strange and random happenstance

The Serpent Dance by Sofia Slater
Published by: Swift Press
Publication Date: June 6th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 214 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Audrey and Noah are coming up on their one year anniversary. The only problem is that it happens to coincide with a big launch at Noah's art gallery. So instead of waiting they decide to celebrate on their ten month anniversary. In retrospect, this could have been inviting bad luck. Audrey is convinced that Noah has taken her copious hints and that they are going to Paris. Instead of working on the illustrations to the followup of her children's compendium of extinct animals which The Times called "equal parts urgency and enchantment" she has spent the last few weeks creating itineraries for Paris while obsessively checking that her passport is still valid and ignoring her looming deadline. The day of their getaway arrives and they head west to Paddignton, not north to St. Pancras. They are going to Cornwall. And maybe things would have worked out had she not thought they were going to Paris, but it's like Noah doesn't even know her and has some notion of recapturing the memories of a favorite childhood vacation of his instead of celebrating their relationship. Audrey spends the train journey to Trevennick for the midsummer festival mentally cataloging how her life has gone wrong. She wanted to be an artist, but was pushed by her parents to take the more sensible route and study graphic design. Her relationship with Noah was meant to open the door for her into the art world, instead he's constantly closing it. And now he's taking her to the country. She hates the country. She hates the dark. Does she secretly hate Noah? When they arrive they are taken up to the big house through the village with disturbing statues made of withies in the shape of amorphous animals being assembled on the green. Luckily their hostess is able to fill them in on these obby osses because she is none other than Stella Penrose, a tellie historian, who will be staying in her home with them. A home that is completely made of glass. They can literally see everything. This isn't the romantic weekend Audrey planned as she spends dinner getting drunk while Stella shamelessly flirts with Noah. Audrey goes to bed early and is wakened by Noah. He thinks something bad has happened. And he's right. Stella is dead. In a locked room in a completely glass house. But suicide doesn't sit right with the police or Audrey. And when Noah is arrested, perhaps this is the sign she needed that they are officially over. But the killer isn't. The town is backwards in more ways than one and the river will have its due.

The Wicker Man is one of the movies that will forever be a classic. It's camp, it's creepy, and it taps into our communal love of folk horror that we as viewers, and readers, can't get enough of. I love me some folk horror. But not Midsommar. Never that. Having discovered Sofia Slater when I read Auld Acquaintance I couldn't wait for this book being touted as folk horror with wicker man vibes to be released stateside and ordered it from England. It would be the book to usher in summer 2025. And, while yes, the obby osses bring a nice Summerisle vibe to Trevennick, that isn't what makes the book work. In fact I wouldn't even label it as folk horror, it's just a good old fashioned murder mystery with the trappings you might see on an episode of Midsomer Murders. In fact I'm thinking of the one where Nicholas Rowe is killed by an arrow while attempting a rite that would allow him to sleep with his sister/wife. But enough about my love for Nicholas Rowe, what makes this book work is that Sofia Slater is a writer that just makes her people and locations come alive. They are fully three-dimensional. I can picture myself going to Trevennick and walking into the Sacacren's Head and being served by the Kingcups. I am there. I am a part of this ill-fated getaway. But most importantly, it's the journey of Audrey that draws you in. She's on a legit heroine's journey. She is confronting the dark abuses of her past in a similar milieu which she has been forced into. This is full immersion therapy and I am here for it. She's figuring out who she is and what she wants and confronting how her expectations don't meet reality and it's a struggle so many of us have to face, thankfully without usually having to endure a trial by literal fire. When she tells Morwenna Kingcup things she hasn't even told Noah, you know this place is literally healing her. It also allows her to open up artistically. What starts at first as a way to make sense of the crime as well as appease her editor, she draws the crime scene and her surroundings in detail. Just remove a dead body here and add a cute bunny there, and her sequel about vanishing Britain is almost done! But the fact that what she uses for therapy helps to reveal the truth is delicious. Her artist's eye catches something that the normal person wouldn't notice and this thrills me as an artist. I am always looking at things differently, and when I go on walks with my Dad I'm pointing out all the ways to look at the world and this artistic sensibility is what saves the day. To me, as an artist, I can't explain my glee. But also, the fact that she releases her inhibitions and Noah finally see's in her art something worth exhibiting proves that our demons, our outlets, our deliverance, brings us to our true selves and only then can we achieve our goals.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Artist, Auld Acquaintance, Cornwall, Graphic Designer, Locked Room, Midsomer Murders, Midsommar, Murder, Murder Most Foul, Nicholas Rowe, Paris, Sofia Slater, The Serpent Dance, The Wicker Man, Vacation

Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield
Published by: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Publication Date: November 5th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

William Bellman's life was perfect for a time. He excelled at the family business, a thriving mill which he helped make more prosperous. When his uncle died suddenly his cousin decided that William should take over and he pushed the mill's productivity even further. This allowed him to marry for love and have as many children as they could. His life was at it's apex. Things started to go wrong. Those he loved started to die. At each and every funeral he sees a man who knowingly looks at him and yet William can not for the life of him place this familiar face. After his wife and all his children but one die he meets the man, a Mr. Black, in the cemetery standing over his family's freshly dug graves. William is pleading for the life of his poor daughter, dear Dora, and though he can't remember what happened that feverish night, he knows that he and Mr. Black struck some sort of deal. That deal, however nebulous, starts William Bellman on a new business venture. He is to create an emporium in London catering to the bereaved. Bellman and Black will have the finest in all funerary needs. William doesn't sleep, he doesn't eat, he lives and breathes this new company. He finds the backers, he finds the location, he finds the architect, he finds the blackest of black fabrics, the subtlest of stationary, the discreetest of employees, he finds everything but his associate Mr. Black. Mr. Black is nowhere to be found. This starts to gnaw on William. Is their bargain complete? Will his partner ever come for the funds he is so diligently putting aside? As William lay dying he looks on the face of Mr. Black and a memory comes back to him. William is ten and out with three of his friends. He boasts he can kill a rook with his slingshot. No one there thought he could do it, and yet the dead rook spoke to his success. A success that he forgot but the rooks remembered.

I don't know why I gave Diane Setterfield a second chance. The Thirteenth Tale was predictable and what plot it had was simplistic. The reveal was so laughably telegraphed that I can't believe that anyone fell for it. And then I read the cunningly calibrated wording to promote her second novel "a heart-thumpingly perfect ghost story, beautifully and irresistibly written, its ratcheting tension exquisitely calibrated line by line" and I was sold. I have to remind myself that the marketing department is not the author and also, where was the ghost!?! There was no ghost! Wait, was it the ghost of a plot? No, it couldn't be that because instead of going from a simplistic plot with her first book to a more complex one with her second she went in the exact opposite direction and wrote a book with no plot. No ghost of a plot, simply NO PLOT. Also where was that ratcheting tension? Was it hidden in the hundred pages about how a mill works? Or was it happening offstage in the next hundred pages when Bellman was building his Selfridges of death? Somewhere amongst the building plans and finding the blackest black? And another thing, this book does a disservice to stories about department stores! The Paradise, Mr. Selfridge, even Are You Being Served? have proven again and again that department stores are rife for storytellers. But I don't think Diane Setterfield is a storyteller, I think she has to admit at this point that her writing just puts people to sleep and should therefore start a practice helping insomniacs and leave us poor unwitting readers who jump at the Gothic alone. This book literally took me two weeks to read because every night it would lull me to sleep with it's lack of plot and too much time on wool!

You would think with all these hundreds of pages devoid of plot that she could really nail down her details, and to an untrained eye she might... but I have a sneaking suspicion that she is writing out of her ass. She writes in loving detail about warp and weft, how to get blacks the blackest they can be, and who am I to know if this is right? I'm not an expert on milling and dyeing in the 19th century but I do know to make black blacker you add blue not more black! What I am an expect on is anything to do with art, therefore I know my paper stocks. At one point Bellman is talking about some exquisite paper he is getting in that will be perfect for mourning stationary and it's 1/2" thick. Excuse me!?! Firstly paper is done in pounds and if you are taking a caliper to measure it, they are small increments indeed. And yes, I know paper is different stateside to the UK, but I learned both systems at school and I think the UK system is SO much more logical. Therefore I can definitively say that if Bellman stocked paper that was 1/2" think it wouldn't be paper it would be a block of wood. It would be freakin' 1/2" thick, a THIRD of the thickness of a 2x4. I feel especial pain that as this book was supposedly edited by someone in the book world, a world of paper for printing and publishing that no one scratched there head and went "hang on a minute something seems wrong here" but alas such is the case. Therefore the integrity of the author has been impinged. I know she got this 100% wrong, so how can I trust any of the details she gives? Nothing can be taken at face value and therefore she has completely devalued her own work with shitty research.

Though her shitty specificity doesn't carry throughout the book. It's very nebulous as to when the events take place. The section in the mill indicates that it's just at the cusp of the industrial revolution so the first half of the 19th century, but then the prevalence of Victorian funerary practices would mean that it would have to coincide with Prince Albert's death in 1861, and yet by the end of the book cremation is all the vogue which didn't happen until the turn of the 20th century, and as Bellman was in his fifties when he died how the fuck does time work in this book!?! Maybe if you say his mill was backwards, despite the author trying to show otherwise, we could say that Bellman was born around 1850 and everything can kind of fall into place, but just... Yet it drives me batty that she can spend hundreds of pages on fabric and I had to go online to see that the first cremation was in 1885 and in 1902 the cremation act was passed. Though I still can't be sure that this is what she was referring too as the inevitable downfall of the Selfridges of death! What could have been interesting to explore in a book was the radically changing funerary practices over the course of this one century, with cremation taking the place of grand pomp and circumstance due not only to cost but to consideration as the cities for the dead impinged on the cities of the living. If the history aspect had been explored, going into Queen Victoria and her staying in mourning until her death, interestingly enough until the year before the cremation act, I could have so read the heck out of those details! Instead we are left with imbalance. A book with no plot going into excruciating and erroneous details about non-essentials and vaguebooking anything of historical significance that could have given the book depth.

But then in the end Setterfield decides to revel in the vague. A draw your own conclusions approach that made me draw the conclusion that she can't write. Here's the thing, putting an ampersand between two things DOESN'T link them. You actually have to establish a connection, you need to set this up, you need to link the very human world of Bellman with the probably avian world of Black. You can't have a connection so tenuous that at times the protagonist actually wonders if there was ever an agreement between them. And just randomly having short sections about corvids with pointless facts isn't integrating them into the story, it's breaking up the monotony with information that has no bearing on the rest of the book. And here is the crux of this problem, without a definitive link between Bellman and Black, without some explanation as to who Black is there is no "other" element to this book. The Gothic goes out the window and the supernatural has sped away. When your hints are so vague you can't draw ANY conclusions perhaps it's time to realize you have failed at whatever it was you were trying to do. Because the truth is I have NO idea what Setterfield was trying to do here. Is Black death in a Meet Joe Black kind of way? Is Black the human form of a rook? Is Black both? Gaw! So annoying! I mean, is he even there at all or just a hallucination that Bellman has, a kind of Grim that haunts Bellman? Because if it is just a presentiment of death that's been stalking Bellman since he was a child, well, that's just lame, because if you think about it death stalks us all. So that's the point of the book is it? You live a life and then you die? Wow, that's some original thinking there...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Are You Being Served, Bellman and Black, Diane Setterfield, Funerary Practices, Going Gothic, Gothic, Graphic Designer, Meet Joe Black, Mr. Selfridge, Queen Victoria, Rooks, The Paradise, The Thirteenth Tale

The Circle
Based on the book by Dave Eggers
Starring: Emma Watson, Ellar Coltrane, Glenne Headly, Bill Paxton, Karen Gillan, Nate Corddry, Tom Hanks, John Boyega, Amie McCarthy Winn, Eve Gordon, Patton Oswalt, Smith Cho, Amir Talai, Elvy Yost, Ellen Wong, Poorna Jagannathan, Judy Reyes and Beck
Release Date: April 28th, 2017
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Mae's life isn't going well, her car breaking down and forcing her to call her ex Mercer to fix it is just the latest indignity. In fact her parents talk more about Mercer and all the help he's given around the house what with Mae's father having MS than they actually talk about Mae. But her luck is about to change. Her friend Annie has gotten her an interview at the groundbreaking tech company The Circle. Mae gets a job in Customer Experience, and it may not be the job to fulfill her fear of wasted potential, but it's where everyone starts at The Circle. Yet her start is rockier than most. She's not participating as much as the organization would like. She's not reaching out instead she's focusing inwards and escaping in a kayak whenever she can. Late one night after visiting her parents she snaps and takes a kayak out on the bay which she's "borrowed" from her regular rental place after they've closed. Ironically it's tech from The Circle that catches her malfeasance but also saves her life. She is brought before two of the three founders, Eamon Bailey and Tom Stenton who decide to not punish her but use her as an example. Make her the face of a new initiative. Mae is going transparent. Everything she does, every move she makes, can be watched by millions of people worldwide. Because sharing is caring and knowledge not shared is a crime. Yet as Mae is scaling to new heights in the company her friend Annie is spiraling downwards. Mae doesn't know the end game of The Circle or how transparency is another method of control blindly loving her fame. As she gets in deeper she will be forced to make hard decisions and witness horrors that could change everything. It's up to her to stop The Circle, but will she?

"They're Watching You!" With those simple, musical, almost whispered words while waiting for Tom Hiddleston in Kong: Skull Island in a darkened theater I was instantly sold on The Circle. Of course previews are designed specifically to get asses in seats so despite my love of the preview I waited for reviews and in the meantime picked up the book. For years I knew who Dave Eggers is, more for his founding of McSweeney's, the west coast's answer to The New Yorker, than for his book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but I'd never actually read his work. Ironically the book gave me more hope for the movie, until the abysmal reviews came in. I mean, 16% "fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes is one of the worst scores I've seen in recent years, but on the bright side I hear the film will do well at The Razzies. So there's always a silver lining. Going into this movie with low, in fact almost no expectations was interesting. Yes, I was still frustrated when they got something so right only to follow it up with such a colossal misinterpretation of the text, but those were things I was able to laugh off. Sometimes knowing you're watching a dud gives you freedom to enjoy it for what it is. That's not to say I didn't have major issues, I still have criticisms aplenty, they're just from a more zen place. A place where Emma Watson seemingly single-handedly destroyed a film with an otherwise near-perfect cast. But it can't all be blamed on her, oh wait, it can, because all the changes, the taking a dark satire and spinning it into a thriller, all of that seemed in service of making the character of Mae more in line with Watson's values than as she was written. Because Watson is someone who would never drink the Kool-Aid. Do the people who made this film know about Jonestown?  

So let's go into Emma Watson's Razzie worthy performance. I really can't think of anyone more miscast than Watson as Mae. Mae is ambitious, manipulative, sexual, clever, and instead here she is atonal, flat, passionless, sexless. Look at how they clothe her! She's wearing all these sweaters that fully cover her body so that not an inch of skin is visible. For years now I've had friends who hate Watson's acting. I've always been indifferent to her. She's not how I see Hermione, but then the movies aren't how I see the world of Harry Potter at all. She has a funny cameo in This Is the End, but The Bling Ring was so boring I have tried to excise it from my mind, as for Beauty and the Beast, we are not going there. But I do respect her and I do follow what she does, especially with regards to not just her stance on feminism but on reading as well. So the fact that she plays Mae as someone with no charisma, someone who literally NO ONE would follow isn't just baffling to me, it takes the punch out of the whole movie. I don't know if I can accurately state how bad she is. The lines she delivers feel as if she's reading them off cue cards and is being forced to do so and is therefore coming off as harassed and with just the whiff of pissed off teenager being forced to say hi to company. Was there even a director? Because ANY sensible person in charge should have been like, "Hey Emma, can we get some emoting or acting here? You are an actress right?" Mae is stripped bare, but not literally because God forbid Emma shows some skin, and made boring. When Annie tells Mae she's perfect, I had the biggest laugh. Annie, that's the speed talking! 

Yet the biggest changes that were wrought happen in the movie's climax. When Mae does a presentation on how Circle technology can be used to find anyone on earth things spiral out of control and her ex Mercer dies. This is true in both the movie and the book. Only in the book, a dark dystopian comedy, Mae is the instigator, she's egging the Circlers on. She's releasing drones like flying monkeys and that's the moment in the book when you realize that Mae is one of them. But here, oh no, the sexless Emma Watson couldn't be seen as causing someone's death. So instead she's pushing against hunting down Mercer. She's hemming and hawing and Tom Hanks as Eamon Bailey steps out and drives Mercer literally to his death. Um, WTF is this? Bailey is the papa bear of The Circle, if anything Patton Oswalt should have been behind this brutal manslaughter. This moment is the moment, for me, that the book gelled and also the moment when I realized Holllywood just didn't get it. James Ponsoldt, a director and writer whom I've never heard of aside from his David Foster Wallace movie which I'm now probably never going to watch, just didn't get it. The Circle isn't about a near miss, a disaster avoided, this is about a technological Utopia being thrust on us with forced adaption to this secretly totalitarian regime, not something with a happily ever after. And again, I don't know if this was to preserve the "nice" imagine that Watson has built up or because they thought the ending was too bleak. Here's the thing, the bleak ending is more real. The reason the book drew me in is because at the end Mae wasn't the savior, she was Judas!

Though Ty turns out to be the character most changed. In fact, I'm surprised they actually got John Boyega at all with how minimal the role is. In the book "Ty" is a mysterious stranger who Mae is drawn to and has relations with only to eventually find out he is one of the three founders of the company. Yes, I do admit that drawing out that reveal, even in the book, pushes credulity, but to go the opposite way and have him just as exposition and then a deus ex machina is a waste of his talents. While I wasn't all on the Boyega train to begin with I've seen him enough now to know that he is criminally wasted here. He actually has no point other than to fill the plot holes. Plus, can we talk about that hasty ending? You're not going to watch this film, trust me, you're not, so here are some spoilers, in fact all the spoilers. Mae turns against the company and in a lecture she's giving during the talk, thanks to Ty, all the "secret" correspondence of the other two founders is leaked. In the book this is actually what Ty WANTS Mae to do but as I've said before, she goes deliciously Judas and that's the end of Ty. Instead the data destroys the founders yet somehow The Circle survives and Mae's out kayaking... about the only thing they got right is Mae and that stupid kayak. I just don't get it. I mean, just why!?! This book was a bestseller and then you go and do all these tweaks and twists and add a HEA and you think you're going to get a blockbuster movie? That's not how things work. Create a good adaptation OR a good reinterpretation. Don't give us muck. Audiences don't like it, as Rotten Tomatoes has clearly shown.

But the most nonsensical thing to me is something that probably I and only other graphic designers would notice, and that's The Circle's logo. The Circle's logo as seen on the right hand of the image above is ubiquitous in the film and is just plain boring and derivative. Like Apple redoes The Criterion Collection's logo. You might be wondering why this would bother me so much, and the answer is Jessica Hische. Jessica Hische is an amazing designer noted for her typography skills. Seriously, check her out and you'll realize you've been loving her stuff for years without even knowing it. As she said about The Circle on her website: "After working with Dave Eggers on Hologram for the King I was pumped to be brought on board to design his new book, The Circle. It was especially fun to design this cover, as I’ve spent the last two years living in San Francisco surrounded by the tech industry (my husband works for Facebook) and the story is set in an influential social media company. I also had to design a logo for the fictitious company, The Circle, and was inspired by the interweaving connectivity of social media sites and also knots that once tight are difficult to untie." The logo she designed is perfection. I don't know if Eggers' description or her design came first but it captures what the book is about 100%. But should I be surprised that a movie would trash the work of a talented designer and start over with something bland and unoriginal when that is what they did with the whole narrative? I guess not. But I can still grumble about it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Dave Eggers, Desexualize, Dystopian, Dystopian Drama, Emma Watson, Graphic Designer, HEA, Jessica Hische, John Boyega, Jonestown, McSweeney's, Razzie, The Circle, The New Yorker, Tom Hanks, Tom Hiddleston

My friend Jess and I years ago started referring to each other by our Austen handles, aka Misses Jessica and Eliza. In the spring of 2013 I texted Miss Jessica wondering what she would like for her birthday and she had an idea. It just so happened that 2013 was the bicentenary of the publication of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. As you now know over a month into my Bicentenary Ball I am not one to let a two hundred year celebration slip by! Miss Jessica's suggestion was that instead of doing run-of-the-mill birthday presents we do a crafting exchange where we each make Jane Austen themed gifts for each other. Being both crafty and artistic and at that moment taking an introductory letterpress course, I was all in. I was ready to make a piece dedicated to "Two Hundred years of Darcy and Dancing!"

Madison College has a wonderful selection of wood type and when pursuing the drawers I found these stunningly large "P's" and was only sad for about half a second that there wasn't three of them, Miss Jessica being one of the co-creators of P, P and P, which is the Pride and Prejudice Colin Firth miniseries watched while eating Pizza. But in all honesty P and P works better. Because this was a quick one-off and not class work, where I was actually doing only two prints, one for me and one for her, I did this during open lab time. I didn't even do a full lockup, I just used some magnets and the showcard press, which is basically a proofing press. Funnily enough I had to do this twice, because I'm not the best at spotting typos when they're backwards. There might have been two "S's" at the end of "Misses" because I was going crazy that day apparently. So, on my second attempt I think I nailed it.
  I originally went for too strident a color, a kind of spring green, and went all out metallic gold the second time around, because if gold doesn't say big two hundredth birthday celebration, I don't know what does! For those who do letterpress you might notice that there is actually more texture to the print than just from the wood type. I shall now impart a trick my teacher Beth showed me which I absolutely adore. What I did is I first printed the piece on a heavily textured paper. You pull the paper off and instead of re-inking you print again on a crisp clean sheet of perfectly flat paper. The impression of the textured paper remains in the ink on the wood type and transfers onto the new paper. I use this technique a lot because it just adds something extra, also ironically the textured paper is some of the paper I've used for my Jane Austen series I've been talking about. So this was the first non-illustrative piece I did in tribute to Jane. This was also the first piece for the gift exchange between me and Miss Jessica. Don't worry, there's more to come on that front!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bicentenary, Bicentenary Ball, Dancing, Darcy, Graphic Designer, Jane Austen, Letterpress, Madison College, Miss Eliza, Miss Jessica, Pizza, Presents, Pride and Prejudice, Showcard Press, Typos, Wood Type

Since the age of seventeen the effect Jane Austen has had on my life cannot be over-exaggerated. From the time I stepped into B. Dalton and picked up an omnibus of her works to just a few days ago when I was re-reading Sense and Sensibility and reliving that first reading over twenty years ago, Jane Austen has become a part of me. She has informed my sensibilities as a human and inspired me in my life and art. Therefore I couldn't let the two hundredth anniversary of her death pass without comment. Two hundred years since we lost not just a great voice in literature, but a woman who captured the similarities of humanity across the ages and inspired us to all search for our true loves. Over these summer months I'm going to be re-reading Jane's six novels, watching my favorite adaptations, playing a bit of the tourist, and discussing how Jane and her work has affected my own art and design work. I hope you'll all join me in praising Jane, I know she'd be happy to have a ball in her honor two hundred years later. After all, she loved to dance!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:01 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 1817, Artwork, Balls, Bicentenary, Bicentenary Ball, Dancing, Design, Emma, Graphic Designer, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Two Hundred Years

In one of my last semesters of school working my way to my Associate Degree in Applied Arts, Graphic Design and Illustration, I was assigned a dream class project, to redesign a book cover. Seriously, if I could just make all my money doing book cover design I would, but sadly I am not Chip Kidd. I had two major problems that needed to be surmounted, one was the specifications of the assignment, which stated that the cover had to be a photoshoot I would art direct, but more importantly, what book to pick? After much thought I narrowed it down to two choices, Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide and Neil Gaiman's Coraline. In the end I chose Coraline. It wasn't for lack of ideas on the Christie front, it's just that I have never really embraced any of the different official covers of Corlaine, which I think is a common feeling if you look at the number of people who have made their own covers. Seriously, the fan are out there is amazing. Of course, the irony of this project is that I ended up not even liking my own re-design. I had the basic idea down, but a few missteps threw the whole design out of balance.

My only issue I take with Coraline in general is Dave McKean. I seriously love his work but sometimes, in fact a lot of the times, his imagery doesn't match what you're reading. There's a disconnect, one I felt most while reading The Graveyard Book. Neil and Dave do work well together, but sometimes I feel like they're not on the same page and they're both so talented and respectful of each other they don't call one another out on something that might need fixing. So for my cover I wanted to go in a direction that wasn't an interpretation of what was written but of taking specific items that are important to the narrative and making them real. One of my favorite parts of Coraline is when she fools The Other Mother by creating a fake picnic as "protective coloration" so I started with a picnic cloth as my base. I then spent weeks finding the right props, a stone with a hole in it to see through, a needle that was wicked enough to replace eyes with buttons as well as the buttons, three luminous marbles to symbolize the trapped children's souls. After much searching I found all I was looking for and I still have a large bag of insects if anyone needs some.

Where I went wrong was in trying to sew the title onto the fabric. Through many episodes of How I Met Your Mother I sewed and sewed and ended up with an illegible mess that should have been done on the computer at a later time. But the actual photoshoot was fun, getting to eat the pie one of my classmates brought to do a cover re-design for The Help, seeing how others interpreted what they had read. And despite viewing this project as unsuccessful, it was still a wonderful experience, I won't say learning experience because I hate that phrase so much even if I did learn a lot. I had such fun in bringing imagery from the world Neil Gaiman created into this world. Finding just the balance of his magical realm and the reality that exists within it. Neil drove me to take his words and make something. This is the gift of a true writer. To inspire his readers to want to not only live in his world but to create something tangible. To express their own feelings and thoughts through other mediums. A good author tells a story that is memorable, a great author tells a story that inspires.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Coraline, Dave McKean, Gaiman Gala, Gaiman Reminiscence, Graphic Designer, Neil Gaiman, Photography, Protective Coloration, Sparkling Cyanide, The Graveyard Book, The Help, The Other Mother

 
"I read Sandman when I was thirteen, in the wrong order, snuck out from the library out of sight of my mother. I didn't understand a bit of it, but it all merged together into some kind of wild-magic-soup in my head, thrilling and strange. I became a fan, and devoured everything he'd ever written, and at some point I even returned to Sandman and discovered that if you read it in order it actually makes a bit more sense.

But if you say 'Neil Gaiman' to me, the first thing that pops into my mind is a day three years ago. I had traveled to London with a childhood friend of mine; we had tickets to see Neil Gaiman do a talk at the Royal Society of Literature. Only it turned out, upon arriving there, that that was not the place it was actually being held. But we weren't the only ones to make that mistake--and so we found ourselves swept up in the wake of three others fans, equally lost. We christened ourselves the Gaimanites, and we set off on a quest across London to find the venue (which we did, with minutes to spare.) And as usual, Neil was spellbinding, inspiring and acerbic, and we left with the feeling of being able to put pen to paper. Our little handful of strangers reunited, and wandered into the dark together, with a night that took in London's oldest pub, climbing stone lions, mysterious street food, and a set of six foot tall M and Ms, amongst other wonders.

It felt for all the world like we'd fallen through the cracks into London Below, wandering the Neverwhere. But then that's always been Neil Gaiman's particular talent, to conjure that feeling of mystery and magic, following just behind at your heels, waiting for you to turn and follow it." - Matt

Matt and I were introduced on Facebook through our mutual friend, the author Paul Magrs. Paul was right in that we'd get along, both of us being graphic designers we have endless things to say to each other from the use of stock photography to why there's so much bad cover art on NetGalley. Though oddly we disagree on almost every single book out there, so I'm sure if you lined up my favorite Neil Gaiman books and Matt's they would be diametrically opposed. There's a podcast in there somewhere. Matt is also an editor and writer, if being a graphic designer wasn't cool enough, in fact there's a Kickstarter campaign right now for a Steampunk Anthology that has a story of Matt's in it! 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Gaiman Gala, Gaiman Toast, Gaimanites, Graphic Designer, Kickstarter, London Below, Neil Gaiman, Netgalley, Neverwhere, Paul Magrs, Podcast, Royal Society of Literature, Sandman, Steampunk, Writer

Unbreakable by Kami Garcia
Published by: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: October 1st, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"I never believed in ghosts. Until one tried to kill me.

When Kennedy Waters finds her mother dead, her world begins to unravel. She doesn't know that paranormal forces in a much darker world are the ones pulling the strings. Not until identical twins Jared and Lukas Lockhart break into Kennedy's room and destroy a dangerous spirit sent to kill her. The brothers reveal that her mother was part of an ancient secret society responsible for protecting the world from a vengeful demon -- a society whose five members were all murdered on the same night.

Now Kennedy has to take her mother's place in the Legion if she wants to uncover the truth and stay alive. Along with new Legion members Priest and Alara, the teens race to find the only weapon that might be able to destroy the demon -- battling the deadly spirits he controls every step of the way.

Suspense, romance, and the paranormal meet in this chilling urban fantasy, the first book in a new series from Kami Garcia, bestselling coauthor of the Beautiful Creatures novels."

So Kami Garcia is striking out on her own... should be interesting! Also, cover lust.

Treecat Wars by David Weber and Jane Lindskold
Published by: Baen
Publication Date: October 1st, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 288 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"New York Times and Publishers Weekly Best Selling Young Adult Series. Book Three by international writing phenomenon David Weber. Two young settlers on a pioneer planet seeks to stop a war and to save the intelligent alien treecats from exploitation by unscrupulous humans.

The fires are out, but the trouble’s just beginning for the treecats.

On pioneer planet Sphinx, ruined lands and the approach of winter force the now Landless Clan to seek new territory. They have one big problem—there’s nowhere to go. Worse, their efforts to find a new home awaken the enmity of the closest treecat clan—a stronger group who’s not giving up a single branch without a fight.

Stephanie Harrington, the treecats’ greatest advocate, is off to Manticore for extensive training—and up to her ears in challenges there. That leaves only Stephanie’s best friends, Jessica and Anders, to save the treecats from themselves. And now a group of xenoanthropologists is once again after the great secret of the treecats—that they are intelligent, empathic telepaths—and their agenda will lead to nothing less that treecat exploitation.

Finally, Jessica and Anders face problems of their own, including their growing attraction to one another. It is an attraction that seems a betrayal of Stephanie Harrington, the best friend either of them have ever had. "

It's cats, it's war, it's a book meant for me.

Johannes Cabel: The Fear Institute by Jonathan L. Howard
Published by: Thomas Dunne Books
Publication Date: October 1st, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A Darkly Gripping Comic Fantasy.

Beyond the wall of sleep lies the Dreamlands, a world formed by dreams, but not a dream itself. For countless millenia, it has been explored only by those with a certain detachment from mundane reality, its strange seas navigated and its vast mountains climbed by philosophers, mystics, and poets. Well, those halcyon days are over, beatniks.

Johannes Cabal is coming.

Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy, is employed by the mysterious Fear Institute to lead an expedition into the Dreamlands, an expedition to hunt and destroy the dread Phobic Animus, the font of terrors, the very source of all the world’s fear. They will enter exotic lands where magic is common and monsters abound. Cabal will encounter witches, vile abominations, and far too many zebras.

And, when they finally come close to their goal, Cabal will have to face his own nightmares. But for a man who communes easily with devils and the dead, surely there is nothing left to fear. . ."

Everytime a new book comes out in this series, I think, damn, I really have to start this series.

Simon's Cat vs. The World by Simon Tofield
Published by: Akashic Books
Publication Date: October 1st, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 96 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Simon's Cat proved his authority in the house. He returned victorious from his adventures beyond the garden fence. He prevailed after the chaotic arrival of a new kitten. Now he takes on the world! Illustrated in glorious full color, this volume explodes from the page with mesmerizing levels of detail. Simon's Cat films have over 360 million YouTube views!"

OMG, this book is so so awesome and I am so humbled that the publishers set me an ARC. If you don't yet know who Simon's Cat is, I pity you for having a sad little life not full of this kitty joy! Also, this is just SO TRUE to cats. The vet one in particular. I mean, a book with no words, yet the stories that it unfolds for those of us humbled enough to be the keepers of these majestic felines.

Wes Anderson Collection by Matt Zoller Seitz
Published by: Abrams
Publication Date: October 1st, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Wes Anderson is one of the most influential voices from the past two decades of American cinema. A true auteur, Anderson is known for the visual artistry, inimitable tone, and idiosyncratic characterizations that make each of his films—Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Moonrise Kingdom—instantly recognizable as “Andersonian.” The Wes Anderson Collection is the first in-depth overview of Anderson’s filmography, guiding readers through his life and career. Previously unpublished photos, artwork, and ephemera complement a book-length conversation between Anderson and award-winning critic Matt Zoller Seitz. The interview and images are woven together in a meticulously designed book that captures the spirit of his films: melancholy and playful, wise and childish—and thoroughly original."

Graphic Designer/Film Buff swoon!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Beautiful Creatures, David Weber, Graphic Designer, Johannes Cabel, Jonathan L. Howard, Kami Garcia, Simon Tofield, Simon's Cat, Treecat Wars, Unbreakable, Wes Anderson

Ok, so while we impatiently waiting for the second book in Gail Carriger's Alexia Tarabotti series, still not out till March 30th, because sadly the laws of time and space don't see fit to jump ahead so that I'm on Spring Break and also immersed in a wonderful new book... sigh. But! Yes, dramatic declaration. The lovely people at Orbit have seen fit to release the lovely cover for the third book in the series, Blameless, out in September. Oh, gargoyles and parasols! What could be better? Yes, stop saying, if it was March 30th, or if there actually were ARCS. This is all we get... ok I lie, we also get an awesome making of video. Which, shows how they did what they did. In other words, the awesomeness of Photoshop, Illustrator... and I think InDesign made it in there as well. So while you're all going, look at the dress change color, look at the Eiffel Tower come and go (it really had to go, cause it wasn't built yet!) I'm going (*graphic design geek alert warning*), oh look they used the pen tool, damn that's an elaborate clipping path, I wonder what the feather weight was on that. So, really this video has something for everyone. The book geeks can have new cover lust and the graphic design geeks can have tool and job envy, although I have CS4, and they're only using CS3, so I can feel very mildly superior. Enjoy!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 3:47 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexia Tarabotti, ARCs, Blameless, Changeless, CS3, CS4, Eiffel Tower, Gail Carriger, Graphic Designer, Orbit, Soulless

At the end of November I was contacted by the publicity manager at Viking about my request for a copy of the new Jasper Fforde book, Shades of Grey. Needless to say, what has transpired since has not only been unprecedentedly awesome, making Viking my new bff, but is also how this post came into being. You see… they offered me an interview! How cool is that!?! Not only did they send me this book, which was amazingly awesome and original and funny (my review), but then they asked if I’d like to talk to the man whose brain is capable of writing such prose. Of course I jumped at the chance… well, danced more like… even if this was something that had me nervous as to how horrid I think my voice sounds to what if this brilliant person thinks I’m a dolt, I had to do it. There wasn’t any ifs, ands, or buts, this was for me. So I spent the days leading up to the early morning hours of December the 18^th (Wales is six hours ahead) swotting up on my Fforde knowledge and trying to craft some interesting questions… did you know there are over 500 questions that he has cataloged on his site that he’s been asked?!? That was a lot of cramming I must say. What follows is, I hope, a funny and interesting interview that sheds light onto this creative author and his wonderful new book, Shades of Grey. (To help those who are less freakishly color knowledgeable, the footnoterphone has agreed to make an appearance, and I also promise there will be no undedicated dialogue traps).

Man who turns out to be Jasper: It is, yes, that’s me.

Nervous interviewer, who will be referred to as Elizabeth from now on: Hi, I’m Elizabeth. I’m calling from Strange & Random Happenstance, we have an interview (internal dialogue, god I hate my own voice.)

Elizabeth: Yeah, I was kind of watching the clock here.

Jasper: Little laugh

Elizabeth: Um, well can I get right to it?

Jasper: Yeah, absolutely.

Elizabeth:Ok, I just loved your new book.

Jasper: Oh, thank you.

Elizabeth: It was really just so fascinating, I’m a graphic designer by trade so I really related to a lot of the stuff in it.

Jasper: Ok, oh good.

Elizabeth: My first question is was Shades of Grey written with artists and graphic designers in mind?

Jasper: It’s interesting that you should say that actually, just this moment I downloaded an animated sort of commercial[1] that Hodder[2] have done for me here in the UK and of course graphic designers are suddenly going, oh great, we’ve got colors, we’ve got things changing colors, we’ve got some things in colors and some things not in colors and feed pipes that lead to colors and you can follow the color along a feed pipe and then it makes a flower green or blue or whatever. I’ve just received it and we’ve been looking at it and we both love it and it does seems a bit as though it is a gift to graphic designers doesn’t it?

Elizabeth: I’ve told a few people just of the RGB to CMYK[3] update and they just love that joke.

Jasper: Yeah, well I thought all you people who actually know about color, color models, might actually appreciate that kind of stuff. Cause most people don’t you see.

Elizabeth: I just thought it was just great. How much research did you go into in color theory for this book, seeing as you know many concepts are familiar to people who've studied color, like Munsell[4] and the Ishihara[5] being the color blindness test?

Jasper: I did enough to make me appear as though I probably knew more than I did. Color is a really tricky thing to get your head round. And even the notion that the color you see on your tv is completely separate to the color that is printed out by your printer[6]. And when I was first researching color I suddenly realized the immense complexity of a program that would allow you to view what you view on your screen to actually come out in a printer roughly the same color. And people take that sort of stuff for granted and I suddenly realized, oh my goodness, this is actually monstrously complicated. And even if you talk about subtractive or additive[7] it’s a sort of major deal. But I’m interested about everything really, so as soon as I have to research a new field I always sort of throw myself into it a bit and think, well ok, there’s got to be real experts out there so lets just chuck in a few little gags, you know, that they’ll pick up and enjoy.

Elizabeth: Yeah for my digital photography class that I took we had a seven-hour lecture on just the basics of monitor to printer.

Jasper: Yeah.

Elizabeth: I mean that doesn’t even scratch the surface at all

Jasper: Yeah, I know, it’s all completely different. And for awhile I’m sure everybody in the class is starring there a bit sort of confused and then after awhile you suddenly start realizing and there’d be this nodding of the heads as you suddenly click as to just how bizarre color is.

Elizabeth: Especially when you think of the fact that color is really a perception of the mind, that paints and dyes are just what is there for the brain to interpret as color.

Jasper: Hmm, oh yeah, color has no color. There is no color in real life. Color is entirely something that we’ve made up.

Elizabeth: It’s just brain functions that create it, it’s just unbelievable.

Jasper: Yeah, color is a function of the brain and the brain alone, and that’s what I think one of my stopping off points, or the jumping off points rather for the whole book. It was that notion when someone told me years ago what color is, what red actually means, and it’s merely a sensation. And the fact that we’d probably never ever be able to even find out what red actually is. It is actually completely in the brain. Color is a wonderful sort of thought really, that it’s there and it’s real and it’s tangible and yes of course it’s red and there it is but, no, it’s not, it’s just in your head.

Elizabeth: One of my friends is colorblind and he’s the best painter I’ve ever seen, colorwise, and he’s just doing it how he’s been taught how to paint, taught what the colors are.

Jasper: I had to speak to people who had color blindness as well to see their perceptions of color and everything. It was fascinating I must say.

Elizabeth: The next question I have is, your books are very graphically branded with National Color[8], The Cheese Enforcement Agency[9] and Goliath[10] and others all having logos giving them a more real presence. When did you decide to do this?

Jasper: I think it was quite early on. The first website we wrote was thursdaynext.com and that was really to give a sort of visual feel to the book, and I think what I was trying to do was to spread out from the edges of the book and say, no we can actually give it an edge of reality by actually creating this sort of slightly visual world with the logos and all that sort of nonsense. I thought it was fun, actually, at the time, and that’s really the reason I did it. But we do live in a very visual, iconic, logo driven world. I think it does give people a sort of routing in reality to the series. Also, I usually put satire in my books, for two reasons, first of all it’s quite fun, and it’s amusing, but secondly it’s because it makes the books very recognizable as something that happens in the real world. It seems very familiar and I think it’s the same when you create logos for companies in my books, it just makes them seem that much more sort of real and familiar. But I think really it’s just a way of expanding beyond the cover of the book to try and make it more real.

Elizabeth: I just think it’s great, even the letters I got from Viking here in the US, they had the little National Color Logo up in the corner, it was just great.

Jasper: Oh good. What I did is, I had that logo made up about a year ago, the little splashy paint logo which I love, and I actually I had it embroidered on the back of a bomber jacket, I’m going to put that up on the website quite soon. But quite early on I sent it to Hodder and Viking and I said this is the logo that’s going to be used in the book. I’m going to use this in merchandising and on the website and everything, so wherever you can use it, like pop it in as well, and then it just makes everything real. Cause what happens often is that the designers for the publishers have a very different idea as to how things look than I do. And I thought, well if I can get Viking and Hodder and me all together with at least some aspects of it, then we can be this sort of united front and don’t give such a disjointed view of the visual impact of the world. So quite early on I had that logo designed and I said to them, right, the type script we’re going to use is Berlin Sans, which I really really like, and could you do this, this, this and this. And, you know, they don’t do it all, but every now and again it sneaks in. I do just think that it makes it just that much more real and interesting, and, I don’t know, I just like it.

Elizabeth: Well it creates a nice continuity with the font choice and the logo choice. My next question is, if each village has a Vermeer[11], there must not be many villages within this society, with only about 31 paintings attributed to him?

Jasper: Yeah, does it say, I don’t think everyone has a Vermeer[12].

Elizabeth: It said like almost every town had a Vermeer.

Jasper: Oh right, or maybe it’s meant to refer to a painting.

Elizabeth: Yeah, I mean, it makes sense it would be a painting.

Jasper:Yeah, I think that might have been a syntax error, on my behalf[13]. I think what I meant was that everybody had at least one half decent painting. There wouldn’t be enough Vermeers to go around would there?

Elizabeth: No, I was thinking that would make a very small post apocalyptic society.

Jasper: It would. But they might not know it though would they? There’s so little movement between villages.

Elizabeth: Yeah, you get a few names, probably, what ten names for cities, so you’re not sure exactly how big.

Jasper: So we don’t really know how many people there are.

Elizabeth: The color system is like a distinct Caste System[14], from purple leaders to blue teachers, what color do you think you would be in this society?

Jasper: Oh, a writer/entertainer I think came out as orange. I don’t know whether it’s in the final book[15], but I think on the train, there’s a couple of oranges who are sort of traveling players, who do training plays, a bit like training films. And I think they’re oranges and they’re in the wrong place in the carriage and everyone gets very upset about it cause it upsets the sort of natural order and everyone is sort of flustering. So I think I’d definitely be in the orange category, which everyone would kind of ignore, because they’re certainly not going to be purple and they’re kinda sort of half yellow, but not, and they’re sort of red and at the bottom. And they come out quite well actually, because they’re sort of like the greens, they’re half and half, they consist of lower colors, even though they’re sort of higher than the red. So I think I’d probably I’d end up being an orange.

Elizabeth: What do you think would happen if complimentary[16]colors bred? Would it be more of a dilution to grey or perhaps could they view even more of the color spectrum and thus pose a threat to the Colortocracy[17]?

Jasper: Well it certainly sounds like there’s something going on. I’m not quite sure exactly what. But it’s been enshrined in rule and I think there’s a reason for most rules, so I think we might assume that something threatening could come from that union.

Elizabeth: So Jane and Eddie would be even more of a threat then?

Jasper: Yes, could be, but the interesting thing is, if you do start mixing complimentaries, you get a very strange color. You don’t really get a color at all, I mean what is brown but the brain saying, “nope, don’t know, sorry, can’t figure it out.” So, I don’t know quite what’s going to happen if that does come to pass, but it seems such a taboo, a terrible thing, that I don’t think anyone would try it.

Now ends the color centric part of our talk, appropriate for a book so wonderful coated in color. Stop by tomorrow when libraries and killer swans are topics of the day!

[1]
[2] Jasper’s British publishers.
[3] RGB is the Red, Green, Blue additive color model primarily used for televisions and video screens. CMYK is the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black subtractive color model primarily used in the printing process. They are the crux of what graphic designers do on a daily basis.
[4] Albert H. Munsell, in the early 1900s created a 3-D model of a color space, separating color into hue, value (lightness) and chroma (color purity), or as used in the book, hue, saturation, brightness (HSB). Munsell and his color space are still used and taught to this day.
[5] A test for red/green color blindness, named after Doctor Ishihara, who designed it in 1917.
[6] RGB vs. CMYK
[7] Subtractive is mixing of paints and dyes to create colors utilizing CMYK. In Subtractive mixing, all colors together “in essence” are black, in reality it’s an icky brown. Additive is mixing colors of light utilizing RGB. In Additive mixing, all colors together are white.
[8] National Color is the body who look after the collection of scrap color and the manufacture of universally visible colors in Shades of Grey.
[9] Division of SpecOps (SpecOps-31) formed as a result of the growing illegal Cheese Smuggling Industry that arose as a result of the "Cheese levy".
[10] Rebuilt England after the War, but not without their own agenda.

[11] Johannes Vermeer, famous painter of The Girl with the Pearl Earring and others. So few pieces remain that if one were ever found it’s worth would be astronomical.
[12] I know I read this somewhere not in the book, because I wouldn’t make it up… truthfully…
[13] Not his error, but an error in a press release… I swear I read it somewhere… if only I could find it again then I’d not feel as if my mind is slipping away.
[14] Fundamental scale of basic colors, with red as the lowest on the color spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.
[15] It is.
[16] Colors opposite on a color wheel, red and green, blue and orange, purple and yellow are all complimentary colors.
[17] The "benevolent" government in Eddie's world.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 2:42 AM 1 comments  

Labels: Additive Color, CMYK, Colortocracy, Edward Russett, Graphic Designer, Ishihara, Jasper Fforde, Munsell, National Color, RGB, Shades of Grey, Subtractive Color, Thursday Next, Vermeer, Viking