A Picture book report

Finally after a grueling ten days or so I can make this announcement. Starting next month I'll be illustrating The Never ending Story, one of my absolute favourite books, over on www.picturebookreport.com.
This wonderful project was started by Meg Hunt an illustrator in Arizona with a veritable slew of talented people, like Sam Bosma, Laura Park
, Israel Sanchez, Kali Ciesemier, all illustrating one of their favourite books. Unfortunately S. Britt, one of the participators, had to step down, because he wanted to pursue a personal project full time. A great shame as his work so far has been stellar.
But at least this means we'll probably get something even more fantastic from him.

However he asked me to take over his spot on the site, something I was of course keen to do. Who doesn't want a chance to illustrate any book of their choosing simply for the joy of it?
Naturally, choosing which book to illustrate was very hard. There are just so many that I can think of images for, or at which I would leap at the chance to do something with them. The Wind in the Willows, Ronia the Robber's daughter, Gormenghast, The Black Cauldron, De brief voor de koning, Erik of het Klein insecten boek, The Brothers
Lionheart, suffice it to say it was a long list.
But when I thought of The Never ending Story it seemed almost obvious. It hasn't really been illustrated before, so apart from an atrocious film from the eighties, there were no previous visuals to go up against.
The Wind in the Willows has E.H. Shepard already, that's a comparison I don't feel I would come out looking very good.

Now of course I have to come up with an actual approach for the whole thing. I decided to step into this because I had been looking for some personal project to sink my teeth in while in between commissioned work. I've also been wanting the push myself in some new directions, as I feel that lately my work has been going a little stale. Or rather my development had stagnated a bit. I've never been busier the past month. I've learned a lot and gained new confidence in what I make, but it had been at the cost of doing new things a bit. So this is something I'm looking forward to a lot,
and I'm very grateful for S. and Meg for giving me the opportunity.

In other news, there's lots of new work I'll be posting soon and in a few months I hope to be moving to Oregon so I can be with my fiancee, though that won't happen untill the fall.

Top of the morning to you!

Jan Jans en de kinderen

Jan Jans en de kinderen, originally uploaded by groene_inkt.

This is a comic I made for a tribute book for Jan Kruis, a Dutch comic book artist who is famous for his series of weekly comic strips Jan, Jans en de Kinderen.

He recently received the Marten Toonder award for his work.
I, along with a slew of other illustrators and comic book artists, redrew one of his comics for a tribute book that was presented to him as well.

For more information on Jan Kruis look here: lambiek.net/artists/k/kruis.htm

You should watch this, it's the best. (the good part starts around 30 seconds in)

Higglety Pigglety Pop

Here is a preview of the stop motion/puppet film of Maurice Sendak's Higglety Pigglety Pop or there must be more to life. One of his best books about the terrier Jenny and her search for finding some meaning in her life beyond getting everything that she wants. It's going to be included on the dvd of Where the Wild Things are, as Spike Jonze produced it. It was directed by the Canadian duo Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski.
They also made Madame Tutli-Putli, an amazing animated film you can see here.

More information than you require

This is a moleman as described by John Hodgman in More information than you require.
Here is Hodgman interviewed at brief length about his subject of study.



That is all.

Doodles