July – New Books

Front cover image © thingsbydan

I mostly buy children’s picture books, but this month has been a bit different, I have bought a comic, a graphic novel and a vegan cookbook.

First up is a comic called “I’m on a Boat” by Dan Berry. I’m a big fan of Dan’s podcast Make It Then Tell Everybody (even though I’m really behind), and while I’ve become used to listening to him talk about comics, I only ever see his work on instagram, so when he started self-producing a comic telling the story of his time spent teaching on a boat, I jumped at the chance to purchase it. I think one of the joys of Dan’s work is how he captures small, but humorous, human moments, such as the reaction of people when they see him drawing in public. His line work looks so natural and relaxed, it seems effortless, he can create expression and movement, and tell a story with the simplest of lines, it is brilliant craftmanship .

Illustration © thingsbydan

Above, is one of my favourite images (I hope Dan doesn’t mind me sharing it), where Dan is signed-off from work. Even though it must have been a worrying and serious time for him, he portrays it in such a warm and funny way, it really makes me smile, (I’m sure many of us can relate to nervously waiting for the blood pressure monitor to produce a reading) – it was a great way for a single image to communicate his health troubles.

At the time of writing this post, Dan was producing these comics in-house priced at £10, if you are interested you can buy one here.

Front cover @ First Second Books

Next we have “This Was Our Pact” by Ryan Andrews. I follow Ryan on Instagram, so I was able to follow the illustrations he produced for this graphic novel as he was working on them. His images are so detailed and beautiful (I love the textures in his pencil work), and seeing them shared over a period of time really made me feel connected to the characters and the story, it also really made you appreciate how much work goes into graphic novels. This is a A5 paperback graphic novel (when I looked there were a few hardbacks available too), but it is pretty chunky, I was pleasantly surprised by the size of it when it arrived, unfortunately I haven’t read it yet so I can’t give it a proper review, but I can’t wait to start it, it looks absolutely beautiful. If you are interested in buying a copy, it is published by First Second Books, and you can find it on Amazon UK here.

Cover image © Mitchell Beazley

Finally, I purchased a copy of “Cook Share Eat Vegan: Delicious plant-based recipes for Everyone” by Áine Carlin, published by Mitchell Beazley. The book has been out for a while in hardback and the paperback is due out in October 2019 – and I’m really looking forward to making something from it (I really enjoyed Áine’s previous two books) , I’m particularly interested in the “Crispy Cinnamon Potato Tacos” (although I need to wait until I have a working oven to try that one) and the “Chip-Shop Vegetable Curry”. Technically I’m not vegan, but I prefer to eat vegan if I can. I find the assumption that most people make, is that vegan food is boring, because vegetables are usually an afterthought plonked on the side of a plate, but if anything, I’ve found cooking far more exciting since I’ve dropped the meat and the dairy. One thing that stands out in this book is the variety of ingredients and flavours, and I don’t mean that it is full of exotic things you have never heard of, I mean that humble vegetables and grains that you find in any supermarket have been given a bit of love and consideration, and have been elevated to the tastiest sounding dishes. If anyone is interested in who Áine is and the food she makes, you might want to check out her old YouTube channel, the video linked is from three years ago, but I’ve made this quesadilla several times, and it is a really quick and tasty lunch. If you are interested in purchasing “Cook Share Eat Vegan” you can find it here.

All books were purchased with my own money, all opinions are my own.

A Kids Comic – May 2019 Update

Front Page of Eight Legs Elliott

I thought the start of this year was a slow one, but once February was over, time seemed to speed up – how is it nearly June? I really need to blog more, the lack of consistency is embarrassing!

So the challenge I mentioned in my last post was a comic that I wanted to create for the son of my friend, for his birthday, (if you look back through the tiny amount of posts, you will see that last year, I ‘kind of’ produced a picture book for his birthday – which was late!). I’ve not really attempted to create a comic before – I did a two page comic strip based on fears last year (mentioned two posts ago), but that was based on a very loose concept, where I created the story at the same time as the drawings. This time I wrote a basic story outline first (telling myself it would probably be no more than four A4 pages at the most), then I wrote it out in more detail, creating the narration and speech, and making a few quick scribbles of images that I might include.

(The story is an origin story, inspired by several other superhero stories, about a bunch of kids who love superheroes).

Page 3 of Eight Legs Elliott

I’ve heard some comic creators/graphic novelists mention in interviews how they plan pages as they go, rather than planning all of the content and flow in advance, and this always sounded crazy to me. I am a big fan of planning and working out a structure to make sure everything … works! So it was strange to suddenly find myself winging it, planning each page as I got to it. I’m still not sure it was the best way to go about it, but as usual with birthday gifts, I knew if I took the time to plan it all out in advance, it would take me longer and I would miss the birthday. It turned out okay, I would have liked to have filled all the pages neatly into a multiple of four, but I ended up with one blank back page – I figured it couldn’t hurt, (of course it does hurt, every time I think about it, it irks me).

Page 5 of Eight Legs Elliott

The four–page comic that I had envisioned turned out to have 23 pages. It took me much longer than I anticipated, partly because I took the opportunity to familiarise myself with Procreate at the same time (I also took the opportunity to get myself through Gilmore Girls while I coloured things). It was definitely a challenge (the comic, not Gilmore Girls… although), it is really hard to fit everything together, and I feel like I’m only at the beginning of a lesson in comic book fundamentals (as well as Procreate).

Page 9 of Eight Legs Elliott

I am pleased with the end result, but I am also aware of how flawed it is – I have no idea how graphic/comic illustrators keep their details so consistent, I went through looking for mistakes multiple times and I still missed a whole bunch – but I think I have the bug now, I would like to do another, I want to learn more and I know I can do better! It’s just one more thing for the ‘to-do’ list.