I've been a fan of the Celebrate People's History posters, and Justseeds since I moved to Portland in 2000, and since then I've had the privilege of being able to contribute to the series. I had been reading the
Black Jacobins (which is a fantastic book not only about the revolution, but about the slave trade and the history of the french colony of Saint Domingue) and decided it was definitely what I wanted to draw. It was ripe with emotions and fantastic visuals. My favorite part of this image is the slicing of the French tricolor, how they very literally took the white out of the flag, to create their own.
Because of the way printing works and printing costs, I finished this drawing 3 months before the disaster happened in Port-au-Prince, and it's printed now. My new hope for this image is just to serve as a reminder of what an amazing history Haiti has, their triumphs and incredible sacrifices to obtain their freedom, and how important it is to help the people now, and not to forget them as more and more tragedies keep erupting all around the world.
You can buy the poster
here. It's my second attempt at doing a print with 2 colors and getting as much out of it as possible.
Aaron Renier
The Haitian Revolution
$4
Beginning in 1791 and lasting through 1804, the Haitian Revolution was the only slave revolt in the "New World" to turn into a full blown revolution, and lead the the formation of the first Black republic. One of the main leaders of the revolution was Toussaint L'Ouverture, a former slave, who is pictured in the poster.
2-color offset printed poster
11" x 17"
Unlimited edition
I reread The Phantom Tollbooth recently, and was taken by the introduction Maurice Sendak wrote in my edition.
An excerpt from Maurice Sendak's appreciation for The Phantom Tollbooth:
"Tollbooth is a product of a time and place that fills me with fierce nostalgia. It was published in New York City in 1961, that golden moment in American children's book publishing when we lucky kids- Norton, Jules, myself and many more-- were all swept up in a publishing adventure full of risks and high jinks that has nearly faded from memory. There were no temptations except to astonish. There were no seductions because there was not much money, and "kiddie books" were firmly nailed to the bottom of the "literary-career totem pole." Simply, it was easy to stay clean and fresh, and wildly ourselves-- a pod of happy baby whales, flipping our lusty flukes and diving deep for gold. Tollbooth is pure gold."
I can't help to feel we who are working on our comics today, will someday look back with the same sort of nostalgia. I know this moment in publishing won't last forever, who knows when the end will be... but I think it's important to realize how amazing things are at the moment, and that we take advantage of it. Sometimes it's difficult to pay the rent, and working on these giant stories becomes overwhelming. So much writing, and drawing. From self publishing to those with big book deals, this is our time for high jinks, and our moment to dive for gold.
I also think picturing myself as a happy baby whale takes some pressure off. That will be my new secret mantra. "I am a happy baby whale. I am a happy baby whale."
So I think it's safe for me to say 2009 wasn't a great year blogging for me since... I didn't, but... I did do many other things. Probably the most notable thing to my friends and family is that I moved from Brooklyn NY, to Chicago IL. I moved for many reasons, but the biggest reason was just that I missed the midwest. Now I miss Brooklyn... go figure. But I also miss my old home Portland as well. But Chicago right now in my life is pretty perfect.
The other biggest bit of news for me, and possibly equal, or maybe greater than my move, is the completion of The Unsinkable Walker Bean. It was a very rocky road coming to this point, and I'm just so happy it exists. Well, it won't be in stores until August, but you can pre-order it here. I hope everyone who liked Spiral-Bound sees this as a step in the right direction. I really felt that I grew while writing and working on Walker, and I'm so happy First Second is publishing it in their children's division. Everyone there cares so much about what they do, and who they work with.
So obviously when you look at any of the images from Walker Bean, you'll notice a very deep rich color palette. Alec Longstreth, my dear friend, my colorist, is a color genius. We picked out the colors together, but what he did with them is something I could have never done without him, even if I had infinite time on my side. I was very blessed to have him help me with my book. The story of how that came to be is very interesting as well, but I'll write about that another time.
Here are some images from the book, supplied to me by my great friend Nate Beaty. Click on any of the images, including the cover for a larger view.
My hands look wrinkly.
This is my back yard. Look at all that amazing cement.
The amazing Laura Park is my downstairs neighbor. So this cement is also hers.
I really can't wait to have people reading Walker Bean.
I have a better feeling about my blog in the year 2010. I noticed I wrote about 6 times the years before 2009... so I will try to write more than that this year.
The weather is so nice in Chicago today. I think I'll go hole up in a cafe somewhere and draw in the dark.
One quick note to people reading. I have a piece of artwork in the Covered show at Secret Headquarters. If you like Star Wars and you have some money to spend, buy my Ewok #1 painting. And check out the rest of the show here... and in case you haven't seen Rob Goodin's blog this is all inspired by, look at it here.
And one quick subliminal request. Or not so subliminal since I'm typing it to you. If you've read or flipped through An Anaconda Ate My Homework... could you say something about it, or star it on Amazon? It just makes me a little sad that book has gone seemingly unnoticed.
Phew!
Thanks!
I hope everyone is doing really well. More soon.
I just wanted to say thank you to my new friend Oprah Winfrey for putting Gerald Morris' book The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great on her kid's reading list. I don't know if she READ it... our g-chat got cut off... buuuut... even if she flipped through it, it'd be pretty rad that she looked at my illustrations.
So I just wrapped up my first picture book called
Digby's Backpack. It was written by Alice Schertle
and colored by my good friend and fellow cartoonist,
Alec Longstreth.
I'm really excited about working on more projects like these...
especially ones I write myself. My editor was awesome, and was very
understanding of my take on the script, and changes I made that I felt
would make the story move better.
Here is a sample spread that I'll share just to show how the process goes working on a book that somebody else has written.
The author wrote wrote this:
Frame: Digby falls into water.
Narrative strip (use graphically): SPLASH!!
Frame: Digby underwater, putting on
swim fins.
Narrative strip: Digby
kept his head. Luckily…
Digby dialog balloon (thinking): I
knew these would come in handy some day!
Frame: Digby swimming upward, 5 crocs
on his heels.
Narrative strip: Digby,
an excellent swimmer, kicked for the surface. Five crocodiles, even
better swimmers, followed him up.
Frame: Digby swimming up, crocs passing
him by.
Narrative strip: As
luck would have it, the crocodiles had just eaten a small rowboat and
weren’t hungry.
Dialog balloon, one croc: burp!
Frame: Anaconda, in water, wrapping
itself around Digby.
Narrative strip:
The anaconda, however, hadn’t eaten a thing.
So... Then after reading that I submitted my take on it like this. I
tried omitting things that seemed redundant and just quickly concerning
myself with layout and gestures:
My editor really liked the way it was going and let me go to pencils.
It was then that I realized I could have a little more voice in this
project if I introduced another character to the story, so I gave Digby
a little frog that would follow him around. It's never mentioned in the
type... but it's my little voice in the story.
I did change some sound effects that the author wrote... I'm not sure
if it was necessary... but I wanted the book to finally come out
looking like something I had worked on, so I made changes as I saw fit
hoping the editor would see what I saw.
So, this is the pretty close to final version after I inked and Alec
colored. The editor and author were both really happy with the final
project.
The day after Alec and I finished Digby, Alec drove off to White River Junction. He's going to be the fellow alongside Chris Wright this year. He's going to be working on finishing his magnum opus BASEWOOD... and growing out his hair. He is going to be missed here in Brooklyn.
Tonight I'm going to see my amazing friend Alex Holden be on of the 88
drummers in the Boredom's 88 BoaDrum show. I really have no idea what
to expect... but with all of these members of all of these amazing
bands... well... I'm hoping it'll be amazing.
Speaking of amazing, my good friend Gabrielle Bell has been away to
Tokyo and Paris for the premieres of the movie she made with the
imaginative director Michel Gondry. It's one of three Short films in
TOKYO! It's Gabrielle's comic from Kramer's Ergot, Cecil and Jordan, which has been transformed into the short film Interior Design. Watch the trailer HERE. AND check out the amazing 3d flash website based on Gabrielle's drawing HERE.
I'm so excited to see it when it plays in the United States.
I think that is it! Walker Bean! Onward HO!
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