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Happy Halloween 2007

Happy Halloween folks! May all your candy wishes come true. Here's the book cover I painted for the upcoming Dan Gutman novel "Nightmare at the Bookfair" from Simon and Schuster.

and a list....

BOTTOM 5 CANDIES TO RECIEVE ON HALLOWEEN
5. Mounds or Almond Joy
I don't know a single kid who wanted these. Coconut for the most part is a deeply hated fruit and not even adding chocolate to it can make it any less suck-tacular.

4. Candy Corn
Tastes like cake frosting and looks nothing like corn, but rather, an ugly guitar pick

3. Apples
It's Halloween, save your au naturale' heathy choices for some other day. It's the one day a year when kids are allowed to eat CANDY

2. Stickers
Stickers? Too cheap to buy a bag of CANDY? You deserve to get your house egged.

1. Pennies
PENNIES?!?!? Too cheap to even buy a roll of stickers?!?! You deserve to have your jack o lantern burned

Robert's Snow interview

With my son currently out with a fever I've had to drop everything and watch him for the past 5 days and work late late nights (if I'm not too tired or catching up on my TV shows on Tivo)

Anyway, I have to mention that the super fine Kelly Fineman has posted a little interview with me for the Robert's Snow cancer fundraiser and you can read it here.

Showering in front of animals

I'm a pretty self conscious guy when it comes to appearances. I feel like I'm aging faster than I should be because I work so much and sleep so little, and if I do sleep, it's often interrupted by a 21 month old who wants to play all the time. I don't normally put a photo of myself online or in any of my books and I often keep the cat out of my room when I'm changing my clothes. Call me crazy.

Anyway, I'm up in Sonoma, CA (wine country for all you other folks) where my in laws live and I took a shower in their amazing Italian Travertine stone shower.

Pluses... The shower makes me feel like a Turkish prince and the water is electronically set to always activate at just the right temperature you want it to be.

Minuses... It has a HUGE glass window facing the forest.

Now, while I was in the shower singing the theme song to "Welcome Back Kotter" (which in my opinion is the best theme song to a sitcom of ALL TIME) I looked out the window and I noticed that a deer had peeked out of the edge of the forest and was watching me shower. I noticed that it stopped eating, or whatever it was originally doing, and just stared at me. The kind of stare a deer gives as if it was about to be hit by a car with alook in its eye as if to say to itself, "What the hell am I lookng at?" or "Did Sasquatch rent a room at the Tager residence?"

I found myself turning my body away from the window to hide my goods and lathering up parts of myself to conceal them from view so that I looked like some 1940's pin up painting. "Leave me alone you pervert deer!" I thought to myself.

Then get this.... The deer turns his head, and two other deer come out of the forest to join him and also watch me. He called his buddies over! "Hey guys you gotta check this guy out! He's like a train wreck! Horribly grotesque, and yet, I can't turn my eyes away..."

To sum up this whole embarrassing story, I moved a potted plant in front of their field of view and finished up as quickly as possible. I then got quickly dressed and held my son. I felt as if I was a piece of meat, much like the way a girl would feel like at a frat party.

*Sigh* Well, I hope the animals had a good laugh.....

Southern California Fires

This was a picture my friend took just right outside his home yesterday. He said the fire got about within a half mile of his place and then just decided to change course otherwise his home would've been toast. Five of my friends in San Diego had to evacuate their homes with their families and children. I looked outside the window this morning and saw a strange red sunrise. There were 70 MPH winds at my parents home and it ripped off the roof off their neighbors tool shed and landed in their yard. 0% containment? Most folks in Southern California usually come to expect fires every summer but this is ridiculous. I'm fortunate that there are no fires nowhere near our home.

New York- Day 4 (Big Night)

I was so excited about what happended Thursday I could barely sleep the night before. Not to mention the humidity was making me sweat like crazy wherever I went (I apologize to anyone I sweat on but at least it was OK to see that I wasn't alone) Anyway, lots to share so let's get crackin........

I started off with the day with breakfast with Dan Yaccarino (Maybe he'll write a a sequal to 'Every Friday' and call it 'Thursday Breakfast When A Friend Is In Town') He took me to the last greasy spoon in Chelsea which has slowly built itself into trendyville and was telling me the history of some of the buildings in the meat packing district. After breakfast we went to hang out at his studio where we chatted about books, television shows, and the future of publishing. Then it was off to Scholastic where I had lunch with my editors Arthur Levine and Rachel Griffiths

I love those two. They're like family.

Afterwrds, it was off to meet art drector Jennifer Rinaldi, who is art directing the Calendar Club books I am illustrating. We sat and discussed the work on the second book and also chatted about family.

Suddenly, I realized it was 3:30 and I had to rush up to Random House where they were holding a pre party reception for illustrators who were in the show.

I hung out with a bunch of cool folks and friends I rarely get to see.....

From left to right Dan Yaccarino, myself, Megan McCarthy, Mike Townsend, and Jarrett Krosoczka. They fed us egg rolls, chicken skewers, crab cakes, and TONS of champagne. They also had us draw on their Random House wall. There were great artists there such as Caldecott medal winner Chris Raschka, J. Otto Seibold and so on. Some folks put stuff up there a while back and used their acrylic paints and stuff. I added a simple marker drawing of Walter Kitty performing with the Punk Farm crew....

then Jarrett and I took a pic together.....

Then it was off to the show! We walked about 10 blocks to get there and it was packed! It looked a little somehting like this.....

It was more about seeing people than seeing the art for me. While mingling among art directors, editors, and so forth I got to see a bunch of friends.

I got to hang out with old school buddy Peter Brown and web buddy Adam Rex...

I chatted wth Mo Willems about the television industry, Gregory Manchess about how bad ass he is, and many others.

Afterwards it was a dinner party held by David Saylor and Scholastic with probably the best food of the whole week. Then I rushed back to a bar one street away to hang out with some artists who did an art auction (which I contributed to) and I met the very lovely Elizabeth Bird who writes for my favorite FUSE #8 Blog.

Well, my flight is about to board. New York was a blast, but I can't wait to see my family. Hope you all enjoyed the gossip

New York- Day 3

I woke up at 10:30 realizing I had a meeting at 11 with my agent so I rushed out the door. No pictures today because I forgot the camera at home. I met with Justin Rucker who is the children's book art agent at Shannon Associates and he looks SO MUCH like Conan O Brien to me. Anyway, he shucked me around to lunch and then afterwards we tore up the literary scene by making an appearance at Little Brown and Co. where I showed my work to 8 different designers whos names I am all forgetting. Afterwards it was on to Sterling Publishing where I met with the nicest people in publishing (Sorry Kevin Lewis) and the folks who I am gong to be illustrating "Chicken Dance" by Tammi Sauer. Design Director Scott Piehl had the best view of any office I've ever been in and his passion for typography and excellent sense of design clearly showed all over the room. We had a fond discussion of his days back at Harcourt when "The Guild if Geniuses" was being considered for publication there. Afterwards it was dinner with my old buddy and Physics genius Alfred Liu who was teaching at a New York private school. It was one of my slower days but it's because I'm saving myself for the awesomeness that will be tomorrow.

In a nutshell, breakfast with Dan Yaccarino and a tour of his studio, Lunch wth with my editor Arthur Levine and Rachel Griffiths and perhaps schmoozing with more art directors such as Jennifer Rinaldi (Calendar Club series) then the Random House Party, the the Society of Illustrators...... Forget it..... I'll save you the details... My head is about to explode just thining about the fun it will be.....

New York- Day 2

OK so I don't ave photos right now like I promised but I will upload them when I have a chance. I'm constantly in search of an internet signal and I realized that Starbucks has T-Mobile service available for use, for about $10 a day (Oh well, write off right?). In any case, I suddenly realized how sad it has become that I can simply walk outside onto the street and feel fairly confdent that I can find a Starbucks within 300 feet of me. In the area I'm staying at alone there are three for me to choose from. ANYWAY, Day two was fantastically fun. First it was off to SIMON AND SCHUSTER....

PLACE PIC HERE

Where I met with my art director Deb Sfetsios and editor Susan Burke for "The Ghosts of Luckless Gulch". Ultimately, we're all thrilled about how the project has been progressing and afterwards They took me to some awesome Frenchie place in Rockafellar Plaza where I got to eat a loster tail sandwich. Then it was back to the office where I met with Art Center alum and now art director Lizzy Bromley for who I am doing the new Dan Gutman book covers for and we had a discussion about the firing of our favorite Art Center teacher Roland Yung. He happend to have mooned his class in a discussion about the absurdity of censorship. It's a long story but if you ever take his class you'll know he was the exactly what I mean. Here's clip. It happend to have snuck onto Youtube...

OK back to NY....

After Lizzy Bromley, I met art director Dan Potash and got to take a gander at the upcoming uberstarstudded superbook TRUCKTOWN. Written by Jon Sczeskia and illustrated by David Shannon, David Gordon, and Loren Long. It's the frickin Justice League of book projects. Sadly, I must say, I had high hopes for what I saw but the hybrid of all three art styles ended up being rather muddled in my opinion, but I digress, it could just be that I am envious that I am not one of the three tenors of illustration in that project. After that I actually met Ann Bobco in the hallway and she was someone I was ALWAYS dying to meet and all I can say is that she reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon caricature of a socialite. After that brief interlude it was off to see editor Kevin Lewis, and wouldn't you know it. SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES stuff EVERYWHERE. Yes Kevin, Tony is awesome and we all know it. But seriously, Kevin is the nicest guy you'll ever meet in publishing and I sat and chatted with him for almost half an hour.

So 3:30 rolls around and I rush down to Harpercollins where I meet super art director David Caplan and he runs me through the entire building meeting all sorts of folks. I hd the opportunity to congratulate Brenda Bowen on her new Imprint and chat with Barbara Fitsimmons who I adored.

Afterwards it was dinner with my friends Dan Yaccarino and newly maraaied man and uberillustrator Andy Rash...

PLACE PIC HERE

We went out for Japanese, took a walk around town, and then I went back to my place and did some work while watching David Letterman and conked out somewhere around 2:30AM. I'm still on California time.

New York- Day 1

The captain has just turned on the "Disco" light and you may commence raving. Actually, this is the inside of the plane for Virgin Amaerica, which is, in my opinion, America's best kept travel secret.
Here's the monitor I sat in front of for the whole flight.....

It's the coolest interface.... Instead of having fight attendants coming by with drinks and stuff you can order all your stuff with this touch sensitive screen and they bring food and whatever right to you! It also has video games, movies on demand, mp3's, and a jack for you to plug in your laptop so you can work. I knew I was in for somehting special when the check in terminal set up Orchids at their base and I was at a table with a computer interface that printed out my ticket. They even handi wiped their entire setup all nice and clean before letting people entering. Meanwhile, the bitchy people at United Airlines were herding their passengers like cattle next to us. (They're so mean at United.)

Oh, did I mention that NEWMAN, from Seinfeld was on my flight?!

...NEWMAN!.....

Then it was off to dinner with one of my favorite art directors from Harpercollin's, David Caplan, who I worked with on the "Otto Undercover" series.

That's pretty much it for today. Tomorrow I go to Simon and Schuster and Harpercollins. I'll take some pics for those of you who were always curious as to where you're sending those promos.

Peace out

New York in three days

So I just spent a whole evening whipping up these promo cards to give to folks in New York. I leave on Monday (right after I spend a weekend in San Diego to attend a wedding) and my schedule is pretty filled up with every day being chock full of meet and greets and, unfortunately, I don't think I'll have time to do any sort of sightseeing whatsoever. Meanwhile, I'm still swimming up to my ears in work and will probably working late nights even while on the trip. (Thank god for laptops) I'm even working on the plane to prepare for a meeting I have with my editor on a Thursday! In any case, I'm really looking forward to meeting all the artists attending the Society of Illustrators show and seeing some old friends.

Paul Bunyan

For those of you wondering what I've been working on. This is a piece I completed for my trip out to NY next week.

Yikes! That's NEXT WEEK!