West Linn Public Library

I’ll be speaking, drawing, answering questions, asking questions and doing some sketching at the West Linn public library on February 4th on the topic of creating book covers. Discussing what a good book jacket design is and isn’t.

We will be doing some hands-on thumb-nailing and discussing different methods to create final art and design for a cover. The event is focused on the book, The Wizard of Earthsea. Which, as I have written about on this blog, was the book that turned me into a reader, or as much of a reader as I have become. And a few years ago I tracked down a paperback copy of The Wizard of Earthsea I remember first getting from my Jr. High library. I remembered the cover.

I’ll also bring some covers I have recently worked on (for some books yet to be released) and I’ll bring the visual history of the development of the cover for The Book That Eats People.

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Ring in the New Year..whoop-dee-doo…

Even as a kid the New Years Holiday always got me down a bit. I remember thinking that the much hyped “New Year” looked exactly like the year just ended when it finally showed up. And in Minnesota that meant, cold, colder and coldier. No purple skies or talking snowman or flying dolphins. You know, things that would make the New Year truly NEW. And of course it meant going back to school. It still feels that way. The same way every time I hear that 60 Minutes TV show theme music/sound effect I think of Sunday nights when I was a kid. My parents watching 60 Minutes and me knowing that the weekend was over. Homework had better be done and bedtime was coming at me like a rabbit after carrot flavored gelato. I can’t watch 60 Minutes to this day without that feeling of dread.

But as the New Year starts I find myself – behind in deadlines. I’m treading water. That is, I’m not sinking. But the shore seems pretty far away…and I think I felt a shark nudge my leg.

The good news is my graphic novel is well under way. Final layouts are done, or at least almost all the final layouts are done. I hear there may be a last set of minor notes but I’ll deal with that when they come in.

I don’t want to post too much more about the graphic novel until it’s closer to being really, actually, for-sure done. But here is a page with final layouts and word balloons and, well…it just needs me to draw it.

And about that Holiday story in the previous post…I’ll finish it, I promise! But it might take a while. I also hope to announce soon a really cool project we have put together for the Apple iPad. That’s coming along and very exciting.

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