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With Day-Glo, they did both.”
— From Chris Barton’s<\/strong><\/a><\/em> The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors<\/strong><\/a>
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Jules:<\/font><\/strong> Happy Sunday to all, and welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #121, featuring illustrator Tony Persiani<\/strong><\/a> and author Chris Barton<\/strong><\/a>, who has—in the past—joined us for some kickin’ here on a few Sundays (Chris, that is). It’s a pleasure today to have both Tony and Chris here to say a few words and show us some art from their new title, The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, to be released by Charlesbridge in July. The Day-Glo Brothers<\/em>, which is both the author’s and illustrator’s picture book debut, tells the story of Joe and Bob Switzer, who were born at the turn of the last century, who were opposites in many ways, and who—“by accident”—invented totally new fluorescent colors: Fire Orange and other glowing reds, yellows, greens, and more, which they came to call “Day-Glo” colors. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I’d love to say a whole bunch more about this book, but I invited both author and illustrator to talk about it themselves, and I’ve also got some spreads from it. We’ll let Chris, Tony, and the art do the talkin’. Tony’s even sent some art and sketches from other editorial projects. I thank them both for stopping by. (Note: You can click on most of the images below to enlarge.)<\/em><\/p>\n Chris:<\/strong><\/font> “<\/font>I like to think that writing <\/em>The Day-Glo Brothers—delving into this esoteric topic that I’d never given any thought to, getting more and more fascinated with the subject throughout the process, and then seeing the appeal the story has had for my editor, reviewers, and the kids down the street—makes up for a 20-year-old episode that still gnaws at me.<\/p>\n I had just graduated from high school, and I already knew I wanted to write for a living. So, you would think that when an area newspaper offered me a story assignment, I would have been all over it. But the story was about a local blueberry farm, and I didn’t know anything about blueberry farming, and I didn’t think I could possibly find anything interesting in blueberry farming. So I turned down the assignment, and several years later I began kicking myself about blowing that chance to learn a subject from the ground up. I’m still kicking myself.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n Maybe some potential readers of <\/em>The Day-Glo Brothers will have the same reaction to daylight fluorescence that I had to blueberry farming—“I don’t know anything about this, so why would I care to start learning about it?”—but they’ll get drawn in by Tony’s illustrations and the colors we used. And they’ll figure out the same thing I did, only without years of regret: We’ve all got some natural curiosity about the world around us, and we can’t possibly know whether a subject is going to fascinate us or where that fascination might lead us, if we don’t remain open to learning the first thing about it.<\/p>\n My next picture book, <\/em>Shark Vs. Train (Little, Brown, 2010), is pure fiction, pure silliness — and it involved a lot of hard work from me and illustrator Tom Lichtenheld<\/strong><\/a> (<\/em>Duck! Rabbit!<\/strong><\/a>). But writing nonfiction is even more labor-intensive, because not only do you have to get the words and images right, you have to get the facts right and learn what the facts are—or might be—in the first place.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n Yet I can’t wait to do more, because all that research has become my idea of fun. My third book, a nonfiction project for older readers that Dial will publish in 2011, has sent me chasing down information about television script-writing, British geography, 19th-century rail travel, and Canadian naval operations during the Korean War, among other things. None of that had any particular appeal to me when I started the project, but as with <\/em>Day-Glo, I love having had—and taken—the opportunity to soak it all up.<\/font><\/em>“<\/font><\/p>\n Tony:<\/strong><\/font> “<\/font> …Being an illustrator is a dream come true, and working on<\/em> Day-Glo was such a great opportunity and labor of love…I’ve done a lot of editorial and publishing work as an illustrator, but this was my first ‘children’s’ book. It presented different challenges than the usual magazine spot illustration. Maintaining the Switzer brothers’ likenesses throughout the story, as they mature from little boys to middle-aged men, was critical. Chris Barton made my job easier, because of his descriptive text and historically-accurate details. I was thrilled to be able to contribute to such an important, yet unknown, story.<\/font><\/em> <\/p>\n I’ve been a working illustrator for twenty years. (Wow! I’m getting old.) Some of my clients are <\/em>TV Guide, The Travel Channel, WGBH Boston, <\/em>Consumer Reports, Ariel Books, etc. A couple of years ago, I decided to go in-house, and currently I work at Hasbro (the big toy company). I now design toys\/products for brands like Transformers, GI Joe, and Littlest Pet Shop, to name a few. Needless to say, my illustration skills come in handy.<\/p>\n With a family and full-time position, I’m pretty selective about what projects I take on nowadays. Regardless, I’m always interested in new projects and any feedback from fellow artists and fans!<\/font><\/em>“<\/font><\/p>\n Thanks again to Chris and Tony. For more information on The Day-Glo Brothers<\/em>, check out the linkage at the bottom of Betsy Bird’s review of the title<\/strong><\/a>, particularly this link<\/strong><\/a> from Chris’ wife, who has my new favorite blog banner ever.<\/p>\n As a reminder, our weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you.<\/p>\n {THE DAY-GLO BROTHERS: THE TRUE STORY OF BOB AND JOE SWITZER’S BRIGHT IDEAS AND BRAND-NEW COLORS copyright \u00a9 2009 by Chris Barton. Illustrations \u00a9 2009 by Tony Persiani. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Charlesbridge, Watertown, MA.}<\/em><\/p>\n This has been a very weird and kind of unkicky week for me. I attended three retirement parties, two of which were for co-workers in my division; and there was also that little matter of my personal data being compromised. But there were a few kicks too, so let’s focus on that:<\/p>\n 1* Haven’t seen this Day-Glo book in person, but now I want to really bad. I love the whole concept, and the art is a perfect match. Plus: Chris Barton! Yay!<\/p>\n 2* I got a sweet chatty email from the co-worker\/friend who moved away. She sounds like she’s settling in pretty nicely – meeting new neighbors, exploring walking trails with her adorable dog. Her town sounds lovely, and I can’t wait to visit her.<\/p>\n 3* I finally saw Inland Empire<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (pictured below). I’m not going to pretend I fully understand it, but that’s okay. Laura Dern gave an incredible performance, and… look, I just really love a good David Lynch-style mind-f*ck once in a while, you know?<\/p>\n 4* My girls, the SufferJets<\/strong><\/a>, beat Ottowa’s Capital Carnage<\/strong><\/a> pretty soundly Saturday night. A couple of their girls got hurt, but not too badly – one even came back to skate for the last few rounds.<\/p>\n 5* Thunderstorms. Even though I had to walk home through one Thursday night, I do love them.<\/p>\n 6* We finally got around to putting the air conditioner back in. And it still works. And I’m so pleased that we haven’t really needed it yet.<\/p>\n 7* A friend participated in the Ride for Roswell<\/strong><\/a>, a bike ride that raises money for a cancer research and care facility in Buffalo. I thought that was pretty awesome of him.<\/p>\n 1). This just in: My first kick is now the blog of Casey Kelly Barton<\/strong><\/a>, Chris Barton’s wife, thanks to that linkage from Fuse I mentioned above. Seriously: Best Blog Title and Banner EVER. And look at this post<\/strong><\/a>. She even has an entire sentence that is simply: “Dude, y’all.” See? She’s a kindred soul, I think. <\/p>\n 2). Eleven-year anniversary of The First Date this week for me and the husband. We even got a date, sans children. We saw Star Trek<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, just as good as everyone says it is. I felt very mature<\/em> when I saw Winona Ryder in it, playing the mother. Dude, she’s a beautiful woman, and I’m sure they aged her for the role. But I dunno. SHE’S ONE YEAR OLDER THAN I AM. It was not unlike a wake-up call: Oh yeah. Winona Ryder isn’t angst’ing around up there on the screen in black anymore. She’s playing a mom. I’m almost 40.<\/em> <\/p>\n Which is fine. I don’t know what my point is really. Just an observation. Good story. The End. <\/p>\n 4). Watching a very bizarre 1981 Terry Gilliam<\/strong><\/a>\/Michael Palin<\/strong><\/a> fantasy flick, called Time Bandits<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, with Sean Connery as King Agamemnon and lots of dwarves flying out of closets and a character named simply “Evil” and the actor who played R2-D2<\/strong><\/a> and ogres and Napoleon and God portrayed as a rather overparticular, persnickety Englishman and a Map of the Universe and ever-so much more wackiness. <\/p>\n 5). You can assume this is a kick every week, but particularly this week: My girls. This week my oldest said, out of the blue, that if she ever has a daughter, she’ll name her Charlotte A. Cavatica. (This is long after reading Charlotte’s Web<\/em>. I was happy she remembered the book.) Plus we had a tea party with cookies. It was supposed to be a faaaaancy<\/em> one, but it turned out to be kinda psychadelic, what with that tie-dyed scarf that became our impromptu tablecloth. <\/p>\n Plus, long story, but my husband and I learned, during a rousing game of Ada the Knight Protects Princess Piper from the Tickle Monster, that our 3.5-year-old places issues of honor and bravery and integrity prominently in her mind. Plus<\/em>—and lastly—it’s fun to watch the wheels in the five-year-old’s brain turn, as she considers issues of…well, pretty much urban sprawl, which we’ve been talking about lately (without necessarily calling it URBAN SPRAWL). <\/p>\n And, speaking of stinky stupid-dumb urban sprawl, my anti-kick is that a beautiful brown rabbit ran so zippy-quick under the wheel of my car this week. As I was driving<\/em>. Oh yes, it did. Very sad. We won’t talk about that. <\/p>\n 6). Not bragging. PROMISE. A publishing contact I have, who is a really nice guy, told me this week that he was in a meeting and 7-Imp came up and everyone chimed in to say how much they like the blog — that everyone seemed to have something different to say about why they like the site. Did I mention I’m not bragging? It’s just that it’s rare to get feedback, except from commenters, so that kind of thing blows. my. mind. <\/p>\n 7). I love this video John<\/strong><\/a> posted this week. In his words<\/strong><\/a>, it’s “a brief film (directed by Azazel Jacobs) ‘about looking at art.’ A nice little fable for those who just don\u2019t get the point of so-called non-representational art, it\u2019s from the Web site of New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Art.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>
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This is a great read, thanks to Chris’ engaging writing and fascinating research (which he explains in an Author’s Note and which involves assistance from the families of Joe and Bob, both now deceased), as well as the illustrations from Persiani, rendered in black-and-white and the Day-Glo colors (naturally). The book, in fact, gets brighter, spread-by-spread, as one nears the end. It’s well-designed, this one is. Those economically-placed Day-Glo shades put the very “pop” in eye-popping; they never overwhelm, which could easily happen, methinks, in the hands of a less-assured illustrator. I love the book’s very topic, Chris’ curiosity having been piqued when he read Bob Switzer’s obituary<\/strong><\/a> back in 1997. <\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/DayGlo_p14-15a.jpg\")
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3). My husband and I finally explored the world of streaming DVDs via Netflix, and right now you can see episode one of the new Showtime series, Nurse Jackie<\/strong><\/a><\/em>. I love me some Edie Falco<\/strong><\/a>, and the episode was great, even though only episode one is available right now. When Jackie turned to the talkative new intern and said, “I don’t do chatty. I like quiet. Quiet and mean. Those are my people,”<\/em> I knew I’d fallen for the show. <\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/faaancyteaparty.JPG\")
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