Wild Ride
June 9th, 2009 by jules
Last week, I read about the blog Terrible Yellow Eyes over at Fuse’s site. At this blog, which makes my eyeballs pop out of my head and fly straightaway across the room, various artists are contributing their own works, created in tribute to Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Hey, wait. It just occurred to me: Tomorrow is Sendak’s birthday. This I know because of my excessively geeky Sendak fan-dom. I should be posting this tomorrow, but I’m not. Well, we’ll just wish him happy birthday one day in advance.
Anyway, back to the blog. It is run by one Cory Godbey, and—as one of my favorite blog-readers and bloggers, John E. Simpson, put it last week—this project possibly “smacks of blasphemy to some folks… but not to me.” I’m with John. I think the site is a beautiful thing. Here’s one of my favorites — by Adam Volker.
Here is what Terrible Yellow Eyes is all about, in Cory’s words:
Over the coming weeks and months I’ll display a growing collection of works created by invited contributing artists and myself.
We share a love and admiration for Sendak’s work and the pieces we present here are done as a tribute to his life and legacy.
Remember this feature I did on illustrator Bill Carman in April? Bill gave me his permission today to post his contribution to Terrible Yellow Eyes, Wild Ride, here at 7-Imp. Take a look.
And happy birthday—one day early—to The One and Only…
{Note: Speaking of Betsy Bird and Sendak, as I have in this post, did you all see James Preller’s interview with Betsy last month, in which she said that the book-creator she’s dying to meet is Sendak, yet “if I met him I’d just flap my gums for a while and be destroyed by his single withering glance.” Heh. That made me laugh outloud. I’m not going to pretend I’ve not dreamed of meeting—or even interviewing—him, too, but well…he’s SENDAK, people. So, right now it remains just a dream. A very lovely one.}
That may be, but if anyone had a shot at him, it would be you. My $0.02.
We went to see UP yesterday and there was a trailer for Where the Wild Things Are. And then my little one was up all night with weird complaints like “my bed is full of sand”. Hmmmm. The Sendak imagination is a powerful thing…
Not sure how it could be considered blasphemy. Talk about the ultimate tribute with all that incredible art.
I would be honored if a bunch of really good artists, or even not good, used my work as inspiration for a tribute. Sendak is more than beloved, he is an icon. In my mind he is the godfather of contemporary children’s picture book illustration.
I agree, Bill. I suppose the blasphemists would be die-hard fans who wouldn’t want to see any of the characters any other way.
But then I’m actually intrigued about seeing the film adaptation. Needless to say, I love the blog.
P.S. In a similar vein, here is Darth Vader’s helmet reimagined by “today’s best underground artists”: http://gizmodo.com/5222861/darth-vaders-helmet-reimagined-by-todays-best-underground-artists. Eisha’s husband shared that this week.
Looks like a cool show Jules. I guess I’m a sucker for the tribute thing. I am a part of three other shows coming up. One a comic book tribute show in LA, another comic book thing based on the character ROM, and the last a He-Man tribute in another LA gallery. My work is way too much fun. Hope I can find time in between to feed my family.
Haven’t had time to go by that website yet, but noted it when Fuse mentioned it — it looks AWESOME. I’m all about the loving tribute, man.
Thanks for bringing this great link to my attention! My students will definitely appreciate the lovely site, as they adore Sendak and have recently tried their hands at recreating some of his illustrations.
SO great!! I’m a huge fan of Sendak and WTWTA. In fact, I painted a mural in my son-to-be’s nursery with the forest growing in his room (http://cassylee.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/where-the-wild-things-are-nursery-completed/). Thanks for spreading the Sendak love!
[…] all know I’ve mentioned Terrible Yellow Eyes (TYE) here before, right? It is the brainchild of Cory Godbey, and it is the […]