Joyeux anniversaire, Asterix!

By Toutatis!  The French comic strip Asterix le Gaulois debuted 50 years ago today in Pilote magazine.

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Creepy spooky haunted house

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I did this picture for a collection of stories or poems—I don’t remember—and this was for the cover.  It’s a caricature of my dear old house in Pittsburgh.  That house doesn’t have a tower, but what’s a haunted house without a tower, right?

Where The Wild Things Are

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Oh, boy.  It looks like Spike Jonze is giving Where The Wild Things Are the same psychoanalytical grilling the Grinch got in his movie.  Goodness knows I’m happy for Maurice Sendak—and I’d be the happiest boy in the world if the cinema gods smiled upon a book of mine. But I’m apprehensive when kids’ books get made into movies.

A big part of what makes this book a masterpiece is the ruthless editing and paring-down Sendak did in order to give the reader just enough information to set his own imagination running.  George Bernard Shaw said successful theater requires that the audience do fifty per cent of the work.  I believe that rule goes for children’s books, too.

So, to fill up an hour-and-a-half the movie’s creative team will be running pins into Max to see what makes him tick—so expect exposition galore—as well as giving the wild things all kinds of stage business and smart-alecky one-liners.  I suspect there will be Important Messages about Family and Relationships and Understanding People Who Are Different and Bullying and Staying Away From Fatty Foods.

Yes, I’ll go see it.  I’ll be the cranky old guy harrumphing in the back row.

The briny waves beckon

I’ll be away for a week, immersing my lily-white bod’ in the surf.

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Be well.

From the archives—Señor Don Gato

Here’s a book I did a while ago—Señor Don Gato. Due to a copyright dispute, it’s no longer in print.  This project was a turning-point in my style.  I closely studied the work of Diego Velasquez: his palette, composition and lighting.  By limiting my range of color and paying attention to how a subject is lighted, my illustrations became less cartoony and more painterly.

Here’s a sketch.  Don Gato receives a letter from his lady-love and reads it on a high red roof:

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And the final painting:

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This painting below was never part of the book. I did it to get a feel for Velasquez’ painting technique.

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Here is the portrait by Velasquez that inspired my painting of el Don.

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If you’d like a copy of Señor Don Gato, shoot me an e-mail at Jmanders@aol.com.  I have a small stash of mint-condition copies and I’ll be happy to autograph them for you.  I’m charging $40 per copy.  Half of that will go to the Venango County Humane Society.  I promise to do some kind of big cardboard check photo op so you know I didn’t keep all the cash for myself.  The offer’s good til I run out of books.

Asterix le Gaulois is 50 years old!

Nous sommes en 50 avant Jèsus-Christ.  Toute la Gaule est occupèe par les Romains…Toute?  Non!  Un village peuple d’irrèductibles Gaulois rèsiste encore et toujours à l’envahisseur.  Et la vie n’est pas facile pour les garnisons de lègionnaires romains des camps retranchès de Babaorum, Aquarium, Laudanum et Petitbonum…

50 B.C.  All Gaul is occupied by the Romans.  All?  No!…One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders.  And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium…

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Asterix, a Gaulish warrior and his pal, Obelix are the two main characters in this little village.  Written by the late Rene Goscinny and drawn by Albert Uderzo, Asterix and Obelix’ adventures take them all over the Classical world—and even into the New one.  I discovered these French comic books in the 70’s when Asterix was already 15 years old.  In a used bookstore I found a catalogue from an exhibit of comic strip art shown in the Louvre.  In it were a few of Uderzo’s drawings—and I knew I had to see more.  With lots of help from my high school French teacher, I wrote a letter to Asterix’ publisher, Dargaud, asking how I could get my hands on those comic books.  Before long, I owned the first in the series ($2.95, not bad) and would accumulate more.

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Looking at Albert Uderzo’s style it’s immediately obvious what an influence his drawings had on me—let’s face it, they still do.  As a kid wanting to be a comic artist I consciously mimicked his style. Uderzo is a master of perspective and camera angles and sight gags.

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The stories are ostensibly for kids, but full of puns and current event gags and spoofs of Latin.  French celebrities made cameo appearances (not that I’d know who they were).  But here’s what’s important: Goscinny and Uderzo paid their audience the compliment of assuming we had enough knowledge of Classical history to get the jokes.

Asterix captured a sense of French national pride and cultural identity.  But not only for the French; as Asterix and Obelix traveled the Classiical world, the authors poked gentle fun at the peoples who would one day be Brits, Germans, Spaniards, Danes, &c., &c.  Apparently everybody likes getting the Gosciny/Uderzo treatment—Asterix is the most translated of French literature.

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Alas, the world has changed in 50 years.  Europe is become the European Union, and national pride—French or otherwise—is not to be encouraged.  A couple of years back according to Charles Bremner of the Times, Albert Uderzo was asked by Dominique Versini, the EU Children’s Defender to let Asterix and Obelix be the official ambassadors to the United Nations convention on the Rights of Children.  Not so fast, said the higher-ups at Defence for Children International:

‘… Astérix conveys an “archaic…hierarchical” world at odds with the revolutionary” values of the 1989 convention…said Jean-Pierre Rosenczveig, a senior juvenile judge who heads the French DCI.

Astérix also projects “a Gaulish vision which ignores the intercultural reality of French society,” they say. His constant resistance against the Romans and other foreign invaders sends altogether the wrong message in the peace-loving European Union.’

Vercingetorix may be laying down his arms at Caesar’s feet once again.  Asterix is “a eulogy to tribal, hierarchical, society with frequent references to a chief.”  And that’s no good, mes enfants.

Alors.  Once upon a time, with the help of their druid’s magic potion, a tiny village of plucky Gauls could snap their fingers at the mighty Roman Empire.  And the Romans never were able to discover the potion’s recipe.

Asterix’ website http://gb.asterix.com/indexmus.html

Welcome, Drawn! readers!

I guess I better change my shirt and sweep up around here.  Please make yourselves at home.

Prepare to repel boarders!

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A pox on’t! Henry & the Crazed Chicken Pirates is finally here!  Just click on the title to get a copy of your own.

As Drake said to his men before Nombre de Dios in 1572, ‘Blame nobody but yourselves if you go away empty!’

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Paper/Pencil/Brush.

My pal Margeaux Lucas has a blog, Paper/Pencil/Brush.  She shows a lovely example of underpainting in a gouache illustration.

Her style reminds me of picture books I read when I was little.  It’s all too easy to become heavy-handed with gouache, especially when you’re piling paint on top of paint, as you’re obliged to do with an underpainting.  Margeaux has kept this enchanting little image light and fresh.  Also, look how much information she gives you: time of year, place, who the main character is, anticipation of some future event—all important to an audience who is just learning to read.

Two Bad Pilgrims

I’ve got another book coming out in August, Two Bad Pilgrims.

It’s the true story of the Billington brothers, who came to the New World on the Mayflower.  They were a couple of brats who nearly blew up the ship while fooling around with a fowling piece belowdecks.

The art director and editor asked that this project be given a graphic novel look.  When I was a kid, my goal was to become a comic book or strip artist.  So this was fun, but what a load of work!  Nineteen times more work than a conventional picture book.

I was never going to finish all this—thumbnail sketches, comp sketches, character designs, inking and coloring— on time without some help, so my buddy Vince Dorse jumped in to digitally colorize my black and white ink drawings.

Here are character designs for the 2 boys, Franky and Johnny.

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The thumbnail sketch for spread 18/19 (later bumped to 20/21). The thumbnail sketch is about 2 inches tall.

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The comprehensive sketch for page 20. I work about half-size.

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The inked-in version of page 20. This is a night scene at the top.  I really enjoyed dropping in those big areas of solid black!

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Now it’s time to color it in.  I painted this little color sketch for Vince.

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And here’s his beautiful colorization.

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