[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-ahoy-a-boy-and-a-bear-in-a-boat":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"Congratulations to my \u003Ca href=\"https://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/\">DFC-now-Phoenix\u003C/a> colleague \u003Cb>Dave Shelton\u003C/b> on the launch of his illustrated book \u003Ci>\u003Ca href=\"http://www.davidficklingbooks.co.uk/davidficklingbooks.asp?ean=9780385618960&ref=search\">A Boy and a Bear in a Boat\u003C/a>\u003C/i>! The amazing launch party cake was appropriately themed:\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dave_bearcake_lores-d51e2ed90a.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nOo, isn't it a lovely cover?! I was turning it around and admiring it on the train ride home from the launch at Heffer's bookshop in Cambridge. Kudos to Dave, publisher \u003Cb>David Fickling\u003C/b> and designer \u003Cb>Ness Wood\u003C/b> for making it so lovely. Beside the tea ring, you CAN actually find a boy and a bear in a boat... look closely!\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dave_launch6-be24c92bed.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHere's David Fickling giving one of his jubilant speeches, and the book's editor, \u003Cb>Kirstin Armstrong\u003C/b>, looking on proudly. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dave_launch1-4d1b037995.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThe back cover of Dave's book sums up the funny partnership of the two Davids. The top bit is pure Fickling and the bottom bit is all Shelton. If you want to hear Dave rave about his book... no, talk about his book... no, whisper very, very quietly about his book, go \u003Ca href=\"http://daveshelton.blogspot.com/2012/01/kind-words.html\">read his blog post about it\u003C/a>.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dave_book-e3410a05f1.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\n\u003C!--more Click here for lots more pics under the cut!-->\\r\nReactions to the speeches were mixed, as you can see here... Creative team \u003Ca href=\"http://www.emmavieceli.com/\">Emma Vieceli\u003C/a> and \u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/#!/VonPud\">Andrew Ruddick\u003C/a> (sometimes known as 'Pud') looked pensive, while the younger generation fell about laughing. By the way, did you know that Emma and Andrew are working on a very cool project right now, including actual training which involves wielding a massive battleaxe and double swords? More about that later...\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dave_launch3-d2373eff4d.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nSo back to the book! I do so love its cover, although there was an alternative cover introduced. You'd think it tells you more about the book, but actually, once you get reading it, you'll realise that the blue tea-stain cover actually reflects much more of the book's quiet, surreal atmosphere than the busier cover. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dave_shelton_boybear-030a9b4a1b.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nIt's a strange and wonderful book. It's not structured like most children's books you'll read, and at first, I wondered if it really was a children's book, it felt more like something beautifully written that I'd read in \u003Ci>Granta\u003C/i>. But then it dawned on me that there are two very different readings of the book. I think adults might find it rather melancholy and even slightly sinister: why are these two characters stuck in limbo in a sea with only a map showing absolutely nothing on it at all except blue? Are the boy and bear actually alive, or is it a strange, existentialist afterlife sort of thing? \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/davebook3-e7fc35bca0.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nBut I think children will find this book very intimate. When I was a kid, what I wanted more than anything else was the undivided attention of an adult who would listen to me, whatever nonsense I said, and go on adventures with me. And that's exactly what happens, out at sea, a boy gets a big bear's undivided attention and love for a whole book. Sometimes the boy is friendly with the bear, sometimes he's horrid to the him, but the bear just keeps on rowing, blundering along, and looking out for his little companion.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/davebook2-5f95383777.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nMost of the book has Dave's black and white illustrations, but there are five double-page spreads in dark, muted colour, and one page that stands out from the rest, a page showing the strange foreign comic the boy has found tucked under the seat of his boat. Here's my studio mate, \u003Ca href=\"http://stupidmonsters.wordpress.com/\">Gary Northfield\u003C/a>, examining it: \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/gary_davebook-30af4fecd3.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nGary and I started talking about how much fun it was to make crazy comics in a made-up language. My sister and I took a year of German together and used to speak made-up German to each other... we could understand each other just fine, even if no one else could. Gary laughed, and said he'd done a comic once in made-up Spanish/French on his way back from the comics festival in Angoulême. He trawled his blog and \u003Ca href=\"http://stupidmonsters.blogspot.com/2005/01/pedro.html\">found it\u003C/a>. (It's basically his \u003Ci>Derek the Sheep\u003C/i> but a llama instead of a sheep.) \\r\n\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://stupidmonsters.blogspot.com/2005/01/pedro.html\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/gary_fakeforeignstrip1-0d277acbee.gif\">\u003C/a>\\r\n\\r\nSo back to Dave's book again! You can read \u003Cb>Julia Eccleshare\u003C/b>'s review of it \u003Ca href=\"http://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/book/7227/A-Boy-and-a-Bear-in-a-Boat-by-Dave-Shelton.html\">over at Love Reading 4 Kids\u003C/a>, and writer-illustrator \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/thomas-taylor\">Thomas Taylor\u003C/a> has also written about it \u003Ca href=\"http://thatelusiveline.blogspot.com/2012/01/boy-and-bear-in-boat.html\">on his blog\u003C/a>. \\r\n\\r\nHere's Thomas showing off Emma's latest graphic novel, \u003Ca href=\"http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781595144294,00.html\">\u003Ci>Vampire Academy\u003C/i>\u003C/a> (which beat out \u003Ci>Twilight\u003C/i> and \u003Ci>Buffy\u003C/i> on the New York Times Bestseller list in Graphic Novels for two weeks!). And the Fearsome Threesome next to them are Illustration professor \u003Ca href=\"http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/faculties/alss/deps/csoa/staff0/salisbury.html\">Martin Salisbury\u003C/a>, illustrator and wood engraver extraordinaire \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lawrence_%28illustrator%29\">John Lawrence\u003C/a> (I'm such a fan!) and poet \u003Ca href=\"http://www.tonymitton.co.uk/\">Tony Mitton\u003C/a>. (David Fickling's always looking at my writing, scratching his head and saying, 'Hmm, perhaps we ought to run this by my friend, Tony, he really understands language properly.') \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dave_launch2-55a9c04130.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nMy lovely inscribed copy! On the left, illustrator \u003Ca href=\"http://www.nicolakillen.com/\">Nicola Killen\u003C/a>; in the centre, illustrator \u003Ca href=\"http://www.marionlindsay.co.uk/\">Marion Lindsay\u003C/a>; on the right Dave's partner, illustrator \u003Ca href=\"http://pamsmy.blogspot.com/\">Pam Smy\u003C/a>, who made the lovely cake! \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dave_launch5-80db598e7b.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nI love going to Cambridge because it means I get to stay with my lovely editor and typography student friend \u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/#!/bridge\">Bridget Hannigan\u003C/a>. We got seriously caffeinnated before Dave's launch.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dave_launch4-95ae6897d2.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nBridget took me to the Fitzwilliam Museum to catch the tail end of an exhibition of four Vermeer paintings and a bunch of other lovely Dutch paintings of women. I love drawing from Dutch portraits, their conventions of beauty were so much different than they are now. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dutch_woman_jan12-8720fcfe57.gif\">\\r\n\\r\nAfter the launch and dinner, Bridget, \u003Ca href=\"http://www.woodrowphoenix.co.uk/\">Woodrow Phoenix\u003C/a> (her partner and my DFC colleague) and I got very caught up in playing Space Invaders. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/bridge_wdz-286114d598.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nOh, and one more thing. Dave an I have a running joke that I always catch him in compromising photos with mystery women, so I can't make any exceptions this time.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dave_chicks-06e233a871.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nOne more thing, have you seen \u003Ca href=\"http://neillcameron.blogspot.com/2012/01/phoenix-it-fliiiiiies.html\">Neill Cameron's post\u003C/a> about Issue 1 of The Phoenix comic? Go have a look!","2012-01-12T15:39:00.000Z","ahoy-a-boy-and-a-bear-in-a-boat",[],"ahoy! a boy and a bear in a boat!",1776628721259]