Illustrators Bingo Night - mtg in Nov recap

History of Illustrators is super fun... we had Bingo night and learned about many illustrators and fun facts of ea. here are the ones we covered:
 

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) haunting and dreamlike style has added to the enchantment and fantasy of the children's literature and his imitators are many. Major works of illustration include the children's books Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (1900), Rip van Winkle (1905), Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906) “The Fairies in Spring”, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1907). A Midsummer Night's Dream (1908), The Rhinegold, short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, and several fairy tale books.. His works were included in numerous exhibitions, including one at the Louvre in Paris in 1914

 

Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991) Dr Seuss was an American writer and cartoonist.

Randolph Caldecott (1846–1886) was a British artist and illustrator, born in Chester. He was the eponym of the Caldecott Medal.

Caldecott transformed the world of children's books in the Victorian era. Children eagerly awaited the two books illustrated by him, priced at a shilling each, which came out each Christmas for eight years.

 

Jessie Willcox Smith (September 6, 1863 - May 3, 1935) was an American illustrator famous for her work in magazines such as Ladies Home Journal and for her illustrations for children's books. The Water Babies, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Cinderella….

Palmer Cox was born in Granby, Quebec, Canada in 1840. He studied at Granby Academy and moved to San Francisco in 1863, where he worked as a writer and illustrator for magazines Golden Era and Alta California. From 1875 on, he lived in New York. He illustrated his own books with humorous drawings. Some of his titles are 'Squibs of California, or Everyday Life Illustrated', 'Hans von Pelter's Trip to Gotham', 'That Stanley', 'Queer People with Wings and Stings' and the famous 'The Brownies'. The Brownie characters gained great popularity and were used by George Eastman to promote the widespread use of Kodak's Brownie cameras. The Brownies were merchandised as games, cards, dolls etc., but Palmer Cox never received any money for the use of his comic creations.

 

Helen Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943) was an English author and illustrator, botanist, and conservationist, best known for her children's books, which featured animal characters such as Peter Rabbit. Educated at home by a succession of governesses, she had little opportunity to mix with other children. Even Potter's younger brother, Bertram, was rarely at home; he was sent to boarding school, leaving Beatrix alone with her pet animals. She had frogs and newts, and even a pet bat. Among her pets were two rabbits. Her first rabbit was Benjamin, whom she described as "an impudent, cheeky little thing", while her second was Peter, whom she took everywhere with her, even on the occasional outings, on a little lead. Potter would watch these animals for hours on end, sketching them. Gradually the sketches became better and better, developing her talents from an early age.

Norman Percevel Rockwell (1894 –1978) was a 20th century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States, where Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over more than four decades. During the First World War, he tried to enlist into the U.S. Navy but was refused entry because, at 6 feet tall and 140 pounds he was eight pounds underweight. To compensate, he spent one night gorging himself on bananas, liquids and donuts, and weighed enough to enlist the next day. However, he was given the role of a military artist and did not see any action during his tour of duty.

William Wallace Denslow (May 5, 1856–March 29, 1915) was an illustrator and caricaturist remembered for his work in collaboration with author L. Frank Baum, especially his illustrations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

 

Maurice Bernard Sendak (born June 10, 1928) is an American writer and illustrator of children's literature who is best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963. Where the Wild Things Are won the 1964 Caldecott Medal. In 1970 he won the Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's book illustration, and in 2003 he shared the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award with Christine Nöstlinger, the first time it was awarded.

Jean de Brunhoff (December 9, 1899 – October 16, 1937) was a French writer and illustrator known for co-creating Babar, which first appeared in 1931. The stories were originally told to their son by his wife Cecile de Brunhoff. After its first appearance, six more titles followed authored by Jean de Burnhoff. Brunhoff died of tuberculosis, at the age of 37. After his death, Hachette bought the printing and publishing rights to the Babar series, and Jean's son, Laurent de Brunhoff, took on his late father's role of illustrating the books.

H.A. Rey. The series was written and drawn by the team of H.A. Rey and Margret Rey, starting in 1941. According to Hans A. Rey's obituary in Sky and Telescope, the couple fled Paris in June 1940 with the "Curious George" manuscript in their luggage. [2][3] A German officer who searched it allowed the couple to pass because he thought it deserved publication,[citation needed] unlikely to happen under Nazi occupation because the Reys were Jewish. At first only Hans A. Rey was credited for the work in order to differentiate the Reys' books from the large number of children's books written by female authors. Later, Hans Rey was credited for the illustrations and Margret Rey for the writing. The Reys produced many other children's books, but the Curious George series was the most popular.

Kate Greenaway (Catherine Greenaway) (London, 1846 - 1901) was a children's book illustrator and writer. Her first book, Under The Window (1879), a collection of simple, perfectly idyllic verses concerning children who endlessly gathered posies, “Polly”, untouched by the Industrial Revolution, was a best-seller. The Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded annually by the UK Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals to an illustrator of children's books. Illus The Pied Piper, The Queen of Pirate Isle, and Rhymes for Children.

 

Walter Crane (1845 - 1915) was an English artist. Born in Liverpool, he was part of the Arts and Crafts movement. He produced paintings, illustrations, children's books, ceramic tiles and other decorative arts. sixpenny toy-books of nursery rhymes, series beginning with The Frog Prince (1874) , Queen Summer (1891), Renascence (1891), and The Sirens Three (1886). “Beauty and the Beast”.

 

Sir John Tenniel (February 28, 1820 – February 25, 1914) was an English illustrator. He drew many topical cartoons and caricatures for Punch in the late 19th century, including the iconic dropping the pilot, but is best remembered today for his illustrations in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

Tomie A. DePaola (born 1934), is a U.S. author and illustrator of many books for children and adults, including Strega Nona, 26 Fairmount Avenue and Christmas Remembered. His newest book is Tomie dePaola's Front Porch Tales & North Country Whoppers.He is currently working on Brava, Strega Nona, a Magical Pop-up Book with paper engineering by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart. Publication will be during the fall of 2008.

Johnny Gruelle (1880 - 1938) was an artist, political cartoonist, and writer of children's books. He is best known as the creator of Raggedy Ann. He also provided colour illustrations for a 1914 edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales. His first well known cartooning work was Mr. Twee Deedle which Gruelle created after he beat out 1,500 other entrants in a cartooning contest sponsored in 1911 by The New York Herald. Mr. Twee Deedle was in print from 1911 to 1914. One day, Johnny gave his daughter Marcella a dusty, faceless rag doll found in the attic. Johnny drew a face on the doll and named her Raggedy Ann. Marcella played with the doll so much, Raggedy Ann became like a sister to her. Gruelle wanted other little girls to have such dolls. And the Raggedy Ann doll was born September 7, 1915. Gruelle then created a following series of popular Raggedy Ann books and dolls. “Rapunzel”

 

Edmund Dulac (1882-1953) was a French book illustrator prominent during the so called "Golden Age of Illustration" (the first quarter or so of the twentieth century). Books produced under this arrangement by Dulac include The Arabian Nights (1907), an edition of Shakespeare's The Tempest (1908), of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1909), The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales (1910), Stories from Hans Christian Andersen (1911), The Bells and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe (1912) and Princess Badoura (1913). During World War I he contributed to relief books, including King Albert's Book, Princess Mary's Gift Book, and, unusually, his own Edmund Dulac's Picture Book for the French Red Cross (1915).” Princess and the Pea”

 

Eric Carle

Born in NY in 1929 to German immigrants, when he was six years old; his mother, homesick for Germany, took the family back to Stuttgart. He was educated there. Eric's father was drafted into the German army in 1939 at the beginning of WWII and was taken prisoner of war by the Soviet Forces when Germany capitulated in the Sping of 1945. He returned home in late 1947, weighing 85 pounds. "When he came back, he was a broken man."  in Eric Carle's own words in a "sick man, psychologically, physically devastated." Eric had been sent to the small town to escape the bombings of Stuttgart. When Eric was 15, the German government conscripted him and other boys of his age to dig trenches on the Siegfried line. And the first day three people were killed a few feet away. And in Stuttgart, our home town, our house was the only one standing. When I say standing, I mean the roof and windows are gone, and the doors. And, well, there you are." Always homesick for America, Eric dreamed of returning one day to the US. so he moved to NYC in 1952 with only $40 to his name. Once there, he landed a job as a graphic designer for NY Times. He was drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War and stationed in Germany with the Second Armored Division and appointed the position of mail clerk.After returning from the service, Carle returned to his old job with The New York Times and later became the art director of an advertising agency.

John Rea Neill (November 12, 1877 - September 13, 1943) primarily known for illustrating more than forty stories set in the Land of OZ, including L. Frank Baum's, Ruth Plumly Thompson's, and three of his own. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, John R. Neill did his first illustration work for the Philadelphia's Central High School newspaper in 1894-95. Neill dropped out of school after one semester because he said, "they have nothing to teach me". He then turned to advertising art for the Wanamaker department store in Philadelphia. He became a staff artist of the Philadelphia North American newspaper, for which he produced features like the comics strip Toyland, illustrations for the serialization of 'The Fate of a Crown' (a book by L. Frank Baum), Children's Stories That Never Grow Old, and the Sunday comics page 'The Little Journeys of Nip and Tuck' with verses by W.R. Bradford (1909–1910). He was first commissioned to illustrate The Marvelous Land of Oz, the second Oz book L. Frank Baum wrote, published in 1904; The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had been illustrated by W. W. Denslow, with whom Baum argued and lost contact afterward. Neill illustrated dozens of books that were not written by Baum. One of the most notable of Neill's non-Baum books was his adaptation of Helen Bannerman's 1899 story, Little Black Sambo. Neill's edition of Little Black Sambo, which was published by Reilly and Britton in 1908, included a short story called "The Story of Topsy from Uncle Tom's Cabin."

The Westside Writers Way-Cool, Way-Late Schmooze Blog Post

 

Hey gang – great news!   

Charlie managed to score some plutonium (Karol made a point of not asking HOW), so pile into the DeLorean – it’s like a clown car DeLorean, designed to accommodate the entire Schmooze Blog readership – and let’s travel back in time to…late November, 2012, right about when this blog post should have gone up…

Greetings Schmoozey humans...if you are humans, as nothing having to do with normalcy or reality was guaranteed at our November Schmooze, where we discussed time travel, body swapping and other way-cool, reality-bending stories.

The turnout was a bit smaller than average, with 21 warm bodies in the room (perhaps the others were abducted by aliens…or forced to have dinner at their in-laws).  We started our evening with a few announcements, and then the standard introductions. 

What’s that you say?  The intros weren’t so standard?

That’s right!  In addition to saying your name and what you write, Schmoozers were asked: if you could travel to another time (past or future), when would that be and (briefly) why? 

Here are some of the cool, creative answers:

• Renee would go back in time to tell the first female millionaire to manage her money better.  Frustratingly, she wouldn’t tell us WHO the first female millionaire was!
• Richard would travel into the future, to August 15^th, 2027 to be exact.  Why?  Beats us!  You’ll have to ask Richard.
• Nostalgia for historically creative periods was a theme, with Laurie wanting to experience Gertrude Stein’s Paris and Paula opting for Greenwich Village, circa 1966.
• Josh, mischievous little-kid-at-heart that he is, thought it’d be cool to go back in time to get some dinosaur poop and then come back to the present and put a bag with the poop in it aflame on someone’s doorstep.
• Charlie thought it’d be fun to participate in Vietnam War protests – ‘cause apparently, that was a great way to get laid.
• Karol wanted to visit with Pete Rose in the early 80s and drag him to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting.
• Jeff wanted to meet Sara Breedlove, AKA Madam CJ. Walker  Who you ask?!?  Check her out here:  http://www.ladelta65.org/places/CJ.Walker.htm

Charlie kicked off the schmooze with one of his endless musings, this one on the meaning of fantasy, starting with a riff on Invasion of The Body Snatchers (technically a book by Jack Finney, but we all know that Charlie doesn’t read and has only seen the movies).  Charlie’s assertion was that Body Snatchers is evocative because it addresses the deep nagging suspicion we all have that everyone else is in on some joke that we don’t get, but that it works as a story because, laid on top of that, is a fun metaphor to give the fears shape (communism in the 50’s movie; me-generation-self-empowerment in the 70’s remake).  This led Charlie to muse on fantasy as a means of communicating primal fears and that led him to a truly disturbing discussion of The Uses Of Enchantment, a mind blowing deconstruction of fairy tales by crazed child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim. 

Bettelheim says that fairytales show kids the world of meaning hidden within the world of skills, allowing them to face existential questions.  Okay, so that part wasn’t so disturbing.  But Bruno was just getting started:  According to him, fairytales deal with existential questions through metaphor.  Every cave is a womb, every drop of blood the end of virginity, and Snow White is a preadolescent girl who escaped the jealous wrath of her mother to hide out from adult sexuality with a group of 7 pre-sexual, phallic-shaped, work obsessed men whose job is to go into dark holes.  Eventually, she gives into adult desire by eating the the apple and falling asleep, only waking when a suitable sexual mate, the Prince, arrives to kiss her and, well, you know…

Somewhere around the phrase “phallic shaped men,” a few of the new Schmoozers started eyeing the door.  Frankly so did Karol… Actually, just about everyone did  (except, oddly, Greg Pincus).  Fortunately, Charlie was too wrapped up in his own brilliance to notice and quickly moved on to discuss Joseph Campbell (The Hero With A Thousand Faces; The Power of Myth), a philosopher and mythologist who says much the same thing as Bettelheim did, only using myths rather than fairytales.

The takeaway from both, Charlie claimed, was this:  Myths, fairytales, and fantastic stories exist to get at things that would be either impossible or intolerable to address in plain, earthbound stories. 

Karol followed Charlie’s excruciatingly long diatribe by sharing about two of her favorite books in the Way Cool genre.  Both feature body swapping and time travel, and both stories deal with dark, difficult subjects in stark but palatable ways – frustratingly validating Charlie’s whole esoteric schpiel.

Anne Frank and Me by Cherrie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld tells the story of a present day teenager who goes on a school trip to an Anne Frank exhibit and, after gunshots cause a panic in the museum, whiplashes through time and space and wakes up a Jewish girl in Nazi-occupied Paris.

In Sherman Alexie’s Flight, a troubled, part Indian boy finds himself on the verge of a violent act, only to be shot back through time, briefly emerging in various violent moments throughout American history.

Interestingly, both stories begin with a contemporary kid who’s become doubtful of or desensitized to violent atrocities in the past.  Generally speaking, this makes both main characters more relatable to today’s readers.  When the characters travel back and experience the violence first hand – but through the eyes and mind of kids living in the present day – the impact is perhaps greater because it prompts readers to imagine themselves facing these awful experiences themselves.  Both protagonists begin their journeys with much to learn, and both come through their experiences all the wiser and more able to make better choices in their own, real lives.

After Karol was done waxing poetic about the two books she’d brought, she and Charlie did something completely unusual (for them anyway) and definitely Way Cool – they turned the meeting over to Schmoozer Richard Manning, who, as it turns out, is pretty mush a fantasy/sci-fi expert, having been a writer/producer on TV’s Farscape (among many other Way Cool TV series. 

He shared a number of great tidbits with the group, starting by explaining that a new wave of sci-fi in the 60s and 70s has since been replaced by what’s called “speculative fiction.”  In speculative fiction, you take something from the real world, alter it, and figure out what would happen.  Regarding world building, he said that both the wonderful part and the dangerous part is that you can do anything you want.   And while he realized, in his own writing, that he didn’t need to know what was around every corner, he did need to stick to a certain “ice box logic” (a term borrowed from Alfred Hitchcock, meaning that the story should make sense as you’re watching it, but it’s okay if there are some loose threads that occur to you later, as you’re taking a chicken out of the ice box).  The original Star Trek TV series was apparently notorious for “pulling solutions out of their back pockets.’  That sort of thing won’t fly with today’s more demanding sci-fi audiences.

In the “truth versus plausibility” equation, Richard learned that plausibility was actually more important.  There was a particular scene in Farscape that was technically accurate, but it was a scene fans constantly cried foul over – because it seemed implausible.  

An interesting way to tackle this conundrum (and a Way Cool tip overall) is found in this quote by John Cleese:

  "You don’t have to explain the rules.  You have to explain the exceptions.”

 (Apparently comedy and sci-fi aren’t that different!)

Karol also interspersed some awesome tips on world building from prolific, local-ish YA and middle grade author, Kathleen Duey.   

Check out these two fantastic interviews with Kathleen here http://writermorphosis.blogspot.com/2012/09/each-one-teach-one-interview-yamg.html and here http://writermorphosis.blogspot.com/2012/09/each-one-teach-one-interview.html.

With all this knowledge being laid on us, Charlie and Karol thought it’d be fun to try to put it to use in a writing exercise.  (If you missed the November Schmooze, here’s your chance to “play along.”). 

The writing prompts were:

• Rewrite a scene from a story where your protagonist has “swapped bodies” with another character (maybe the antagonist or a marginal character).

**OR**

• Have your protagonist travel back in time to a pivotal moment from his/her back story (e.g. her parent’s first date; his rejection from a crush in third grade, etc.).

The Schmooze wrapped up when Karol, against her better judgment, let Charlie have the floor again to discuss graphic novelist Chris Ware’s newest creation Building Stories a boxed set containing “14 distinct books, booklets, magazines, newspapers and pamphlets,” all of which address the goings on inside one big city apartment building.  Ware created it in this form to approximate the way we experience life, with past, present and future all mixed together in our heads, vying for our attention.  Charlie felt it applied to the topic of the night because the form was wayyyyy outside the box.  Which is ironic, considering it actually, technically…WAS A BOX!

 

That about covers it, Schmoozers.  Let’s all pile back into the DeLorean.  Charlie and Karol need to get back to the present.  They have the February Schmooze to plan (yeah, right, like we’re not going to be cramming all our research into the day before!).

And hey – if you SIMPLY CAN’T WAIT for the February 13^th Schmooze – Fifty Shades of Schmooze:  The Sex Schmooze – we could always let you borrow the car…

For those of you willing to wait – keep passing the open (DeLorean) windows,

Charlie & Karol