Apr 06 2010

Dear Publishers, Please Stop Doing This

I was trying to get my bookshelves more organized a few days ago but was having a hard time staying focused because this kind of stuff drives me nuts!  (OK, admittedly, I’m a little obsessive/compulsive for sure, but…)  I’m as glad as the next guy that comics are no longer available exclusively as saddle-stitched periodicals or shoddily put together trade paperbacks, but if you’re going to go for the “bookshelf crowd,” at least make sure your books look good on a shelf!

pilgrim

ARGGGH!  If you’re going to “revamp” the look of a series, at least let it finish out first.

usagi

See comment above.

tcj

What happened here?  Maybe since they got “The Comics Journal Library” the wrong color in volume two, they just said To Hell with it from there on out?

isaac

Seriously, it takes more effort to do this wrong (assuming you’re just modifying an existing InDesign template for each volume).  Bonus WTF points here: they switched from glossy to smooth paper for no apparent reason for Volume 2.

gon

I don’t want to seem like a total curmudgeon, so here’s how it’s done well. Q: Why is it that every Manga series looks great collected on your shelf?  A: Manga nerds post pictures of their bookshelves to message boards and they don’t put up with the foolishness on display above.

crogan

Another nice looking series.

Apr 01 2010

Sketchbook 3/31

Up top here is a possible design for Mercedes from The Count of Monte Cristo project, and down below are two possible designs for a bartender in Oyster War.

sketchbook_033110

Mar 31 2010

Interview at Sweet Union ‘Toonists

You can find a short Q&A/interview with me over at the Sweet Union ‘Toonists blog.  The blog is promoting the upcoming Union West Regional Library Mini-Con (Indian Trail, NC –  June 26-27) where I’ll be appearing along with folks like Al Bigley, Marcus Hamilton, and Chrissie Zullo.

Q: When did you first discover comics and why did you notice them?
A: I’m not sure I can isolate one particular instance where I first “discovered” comics; they were much more ubiquitous when I was younger then they are now and you’d see comics at drug stores, grocery stores, convenience stores, etc. Probably the first comic books I ever really read were the Marvel Star Wars tie-ins, from the mid 70s. Before then, though, I’d read various collections of newspaper strips–Little Orphan Annie, Rupert and Betty Boop are the ones I recall.  (read more…)

If you click through to the main page, you can find a great interview with Marcus Hamilton along with a ton of his non-Dennis the Menace artwork that I’d never seen before.

Mar 20 2010

Book Design and Illustration: My Bookhouse Series

My two year old daughter has always been really interested in books (as I’m sure most kids her age are) and so I’ve been thinking a lot about children’s books–specifically, I’ve been thinking a lot about how crappy looking and shoddily constructed most modern children’s books are.  At some point, I’m going to maybe do a full post about specifically about the terrible, terrible binding methods that are employed almost universally with modern children’s books that virtually guarantee that they’ll wind up in the recycling bin in a year or two.  For now, though, I just wanted to post a few images from a beautiful set of books that were just passed on to my daughter from a relative: the My Bookhouse series edited by Olive Beaupre Miller.

We were lucky enough to receive a full six volume set of the original 1920-1922 edition of the series and they’re all in really remarkable shape.  The material is selected to advance as the reader ages.  So the first volume is mostly nursery rhymes and such, but by the final volumes selections are things from Robert Burns, Alfred Tennyson, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, etc. along with myths, legends, mythology and Bible stories.  I imagine it’ll be a while before my daughter’s interested in reading Don Quixote, even the  condensed excerpt here, but in the meantime I’m content to just look through them myself.  Here are a few scans:

bookhouse_01

This is the beautiful cover image to Volume Five, done by an illustrator I’ve not heard of: M.D. Charleson.  Volume four, though, has an N.C. Wyeth cover.

bookhouse_02

This gorgeous image appears as the endpapers in the front and back of all six volumes.

bookhouse_04

What a beautiful title page.  I love computers as much as the next guy, but damn that pre-helvetica hand-done typography is amazing.  I love the way it mixes so many different typefaces and combinations of  upper and lower case letters, yet it all coheres somehow.

bookhouse_03

Here’s an interior illustration from the Don Quixote section.  The books use a number of different illustrators, but this individual–I believe it’s Donn P. Crane–is my favorite.  What a great image: amazing composition, beautiful draftsmanship, and I love the restrained color palate.

Mar 19 2010

Amelia Reviewed in The NY Times

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Here’s a pleasant surprise from last week: Amelia Earhart – This Broad Ocean was reviewed in the Sunday (3/14) New York Times books section–certainly the highest profile review any project I’ve worked on has received.

It’s very well written, even captivating at times, and Ben Towle’s black, white and blue art suggests the feeling of flight when it moves from panel-packed spreads to more open and expansive ones as the story, along with Amelia’s plane, takes off. The presentation — a sort of graphic-novel-style biography — is a breath of fresh air. ( read… )

The image above was included in the print edition as well.