Inside the jukebox

Here is an image I was very excited to draw from Jack and the Giant Barbecue—Jack inside the jukebox, trying to get at his daddy’s recipe book.  In the original manuscript the giant had hidden the recipe book inside a cash register. We ran into trouble when drawing that because a cash register and a jukebox are similar in shape—box-y with a rounded top—so would have been confusing to the reader. We needed to hide the book somewhere else. Eric Kimmel asked me “How do you feel about having Jack lay low in the innards of a jukebox?” Well, as he guessed, I loved it. Here are the sketches, a couple of photos of a jukebox’ innards, and the final painting.

Maurice Sendak

Some sad news: Maurice Sendak passed on. He understood the picture book format like no one else.