How many books can a bookchuck chuck if a bookchuck…

too many books illustration. Mark Fearing

Here’s an update on my book-letting. Two months ago I wrote about my need to get rid of books. That perhaps being buried alive by books in my studio isn’t the way I want to go…though honestly, it’s not a bad way all things being equal.

And now for some blog-honesty…I haven’t gotten rid of one single book.

I tried. We had visitors for Thanksgiving and I tried to talk them into taking some books with them to read on the way home. But they already had plenty of books.

It gets worse…I recently purchased three new books and my bet is the Holidays will see me get at least one or two or three or more. So I am losing the ‘war on books’. I may never move from this house. I don’t have the energy to box-up all these books…

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The End is Near…the end of 2012

2012 was a big year for me professionally – if for no other reason than my graphic novel Earthling! was released by Chronicle Books. It’s a book I worked on for many years. A story that went through massive changes and a project that I am happy with and not happy with all at the same moment. I also illustrated two more picture books that will be out in 2013.Busy year. Good busy.

But 2012 was really all about Earthling!. I have worked on all sorts of projects in my life. Usually playing a bit-part or smaller in some major branded piece of entertainment. The desire to captain the ship, so to speak, speaks as much about ego I suppose as desiring a challenge. And it has been a challenge. But now Earthling! is done. Out of my head and my arm is recovering from drawing 256 or so pages in 6 months.

High-point: getting that first set of proofs from China (receiving them only a few days after I OK’d final full color digital art files in San Francisco…crazy). High-point: Seeing the real book for the first time when my author copies arrived. Seeing it on the shelf at a bookstore and library.

Low-point: being told it would get coverage in the New York Times and spending a week worried beyond belief about what they would say.

High point: having a very positive review in the NYT’s! Low-point: after the review ran in the New York Times having the paperback be out-of-stock at Amazon for 7 or 8 weeks. I’m still not clear why. But at least it’s back in stock now.

And so my professional year ends as this project that dominated my life for so long is cast aside, set sail, free to wander the winds of recycling bins and library shelves for years. I guess 2012 will always be about Earthling! for me.

If you are waiting for me to write some sort of valuable lesson about what I learned from all this I suppose I could write a platitude like: The more things change the more they stay the same. Or: Never leave an open container of cheese in your house if you have monkeys.

I might say that writing or drawing a book, creating a story and releasing it to the world is a job fraught with unexpected outcomes and revelations. Ups and downs. Disappointments and high points. It’s never quite what you expect. It’s never as bad as you think. And in the end, most of the time, you live to try it all again.

Where have I read that before? It goes something like this:  “It’s a dangerous business…going out your door. You set onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to”. And I believe that the road you take in creating something offers plenty of adventure too.

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Mailbox key where art thou?

I couldn’t find our mailbox key. I looked everywhere. I spent hours running up and down, searching every corner of the house. I grew more frantic as the hours passed.

I took the garbage from the kitchen to the garage, dumped it on cardboard and dug through it. I’ve been know to accidentally toss things away when I’m in a hurry or distracted, which is most of the time. But I found no mailbox key in with the banana peels. I looked through the drawer where we keep the dog leashes used on walks. The key has landed in there a few times when I get back from walking them and jumble the extra poop-bags up with their leashes and whatever else is in my pocket. It wasn’t in there.

So, what about pants pockets? I started the day with black jeans. It was cold. But after dropping my daughter off and walking the dogs, it was warm so I switched to cut-offs. Then, mid-afternoon I had a meeting so I put on big-boy-pants. Black dress pants so I looked semi-professional. (key word being ‘semi’ professional…).

After the meeting I switched back to shorts and picked my daughter up.

Hours were passing as I ran around. My wife got home. I was still looking. Cleaning out drawers. My daughter built an entire Lego camper van or something (these aren’t the legos I had as a kid!) and I was still looking.

Looking under car seats. I started to wonder how I even go about getting a new key. Does the post office help in such cases? What if by some miracle I actually get a check this week? What if someone found the key and takes that check? (after the disappointment of stealing a check from a kids book illustrator/author sets in the thieves would have a good laugh…)

I finally sat down and zoned out and realized something funny about the good old human brain and its short-cuts. I had worn two pairs of black pants that day. Each time I went upstairs and dug through the pockets I was digging through the black jeans, which were in the laundry basket in the bedroom. I had folded the dress pants up and hung them in the closet. Each time I walked into that room my brain checked off the ‘look in the pockets of the black pants’ and I never made it into the closet.

The mail box key was in the dress pants. So much for me trying to look respectable. All it did was make a mess out of my evening.

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Summer’s over. Already? Yeah. Already? YEAH!

Yeah, summer is pretty much over. So I am be back spending time with my best friend – my computer.

I have lots to talk about and several new books that will be coming out. Of course Earthling! is out now, but for the time being it’s back to picture books for me, with two I have written and will be drawing and a few more that I will be illustrating.

The funny thing about working in books – today I am getting final art ready on a book that won’t be released until October of 2013 and I am editing a book that won’t be released until spring of 2014. And the book I am writing now…if it sells…well…Maybe it would be released in 2016?

When a book is finally released it’s like a visit from a time machine. An opportunity to see what I was writing/drawing/thinking/painting two or three years previous. It’s also a powerful testament to the passage of time. Did I write that 4 years ago, I ask myself. Is that possible? The books operate on a different timeline. They ebb and flow more closely with a geological sense of scale. Writing a book, selling it, editing it, making a dummy, generating final art, developing a cover for it…these things don’t happen in a week. Or often even in a year. The book orbits my existence. Dentist visits, family difficulties, flat tires, paying property taxes, these things fly about like gnats eating away at your awareness and vitality on an always accelerating basis. But the book plods along. Notes, corrections, edits, proofs…it’s a schedule that unifies my life now. Allows me to see through the trees to the forest beyond. I feel so lucky to be doing what I am doing it’s almost silly.

But now it’s back to work as my daughter heads back to school. The rains will be here shortly and the days will be short. Soon enough I’ll wonder where those summer days went.

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Until we blog again…

Summer has kicked in. Travel, pic-in-ics, yard work. Driving kids to Safety Class. Amputations. Coyotes.

So I will be an absent blogger until the leaves start falling. Or the rain starts falling. Whichever comes first. And here in Oregon I think you know…

I’ll be posting weekly and/or announcing particular things that demand that I waste 30 minutes in front of a computer or iPad. But it will be far less frequent. Here’s to not looking at the computer so much!

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At the park

Another quick sketch done at the park while my daughter played. Honestly, she also art directed the piece, telling me how many kids and creating a story about everything that happened between these groups.

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Blog this…

When I decided to start writing this blog regularly I was told I should demonstrate expertise in a subject area. Even if I don’t have one? I asked my friend who seemed to have a lot of answers.

Especially if you don’t have one, they answered.

Recently someone emailed me pointing out that this blog is called Illustration. But that I don’t talk about illustration that much and that I almost never do How To posts.

True enough. I think I may have misnamed this blog. (see #2 below)

Things I am expert in:

1- Hearing our cat vomit. That sound can wake me from the deepest slumber

2- Questioning if I made the right decision about whatever I am making a decision about

3- Nervous stomach issues

4- Selecting good black teas

5- Drawing as I draw, writing as I write

6- Wasting time on the internet

7- Taking the dogs for walks

8- Blog posts with lists

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What’s your job

Summer has started for me. Solstice or not. The kids are out of school so my days are a little more complicated. And no, you can’t watch another cartoon this morning.

Every food product has an expectation that a percentage of said product will be contaminated.

So – of the 9 gazillion Skippy peanut butter jars at least a few have mouse bits or beetle wings. Or floor sweepings. Something. And there must be a number you can call when you find a mouse tail in your peanut butter and that person who answers must get that type of call quite often because they put out gazillions of jars of peanut butter. But if your job is to take those calls you’d have to act like, “Oh my god! Really? A mouse tail?”

You couldn’t say things like, “Weird. That’s the fourth mouse bits in a jar call today. I bet it’s from the same production date!” or share any other stories like, “That’s not so bad. I had 6 calls today about people finding toilet paper in their jar.”

I’d guess the ability to sound surprised would be really important in that job interview.

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Fortune favors the fastest.

Fortune favors the bold.

But in a slasher film, fortune is definietly on the side of the fastest. Goes for zombie movies too. In Westerns fortune definitely favors the fastest draw. Same thing for doing a daily comic strip.

Being lucky helps too. Across the board. I’ve seen fortune favor the quiet. Speaking up in a large company usually just gets you in trouble. Better to stay tucked away in your cubicle. Fortune also favors a parent of an 8 month old when they have extra diapers with them. I never left home without them for that first year and a half or so. And I’m pretty sure that being bold doesn’t favor anyone when you are trapped in the middle of a mine field. Fortune would favor the person with the best electronic devices. Or to revisit the meme monster of the decade, in a zombie apocalypse being really quiet would be best.

And without debate Fortune favors those with fortunes. This whole debate is about what Fortune favors second or third most. The chart below has some surprises.

As you can see Fortune only favors the Bold over the Quiet by the smallest amount. As expected Smelly and Angry are not favored at all. But Beautiful makes a strong showing.

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Life in West Linn

The town of West Linn, named after the not well known 5th President of the United States, who was only President for 6 hours, when it was discovered that Henry Bartholomew Taggert West Linn had never actually been elected President. Erased from history.

But we are is the local news again, this time because a family in West Linn built a patio and swimming pool sans any permits and feels compelled to ‘fight’ the issue. I won’t go into details, click the link and read all you want, but I have a list of a few things I’m thinking of building in my yard as long as we can avoid the whole ‘permit’ thing.

A small water and amusement park. Unlike most other water parks I will not allow peeing during the flume ride.

A medium sized chicken processing plant with the most modern feather collection mechanisms $6.95 can buy.

A larger than life sculpture of my favorite President, William Howard Taft constructed entirely from mud and well, more mud.

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