereotype (lovably). But I love watching them construct the custom cakes. Airplane or Leaning Tower of Pisa or NYC cityscape or your basic "old school" icing piped beautifully on a 4-tiered wedding cake. Talent. Like edible sculpture. Yum.
5. CHRISTOS' FALAFEL, PHILADELPHIA. Julie and I came upon this street vendor while on a recent trip to Philadelphia. It wasn't your typical cart. This was a spanking clean and shiny silver cart without any obvious signage/pricing. But with big tasty smells and lots of fresh herbs, garlic cloves and flowers adorning the front. After asking the line of regulars what smelled so good, we found out it was Greek char-grilled chicken breast, falafel, and lots of other savory homemade Mediterranean sides. Totally tasty! And fresh. Once we got home, we found out this dude is kind of a legend. People seem to liken him to Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi". Though we found him to be quite pleasant. A neat vid/write-up about this here.
6. BOB DYLAN PLAYS HANK WILLIAMS. I've been on a Hank Williams (Sr.) kick this month. I remembered there was a clip in DON'T LOOK BACK where Dylan picks out some old Hank tunes. Found a clip of it on YouTube. Dylan, Joan Baez, Albert Grossman, etc. And a good hair day for Dylan. That classic Glaser silhouette.
7. MUPPETS BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY. Two tips of the hat to Henson Studios this month. I realize most anyone who's been on the internet recently has either heard of or watched this vid. But I would be remiss in my work as an art blogger and as a Henson worshiper if I didn't also recognize this brilliance.
8. THE CURIOUS GARDEN. This gem by übertalent Peter Brown was one of a stack of picture books Julie and I picked up at ALA this past summer. It was only just recently that I seriously gave a look. Beautiful. It's all abuzz from the kidlit crowd. Rightly so.
9. FANTASTIC MR. FOX. Really dug this Wes Anderson and co. adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel (novella?). And I read the book just after. I do very much like Dahl, but I dare say the film was even better. Maybe just for the insanely good stop-motion animation. Liked the cuss outta this flick.
10. ROMY STANDS! For her next trick, Romy has solved that whole "how does one stand?" riddle. Sooooo big!!
I'm still in the thick of final art on a new book by Lauren Thompson, but wanted to drop a quick post. This morning, alongside Steve Jenkins and Scott Magoon, I'm featured (for TROUBLE GUM) on Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. We're rounding out a series of posts, by Jules, highlighting new books by illustrators who've been on the blog before. 7-imp remains one of my absolute favorite kid lit blogs (my go to for the best illo in kid books!), so I'm honored to be invited again. Check it out here.
One other bit of hot TROUBLE news, before I get back to work. Just found out that it's gone into its second printing! Say what??!
Generally, when I'm working on final art, I go through alternating periods of, "I'm worthless!" and "I'm brilliant!". Usually, I land in the area of, "At least I'm OK.".
Sometimes, when people look at my drawings, I get an occasional, "I bet it doesn't take you too long to draw, huh?". I am a tortured soul, dear readers. If you only knew.
You see, I just drew this frog 6 (and a half) times, wasting precious and pricey watercolor paper, because one little wiggly line didn't look wiggly enough. Or because the circles of the eyes were TOO circular. Or because the lines that make the mouth met kinda weird. Or because there were a few too many "bumps" on his skin. Et cetera.
Make it 6. It's been a weird month, and I'm shortening my likes to a mere 6 tops. Better luck next month. I mean, I'm enjoying, still, some of the other things from previous lists. Top 6.
1. SPUD. Julie is my go-to for good books. She brought home, from the library, a bunch of novels she thought I'd like. Top of the pile was this one by John van de Ruit. Billed as South Africa's CATCHER IN THE RYE, it's a hilarious story of a young teen kid who is starting an all boys boarding school in South Africa. It's set in 1990, so there's an interesting fall-of-apartheid backdrop. Told through a series of John "Spud" Milton's journal entries. There's a sequel, which I intend to track down and read directly.
2. BLACK TICONDEROGA. I went looking for pencils to buy for using at my TROUBLE GUM readings. I found a box of these. The standard Ticonderoga comes in classic yellow, but these look so much cooler and were cheaper, for some reason.
3. A.D.: NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE DELUGE. This new graphic novel from Josh Neufeld is the true tellings of 6 survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Neufeld interviewed 6 different folks, smartly, from very different sides of the socio-economic spectrum. With amazing results. Steeped in details and the sort of stories that have been sadly forgotten or perhaps never known at all. It's in extremes of frustration, heartbreak, and inspiration. Very well done. Very recommended.
4. MELISSA AND DOUG LEARN-TO-PLAY PIANO. This tiny piano is a birthday gift for Romy. She can actually play this mother! But, I think I'm getting more enjoyment out of it than she is. I love plinking out my little tunes... Theme from Star Wars, Rainbow Connection, O Christmas Tree, "Chopsticks"... you know, the essentials.
5. CHRIS WARE'S NEW YORKER HALLOWEEN COVER and ACCOMPANYING COMIC STRIP. I love his take on parents with iPhones, passive-aggressive texting, and Halloween. Beautifully drawn, as always. Read it here.
6. ROMY'S FIRST BIRTHDAY! Wow, I can't believe it's been a year since this. Romy, dear, you are the apple of Mom's and my eyes. Happy, happy, happy day.
I'm a children's book author and illustrator who lives and works in the burbs of Chicago. I dwell in a home with my wife, picture book author and YA novelist, Julie Halpern and our two lovely children. Life is great, man.
