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Heinies, heinies, heinies. I’ve got a…um, buttload of them for you today. Well, maybe not a buttload. But I do have several spreads to show you from Ayun Halliday’s<\/strong><\/a> and Dan Santat’s<\/strong><\/a> Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, published by Hyperion Books in May, as both author and illustrator visit today to talk about the book. And other stuff. My favorite part of this post is how the illustrator expresses some reservations about his own art for the book, and then—without even knowing what the illustrator has typed—the author proceeds to talk about how much she loves<\/em> the art and what the illustrator has done in the book. As a bystander and book nerd AND illustration junkie, this is all very fascinating to me, needless to say. But I digress. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But back to the butts. In Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo<\/em>, a family visits the zoo, paying particular attention to the animals’ backsides: “From the feathered booty of the cockatoo \/ To the hairy haunches of the caribou \/ Some are smooth \/ And some are shiny \/ Some are swimming in the briny — \/ No one tries to hide his heinie at the zoo.”<\/em> A rear for every deer. A caboose for every moose. Glutes for the newts. You get the idea. There are tons of picture books about zoos out there, but none quite like this. (That is, if you don’t include Michael Ian Black’s<\/strong><\/a> and Kevin Hawkes’<\/strong><\/a> very fun Chicken Cheeks<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, though it’s not set at the zoo.)<\/p>\n Both Ayun and Dan stopped by today to talk a bit about the book, and since Dan sent a good deal of art (which always makes me happy) and since I just had to throw the Pivot Questionnaire at each one of them (how could I resist?), I’ll get right to it. I thank both of them for stopping by this morning, and I’d like to say in advance that, no, I don’t think you’re being sappy at all, Dan. <\/p>\n Oh, and I haven’t dug this out in a while, but for the record, here’s the Perfunctory Curse Word Disclaimer<\/em>: …Wait. Is it really necessary? After all these years of blogging? Nah. Just remember that I won’t edit anyone’s Pivot curse-word response in any way. Or, well, any other saucy words. If that kind of thing bothers you, consider yourself kindly warned. (I do believe, in fact, that this is the first<\/em> post in which the word “badonkadonk” has appeared.)<\/p>\n {Note: Most images in this post can be enlarged. Just click to see better.}<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n On New Beginnings:<\/font><\/p>\n When I first started my freelance art career eight years ago, I picked up a job as an artist at a video game company for some stable income. I would go to work by 10 a.m., come home by 7 p.m., spend time with my wife till 10 p.m., and then paint till 2 a.m., and that was my routine for about four years. I don’t think it was as bad as it sounds. I still managed to have the time to do good freelance work and still have a social life. Then in 2005, one of my children’s book proposals was being tossed around Hollywood before it had found a publisher and ended up becoming the animated TV series <\/em>The Replacements<\/strong><\/a> on the Disney Channel. Suddenly, I had even less time to work on my children’s book work, while—on the TV end—I was essentially trying to please focus groups and executives, and it kind of made me feel miserable and insecure. Meanwhile, I was still working at the video game company, and that made me even more miserable. In 2006, my wife and I had our first kid, and then I just fell apart. I was falling asleep in front of my artwork and would wake up in my chair at 3 a.m., realizing that I had fallen asleep the second I sat down to work. So, I decided to reassess my life. In 2007, I left my game job, I left the cartoon show (left it under new management, while I still got paid), and just devoted all my time to children’s books, and <\/em>Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo was the first project in my reassessed life where I didn’t have any other responsibilities looming over my head. <\/p>\n Other than being a new father.<\/em><\/font> <\/p>\n On Heinies<\/em>:<\/font><\/p>\n For a short while, I felt my career had taken a turn towards more TV and mass media entertainment, and there was a certain resentment I had with dealing with large groups of committees trying to make a product that tried to please everyone at once. When there are too many people in management trying to get their voices heard for the good of a project, then you, as the artist, start second-guessing all your decisions. I got to a point even on one book project where I was being art-directed by about four or five people to the point where literally all the work was manipulated one way or another, and it was very demoralizing to my confidence as an artist. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything right and I was second-guessing all my choices. All the changes pushed the book deadline back later and later in the schedule, and by the time i was done with it, I was only left with two months to work on <\/em>Heinies, and I hadn’t even started on the sketches yet.<\/em><\/font> <\/p>\n Fortunately, the editor at Hyperion was very generous and understanding. The most refreshing thing was that they let me do whatever I wanted without being over-scrutinized, and I just felt like it was a good opportunity for me to try and commit myself 100% in trying to do justice to the author’s words. I actually felt like I had to prove myself all over again, much like when I first started my career. It was as if I wanted to make up for all the rushed art I did that preceded it. <\/p>\n Still, I will admit <\/em>Heinies was a little rushed, and for that I feel like I owe Ayun an apology, because it really is a charming story. I ended up painting the whole book in about a month after approval of my dummy sketches, which took me about two weeks to complete. That’s a little less than doing one painting a day. This may sound weird, but I found that one of the story’s greatest strengths, as well as my greatest frustration, was in its economy of words. I loved the hilarious text, and I found that the most daunting task was to fit all these animals in this poem into thirty-two pages, while also placing it in a convincing zoo environment. Here’s an example. The hardest page for me to illustrate was:<\/em><\/font> <\/p>\n We have different social customs than the shrew Now, the easy thing would have been to do spot art of each animal mentioned, but—by doing that—you would immediately lose the sense of space that defined it to be a zoo in the first place. The difficulty is that just in this one little paragraph she lists FIVE animals, which includes a tiny little shrew that doesn’t exactly get housed in an an environment at a zoo like a rhino or a kangaroo would. Rhinos and kangaroos need big wide open spaces. A tiny little shrew only needs a little cage behind glass. So, the biggest challenge for me was to try and find a way for all these animals to exist in a full page, while also showing the reader that they are in a zoo. I tried to find the best solution I could for the text provided, and my one regret is that I maybe didn’t push the humor as far as it should have gone. One book reviewer, in particular, got on my case about that, and all I can say is ‘Sorry, Ayun.’<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n On the Post-Heinies<\/em> Era:<\/font> <\/p>\n I’m still very happy with the results of this book, though. Ask any artist how they feel about a project they worked on, and I’m sure they will all tell you there was one piece they wish they could re-do. With exception to my first work, <\/em>The Guild of Geniuses<\/strong><\/a>, I feel like this was the first time the quality of my art wasn’t compromised, due to other obligations (even though I only had a month to paint the final pieces) or from just being exhausted. Now I sort of see my entire body of children’s book work as Pre-<\/em>Heinies Era and Post-<\/em>Heinies Era — with the later work definitely seeing a vast jump in improvement. Something came over me after completing <\/em>Heinies. I feel more compelled to push my work even further than I ever have before.<\/p>\n The faith Hyperion gave in me to do the illustrations definitely restored a lot of my self-confidence as a designer and as an artist. It was the moment I’ll always remember where I finally decided to take the leap into freelancing full-time and gave all the work I did an extra effort I couldn’t usually afford. These days, I try to make every part of the book as much fun as possible. I had suggested we take pictures of our heinies for the ‘about the author\/illustrator’ section of the book, and thankfully Ayun was very cool and open in going along with it. Now I make it a point to make book trailers for all my books, regardless of whether they are viewed by the general public or not. Video editing and effects has slowly become a little hobby of mine, and this is the one I did for <\/em>Heinies: <\/p>\nThis is author<\/strong><\/a>, zine<\/strong><\/a> founder, and one-time food blogger<\/strong><\/a> Ayun Halliday’s first children’s book. And some of you may remember when Dan stopped by 7-Imp<\/strong><\/a> last October (right<\/em> before his son was born); in fact, at that post, he previewed some art from Heinies<\/em> as well as Tammi Sauer’s<\/strong><\/a> Chicken Dance<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, another forthcoming title he’s illustrated, which we’ll get to in a second here. (If I were more organized, I could have asked Tammi to stop by and say a word or two about Chicken Dance<\/em>, but maybe she can stop by another day. I’ve seen an early copy of the book, and it’s great fun, thank you thankyouverymuch. That was my lame attempt at an Elvis impersonation.)<\/p>\n<\/a>Ah, <\/em>Heinies. This book holds a very special place in my heart, because it was basically what I defined as a fresh new beginning to my career. Allow me to explain…<\/p>\n<\/a>
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\nAnd the rhino and the giant kangaroo,
\nFor, unlike your average ostrich or emu,
\nBlithely baring bums is not a thing we do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/a>
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Blithely baring bums is not a thing we do.”<\/center><\/p>\n