Books Dept:
It's been a while since I visited Drawger, let alone posted an update, so here's what's been going on in the picture book department; quite a lot, actually.
The delightful "I Won a What" by Audrey Vernick was released this summer from Knoph and has been included in the Society of Illustrators One Show. Our editor is Sarah Hokanson. I loved the gentle manuscript when I first read it. My characters are an ordinary suburban family with a rather large swimming pool- inhabited by a big blue whale, of course. Our hero, denied a pet for so long, is finally allowed to try for a goldfish at a carnival. He wins Nuncio, a giant blue whale (mostly a Sperm Whale, just bright blue...)
The press is often kind to me & my authors in reviews, but this, from "Lillian" a reader on Amazon, was especially nice to see:
"I personally have always loved picture books because images bring the story to life. Neubecker has done that with this book! I was astounded at the little details, like parents’ frustrations or the whale eating and there being leftovers in the pool. It’s these small details that my son picks out, asks questions about and while he is still learning to recognize words and read on his own, the pictures help him tell the story. I loved this because at five my son picks up this book and “reads” it to me….it’s possible he may already have it memorized. It’s become a quick favorite of ours!"
This looks like watercolor, but is done in photoshop. I have scans of washes that I layer on.
The next book is "Space Boy and the Space Pirate" by Dian Curtis Regan, released spring '16. Many thanks to my art director, Tim Gillner, and my editor Mary Colgin at Boyds Mills Press.This is #2 in a series of three. They are done as graphic novels- the stories revolve around a brother, his mischevious (and smarter) sister, and the cardboard spaceship in their back yard. It becomes real, of course, once you get inside.
I'd grown up on comics- everything from Tales From the Crypt (Uncle Creepy!), DC, Marvel, to Classic, and even Archie and Donald Duck. I imagined that Reed and Sue Richards were my parents. I was introduced to science through Superman & The Atom. I loved "Star Spangeled War Stories" - a WW2 tank crew, accompanied by the ghost of Jeb Stewart, are marooned on an uncharted island batteling dinoaurs. Hey, why not?
As an illustrator, I was fascinated with R. Crumb and the undergrounds, later Raw and Fantagraphics. So taking on a set of three graphic novels for kids was a treat and a challenge. Like most of my kid's book career, it's been on the job training. I think that with each one, they get better, but I've been gifted with great manuscripts so it's been fun and easy.
And, we're in the sketch phase for #3, Space Boy and the Snow Monster. As I've mentioned before, a few years back Winsor & Newton stopped making my favorite drawing brush, the 994 series. I scoured the internet and bought up every remaining brush I could find, but eventually, the lacquer based ink I use wore them all out. I never found a suitable replacement. I finally went all digital, and now I use a Cintiq and Kyle Webster's brushes. I'm still, after a year, exploring what I can do with these tools. For this third book, I'm thinking of using Kyle's Clean Comics #1 pen. Looks real comic/authentic. Not the same line I was going for in #2, but I think I can change it up a bit and get away with it.
This next book, proofs just in, is "King Louie's Shoes" by D.J. Steinberg. The story follows a diminuative Louis XIV who, searching for stature, invents platform shoes. The editor is our lovely Andrea Welch at Beach Lane Books, Simon & Schuster, and the art director is Lauren the type genius Rille....
I had a lot of fun pushing the drawing with this one. It's all digital except for the #2 pencil used for thumbnails. I worked in watercolor for most of my career. I may go go back some day, but this is really, really, fun.
Some of the proofs- the color is a little rich,but that may be my scans. We've got great production people at Beach Lane, and Lauren is a relentless perfectionist.
Endpapers!
"Fall is for School" Is a sequel to my "Winter is for Snow". We're in the final stages of getting her to press- Rotem Moskowitz, my editor, has lovingly shepharded this project through and Maria Elias is my art director. Published by Hyperion / Disney, Fall will be out next fall ('17). In this book, my brother and sister character's roles are reversed. Instead of big brother trying to persuade his little sister to go outside in the snow, she's pushing him out the door on the first day of school.
Here's a featured review from The New York Times Book Review for "Winter":
“Winter Is for Snow” is a tale of two siblings — a brother who loves the icy flakes pouring down outside their apartment window and a sister who is cranky about it all — by the prolific children’s book author and illustrator Robert Neubecker. These two start out like Desi and Lucy, disagreeing about everything. “Winter is for fabulous! Winter is for snow,” sings out the copper-haired brother. “Winter is for lots of clothes! And I don’t want to go,” deadpans his younger copper-haired sister. (Her blasphemy recalls a Carl Reiner quip: “A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.”) These small urbanites argue back and forth in delightful, singsong rhyme, the brother joyfully throwing his arms up and kicking his legs out to add emphasis to his argument, which grows more elaborate with every page. “Winter is for glaciers, with walruses and seals,” he pleads, “diving in the icy sea for scaly, fishy meals.” Slowly but surely, he manages to dress his sister and edge her outdoors into a cityscape colorfully and whimsically depicted with a park jam-packed with people frolicking in an excellent variety of snow hats. Though she has resisted her brother’s — and winter’s — charms, even turning her attention to a beeping electronic device (at which point lesser brothers would have given up), we eventually see him pulling her along on a sled. And then, a little too easily, she finally changes her mind, declaring, “I love snow!” It’s nice to see her hardworking brother win the argument and to see them both out enjoying the fresh air. But she was such a good curmudgeon — I missed her old self a little when she was gone. (Nell Casey)
This final project is "Keith Haring: The Boy Who Just Kept Drawing". Keith needs no introduction to most of us, indeed some of us are old enough to remember seeing him drawing in the subway or dancing in the clubs. But for new generations of kids his art is as fresh as the day it was created. This book is a great intro to his life and work, written lovingly by his sister Kay Haring. It chronicals his short, unbelievably prolific career from early childhood to his untimely death from AIDS at thirty.
Lucia Monfried is my editor on this (Penguin Random House) and I'm working again with Jasmin Rubero as art director. The Haring Foundation and Kay provided us with a treasure trove of Kieth's art and I did my best to frame it with lively illustrations of the 1980's New York art scene.
This is scheduled for release on Valentine's Day, 2017, as a valentine to Keith. Below are some of the page proofs, marked up.
The Haring Foundation found us a Basquiat crown and I had nice Kenny Scharf. I collected a ton of street art in the 80's & 90's with my Nikon. Both are used with permission.
And lastly, here's an editorial drawing from WSJ. That's all for now, folks.Thanks, R.
I got a call from Andree Kahlmorgan at Time on Tuesday, while the world was still reeling from this attack. Time was / is doing a piece on the effect of the Paris attacks on children, and how to explain the vast evil that is afoot in the world.
I do a lot of books for children, but editorial is my first love and mainstay- so it's not uncommon for editorial art directors to assign me articles that address children's issues. I had about an hour to come up with some ideas. In the end, they went with a photo, which is always a hazard in this business.
This was my first thought, and the best, I think, in context.
Going with a more obvious image, the Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris & the attacks. Casting a shadow on the child becomes a easily understood metaphor. The trick is treading the fine line between clarity and cliche.
Blood is tricky: you want to respect the victims yet express the impact of the horror. I added these as an alternative to the more subtle images.
Here, I took the child out completely and used a symbol of childhood, of innocence lost. In any case, I know, from working at Newsweek, how these crash meetings go. In the end, when you only have a few hours before press, it's hard to analyze a drawing, adjust it for subtlety, whatever it takes- it's easier to print a photo.
If It had gone to finish, I would have kept the color to an absolute minimum.
There seems to be fewer outlets for visual editorial commentary than there was just a few years ago, and certainly a couple decades ago. The Eiffel Tower/peace sign that went viral on the internet was derided by some as simplistic, but I think it was an important reminder to the culture at large of the power of the drawn image.
It's been a while since I posted anything here- it's been a busy year, and often, at the end of the day, I'd rather just go outside and play. Last spring marked 40 years as a professional, having had my first illustration commissioned by Steve Heller for the New York Times letters page in 1975, while I was a student at Parsons. Over the years the publishing industry has changed, it's grown and diminished, the web has shown great promise and some dissapointment, magazines have risen and fallen- My career has been remarkably consistant, I think because my emphasis has always been on storytelling, communicating ideas using a visual language both cultural and personal. The metaphors and symbols might be from popular culture, art history, cartoons, whatever is in the cultural grab bag, but the point of view is personal. I had the excellent opportunity to study under J.C. Suares and Milton Glaser. The print magazine world has contracted, in my experience, since the recession, but illustration continues to flourish in it's different forms. The field seems to be reinventing itself. I love seeing what Yuko and Edel are doing, to name just two. Almost every illustration I do now has a web component and I've been having a wonderful time drawing books for children. I've started doing graphic novels, also for kids. Newspapers, although hit pretty hard by digital media, are surviving, some are doing quite well, and a good deal of my most interesting work comes from them. I still work for the New York Times, and I love reading it online- with art- and opening the big broadsheets on Sundays to see the illustrations and read the articles.
Below is a picture from each decade, followed by a bunch of recent work, which was my original intention to post in the first place...
Late 70's NYTimes. I did Leonard Silk's economics column, two a week, for years. This was rapidograph on vellum. I also did sports diagrams every Saturday morning. Free Yankees tickets. Lou Pinella. Reggie Jackson.
'91 Newsweek.Yeah, I know, it's not 80's but the '80s looked like this...
90's- Immigrants.
LA.Times Magazine Cover, '03 0r so.
'05 for Slate.com, after Andre Francois. The Tyco Scandal, where billions dissappeared and executives actually went to prison.
This is last month- Student debt, when parents cosign- NYTimes.
WSJ- Keith Webb art directed this. Always great.
This was originally an unpublished sketch for Live Happy Magazine, Katherine Finney, AD- it was about resilience. I finished it for a friend who'd just lost her husband in a motorcycle accident.
The Banality of Racism- Hartford Courant
This was a sketch for Live Happy, about forgiveness & the destructiveness of carrying a grudge
This is the final. I gave Kathryn two options, one where the creature is blue, but also this one, transparent, as a grudge is really just in your head...
This was drawn mostly in ink with a crowquill on crummy, bleedy paper. Most of these are done on a Wacom Cintiq
Chicago Tribune, David Syrek, AD. Solitary confinement for kids... Anyone remember Bascove? Reminds me of her. Did a million fat line bookcovers in the 70's...
Sketch for Solitary that we didn't use..
This was also for Live Happy, about overcoming disabilities...profiling a wheelchair bound athlete.
This was for Trent Johnson, Opera News, about bringing more people into the opera. I was playing clean up for someone who'd had trouble with the assignment, something I used to do often- and I had only a day or two to do it. I liked the big Brunhilda, but we went with the crowd instead. Crowds are hard, er, numerous....
Also (above) Chicago Trib Book Review A memoir about some not so nice guys who shaped the author's life.
This was for Science Magazine, a weekly column I do on first person career stories. This was about a woman scientist fleeing Syria after a brave and prolonged effort to stay. Lot's of fun with Kyle's runny inkers...
New York Times- this is the Your Money column by Ron Leiber- I do this nearly every Saturday, unless they have great photos (!). This one's about, well, it should be clear. The greatest gift you can give your kid is a debt free college education. Four years at a good private school clocks in at $268,000.00, give or take a nickle.
This was for Slate.com. It was on underground pro-anorexia websites. Just a note about Slate. We were started by Bill Gates as the first web only news magazine in 1996. Mike Kinsley from Time was hired as our editor, and Patricia Bradbury, from Newsweek, as the art director. Mark Alan Stamaty and myself were hired as the illustrators. Patricia and I negotiated a good contract from Microsoft- no mean feat- based on WSJ's print rate. Two a week, 1 time use, no sketches, straight to finish (no time). Slate rose and fell with the fortunes of the internet, rates fell, went up, and fell again with the market crash- and I went to one a week. But all that time, I had a wonderful experience working with all of the art directors and editors- Mike Kinsley, Jake Weisberg, Kathleen Kincaid, Vivian Selbo, Rebecca Markovitz, Lori Shen, Holly Allen, Natalie Mathews- and so many others who have been involved over the years. Thanks to you all.
I'm on an on-call basis now, not the weekly I did for nineteen years, which is fine- it was an astonishingly long run in our free-lance illustration world and there are other assignments to do, but I wanted to post a tribute to Slate and to all of the people who bring it to life and made it possible throughout it's history.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Well, it is visual, after all.
AD: Chris Barber
Budget.
Get fit.
Quit smoking.
Live Happy Magazine, AD: Kathryn Finney
AD: Keith Webb
Chicago Tribune Book Review: Black Friday Books. AD: David Syrek. ^
Crowd sourced curating. AD: Manny Velez.
Homeowner's insurance & VRBO. NYTimes. Editor: Ron Lieber.
Overpopulation. Newsweek. AD: Mike Friel.
Drinkers. One of a series, Chicago Tribune. AD: David Syrek.
Taxing 529 college savings plans. A nonstarter. NYTimes. AD: Elizabeth Grauman.
Chicago Tribune Book Review. AD: David Syrek. ^
Science Magazine. AD: Holly Bishop.
WSJ. AD: Ron Plyman.
Unpublished!
Books in the works. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
I Won a What?" Writer: Audrey Vernick, Random House. Summer '16. Editor: Sarah Hokanson.
Space Boy series: Three graphic novels for little kids by Dian Curtis Regan. Boyds Mill Press. Spring '15,'16,'17. AD: Tim Gillner.
Sans type...Cat got lost on the moon. It happens.
The Trouble with Not Being Scared of Kids: Writer, Dan Richards. Boyds Mill Press. Fall 2015. AD: Tim Gillner.
Valentine's touch. Slate, AD: Derrick Johnson. And a happy lorem ipsom to all! Thanks, R.
