MORE OF MY PAST REVISITED
Categories: Personal work
Tags: graphic images illustrated adventure of type typographical story
It seems that I’m destined
to experience this current stage of my life revisiting the past for a while
longer. In going further though storage boxes that have collected dust for some
time now I chanced across a short story I wrote when I was still at art school,
more decades ago than I care to remember!
Collage and Photoshop... a fun combination!
It is a quite unusual
story to be honest. Specifically, a 'typographical children’s story' to be
precise... and one that was almost published in London the first time it saw the
light of day. At the time I wrote it and illustrated a couple of very
graphic-like images and then was introduced to the publisher, “Dennis Dobson”,
by my illustration teacher at the time, Ralph Steadman. The publisher liked it
when he saw it but because it was quite ‘progressive’ for a children’s story to
his way of thinking, he said he wanted to do some market research on it first
before he committed to publication. Needless to say, I was on edge while the
research was being conducted. It was such a big thing for a student to have his
first creative work accepted and published, so I was very excited about it.
However, although the
research came back positive, Dennis Dobson ultimately turned the book down,
sadly… feeling that it was a step too far for his normally conservative
company. I was so disappointed to hear
the news, as I wanted to be a children’s book illustrator at the
time and had actually convinced myself that it was going to happen. The biggest irony
of all however was to follow. In having received the rejection letter from
Dennis Dobson earlier in the week, I chanced to read a British “Times” article
the following Sunday, highlight what the author believed was the ‘demise’ of
British children’s publishing. He was bemoaning the fact that all the available books at that time were far too conventional and was asking, "where are all the
adventurous and progressive young British children's book writers and artists"! I was tempted to
write and share my painful experience at the hands of Dobson’s. But I thought
better of it after a while, believing that I might submit further stories for
publication shortly after that and didn’t want them judged with a prejudice or
jaundiced eye. As it turned out, I didn’t submit any more
stories... I ended-up animating them... so I guess I should have shown more guts about it upon reflection.
Its always fun to splash paint around... something I learned from Ralph Steadman!
Anyway, in finding my
children’s story recently I chanced to show it to a couple of friends who were
very close to me, especially my literary agent friend, Bob Silverstein, of Quicksilver Books on the east coast.
Everyone liked the story apparently and Bob even said that if I produced
some illustrations for it (the old ones had been long lost, being created at a
time long before digital backups were the norm) he would try to sell it for
me. Suffice it to say, I have since
been working hard on this during my spring break at DigiPen... and I once more have
high hopes of finding a publishing home for the story after all these years!
Minimalism rules... OK?
It has actually been a joy
working on the material to be honest. Its a rare opportunity for me to create original images that I don’t have to think about animating later. Consequently
I can be far more creative with what I attempt, drawing very much on my
main student focus... 'graphic design' and 'typography'. ‘Watch this space’ for news of
how it all fares at some time in the future. (Surely it still can’t be adjudged
‘ahead of its time’ again... after all these decades have now gone by?)
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