Ollie’s Odyssey by William Joyce

Many artists reach a plateau and stay there, revisiting the same themes or visions, never expanding, never stretching, never evolving with their work.  And then there are those lucky few artists – which includes writers, graphic artists, musicians and performers – who continually grow, develop and stretch their capabilities.

Into that happy few we must count author, illustrator, animator William Joyce (born 1957).  After creating some of the most beautiful picture books of the 1990s, Joyce then branched off into his other love, filmmaking, and helped design a number of memorable films (including Toy Story), before branching out into production himself.  He also started the company Moonbot to make apps, games, animated shorts – anything, in fact, to which he could harness his storytelling genius.  Located in Louisiana, Moonbot is a human-scale Disney, where talented artists, writers and filmmakers create the next generation of children’s classics.

His first love, though, remains books.  He started a series of picture books and prose novels that detailed the origins of such childhood myths as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny called The Guardians of Childhood, and he has now served up a new original novel with illustrations, Ollie’s Odyssey.  It is his most daring and interesting prose novel to date, and a significant demonstration of his ever-increasing capabilities.

Ollie’s Odyssey is all about a kid named Billy and his special relationship with his toy, a ragdoll his mother made named Ollie.  During a wedding party, Ollie is kidnapped by the minions of an evil toy, the demented clown Zozo.  Billy must sneak out of his home at night and trace his lost friend, a journey that leads him to a deserted underground carnival, to a confrontation with a horde of menacing reconfigured toys, and to a final battle royale led by Ollie and some odds and ends who form a junk army.

In outline, it would seem as if Ollie’s Odyssey would be just another kid’s adventure story.  But Joyce uses this framework to write a deeply moving tale about growing up, the inevitability of change, loss and, perhaps most important, the power of memory.  Rather than a stock villain, Zozo has become twisted through the loss of his beloved ballet dancer-doll.  He is a tragic-villain, fully formed and compelling enough for the most adult fiction.  Similarly, Billy and Ollie fear changes to their friendship as Billy ages, and Ollie wonders what becomes of toys that are no longer loved.  The coming end for their partnership does not mitigate in any way the love they have for one another, but it does add a tragic dimension unusual for kiddie fare.  Joyce also talks about resurrection and rebirth during the junkyard sequence, where now useless bric-a-brac takes on new life and new identity to help Ollie and save Billy.  It is a stunning juggling act: Joyce has written a profoundly moving and emotionally resonant novel in the guise of a children’s book.

Just as Joyce has previously illustrated his picture books with dazzling watercolor work, and then branched out into both line drawings and computer illustration, Ollie’s Odyssey tests his versatility with a series of charcoal drawings – a medium he has not used in his published work before.  The illustrations of Ollie’s Odyssey are unlike those of any of Joyce’s previous work, and fit the overall emotional tenor of the story beautifully.  Charcoal brings a gritty, tactile sense to this tale of fuzzy friends and frayed castoffs that would be missing from glossier modes of illustration.  He also used the paper upon which he drew to great effect, allowing what would normally be the white ‘tooth’ of the paper to soak up computer-added color.  The book is also beautifully designed by Joyce with chapter heads in bold red crayon, and different colored papers representative of different characters and scenes. 

As with much of Joyce’s oeuvre, his latest book can be savored by adults as well as children. A man who loves popular art immoderately (and wears that love on his sleeve), Joyce peppers Ollie’s Odyssey with echoes of titans and works that come before.   Attuned readers will catch bits of filmmakers Todd Browning and Lon Chaney, hints of the classic Universal Monsters with a touch of The Island of Lost Souls, a healthy smattering of Ray Bradbury, and shout-outs to everything from the original King Kong to Batman Returns to The Magnificent Seven.  Indeed, the final image of the book is a direct rift on John Ford’s mighty ending for The Searchers … and one wonders if Joyce is writing for adults who have kept their inner child alive and well, or if he writes for children who will one day make more adult connections.

Ollie’s Odyssey is a bigger, grander, more ambitious book than anything that Joyce has attempted before, and he rises to the occasion splendidly.  It is certainly the finest of his prose novels, and one cannot but wonder what this protean talent has in store for us in future years.

While we are delighted that Joyce has spread his abilities into so many different areas, it is perhaps in books that devotees get the fullest distillation of his talents.  His written and illustrated works are the least collaborative of his output, and capture his philosophy best.  That view of life has been changing and evolving over time – that William Joyce names his protagonist Billy is surely no accident – and if the man himself can emerge from the crucible of experience with his sense of wonder intact, what is he not capable of?  And what, he asks, are any of us not capable of?  It’s that sense of possibility, that childlike sense of limitless adventure, that the world is filled with things to delight each and every one of us, that is the essence of Bill Joyce.

Ollie’s Odyssey is highly recommended to kids, old people, and everyone in between.

William Joyce Wants Your Toys!

We have frequently looked at the work of illustrator/film-maker William Joyce (born 1957) in these pages.  He is one of the most gifted creators in the field of children’s entertainment today; his books have won numerous awards, one of his animated films has won an Oscar, he created his own wonderland-cum-story-telling-factory Moonbot, and most important, he was won a place in the hearts of everyone who takes expertly crafted, intelligent family entertainment seriously.  Joyce has shared his peculiar magic with the world, and now he wants something in return … your toys.

Recently, Joyce has been thinking about toys while preparing his upcoming book, Ollie’s Odyssey (soon to be reviewed in these pages).  In particular, he has been thinking about Big Teddy, a huge stuffed bear owned by his late daughter, Mary Katherine, as well as his own bear who became lost when we has around six years old.  What happened, he wondered, when beloved toys became separated from the people who loved them?

Right now, Joyce is collecting stories of beloved toys and their people on his Twitter account.  Tweet him at @heybilljoyce with a photo or drawing of your most beloved toy.  Every week, Joyce will pick one to illustrate and post, and then he will mail the drawing to you!

This is a wonderful opportunity to share an important part of our childhood with a man who has done so much for children’s literature, and who has brought a significant amount of wonder into the lives of children and adults.  Make your day a little happier and check out Bill Joyce on Twitter.

Christmas Books: Jack Frost by William Joyce

Readers of The Jade Sphinx are well aware of our high regard for well-crafted children’s literature.  The genre boasts works that demonstrate all of the best that was said and thought in the language – think Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan or The House at Pooh-Corner – and has carved out a singular literary tradition of its own.  The United Kingdom and Continental Europe owns this literary franchise (from the days of Grimm’s Fairy Tales to today’s own Harry Potter), and any serious discussion of the genre returns again and again to several key, European works.

Fortunately for us here in the United States, we have enjoyed our own golden age – but the tradition stateside has really been in fabulously-illustrated picture books.  Our great prose fantasist was L. Frank Baum (1856-1919), but most American masters have a special magic for merging word with image, and they have created art of a very high order.  For the last 50 years or so, the US has been home to some of the most fertile, creative and artistic book creators in the world. 

The fullest contemporary realization of this great tradition is the Louisiana-born William Joyce (born 1957).  We have been watching his work with great interest, and he has not lost his ability to continually surprise us.

After decades of beautiful and evocative work, Joyce has concentrated on his magnum opus, The Guardians of Childhood series, which chronicles the beginnings of such childhood gods as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the Sandman.  The series has included both prose novels and picture books, and unified his own cosmology, much like Baum’s world-building Oz books.  The latest installment in the series is the lavishly illustrated picture book, Jack Frost, created in collaboration with Andrew Theophilopoulos.

As his narrative has crossed several mediums (prose novels, picture books and a feature film), Joyce has had to juggle elements between episodes to maintain a fully-realized whole.  Jack Frost provides the bridge between the character Nightlight as seen in the books and Jack Frost, who served as the focal character of the feature film.  But as a key segment in the ongoing narrative, or as a stand-alone picture book, Jack Frost is terrific entertainment and a delightful addition of the Guardians saga.

In short, Frost tells how the heroic sprite Nightlight sacrifices his life to protect the infant Man in the Moon from the soul-crushing evil of the series villain, Pitch.  (That’s the Boogeyman to me and you.)  Nightlight saves the day, but at terrific cost.  He resurrects as Jack Frost, but has no memory of his former self or mission.

What follows is some of the most haunting and resonant themes in the Joycean canon – that of death and resurrection as well as continual change and growth.  Frost feels Olympian isolation and loneliness, and as he does, he leaves cold and frost in his wake.  This winter of the soul becomes actual winter weather for humankind – until that grief and mourning can be rechanneled into healthier, more positive energy.

Joyce accomplishes this miracle with great economy of language; he has also retained the lush blue-gold European palette of the series, paying homage to the Continental roots of many the of Guardians.

The series will continue with additional prose novels and picture books, and one wonders how Joyce will conclude his epic in the books to come.  There is the sense that the Guardians of Childhood is a mid-career summation of Joyce’s artistry, of his deepest-held beliefs, and his untiring optimism and energy. The Guardians of Childhood is a magnificent monument to a kind and benevolent genius, and an important influence on young hearts and imaginations.  More, please.

Jack Frost is available in bookstores everywhere, and is highly recommended for the young (and young at heart) this holiday season.

Words with My Daughter, by Elizabeth B. Joyce and Kayla Allen

We have frequently looked at the work of illustrator/film-maker William Joyce (born 1957) in these pages.  Today we look at Words with My Daughter, an excerpt from an upcoming book by his wife, Elizabeth B. Joyce, written with Kayla Allen.  Words with My Daughter is Joyce’s memoir focusing on the harrowing experience of dealing with a terminally ill daughter.

Mary Katherine Joyce (1991-2010) was diagnosed with a brain tumor while only a teenager.  Young Mary Katherine graduated Magna Cum Laude from Caddo Magnet High School in May 2009, later attending the Sorbonne in Paris.  She would pass away in her 18^th year.  In her memoir Elizabeth Joyce writes with candor and heart-breaking clarity on this tragedy as it unfolds, with words that reach directly to the heart.

The excerpt is available in the current issue of the Yale Review and online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/yrev.12247/epdf and it is free of cost.  It is a reading experience you will never forget.

Words with My Daughter is a very emotional narrative, filled with longing and loss, infused with that special brand of love that only a mother can provide.  Elizabeth Joyce has penned a very human document, and it is one of the most wrenching things I’ve read this year.

The accomplishment is all the more remarkable in light of Joyce’s current health.  She has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.  Now bedridden, Joyce wrote this remarkable memoir with her eyes.  To write such a book while battling ill health is an indication of her remarkable strength of character, and her indomitable resolve.

The complete manuscript of Words with My Daughter has not yet landed with a publisher, but it is only a matter of time before this profound, moving and ultimately life-affirming memoir finds a home.  It is miraculous achievement and a stunning illustration of one mother’s love.  Go to the Yale Review and read it now.

Beyond 30 (AKA The Lost Continent), by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1915)

During your correspondent’s misspent youth – back when dinosaurs ruled the earth – he spent most of his summer vacations reading the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950).

Yes … most of you have just lost what little respect for me that you may have had.  However, I believe you judge too harshly.  I say without shame and in complete candor that some of the people I met in my ramblings through ERB’s corpus are among the most important literary friendships that I have made.  Tarzan of the Apes, John Carter of Mars and the explorers of the subterranean world of Pellucidar, where intelligent reptiles live at the Earth’s core, are as real to me to this day as many actual human beings that I have met in later life.  And some of them even make better friends.

No one will argue for a moment that ERB is a prose stylist, or that his insight into human nature was a rare and subtle one.  More damming to his literary reputation are his sensibilities and taste for high adventure; most modern novels are simply slices of life that may better labeled why we are miserable now.  ERB has no patience for that type of thinking or that type of narrative.  ERB wrote adventure stories – set in some of the most exotic places on and off of the planet – and they were unabashedly plot-driven.  If you want know the plight of unhappy men in a midlife crisis, or women struggling for identity in a world redefined by feminism, look elsewhere.  Want to learn how a Civil War soldier miraculously transported to Mars, befriends four-armed green giants and battles rampaging, carnivorous white apes, and you’ve come to the right place.

Minds as brilliant and creative as Carl Sagan (1934-1996), Gore Vidal (1925-2012), Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), William Joyce (born 1957) and Jane Goodall (born 1934) have all credited him as an influence, and his contribution to global popular culture is incalculable.

Whatever the faults or strengths of his particular novels, what is most remarkable about his work is the experience of reading ERB.  The adventure novels of ERB has the remarkable quality of affecting the reader in ways unexpected and serendipitous.  Aside from (not so) simple narrative pleasures as a compelling storyline and absolutely unfettered imagination, it is impossible to read ERB without a sense of delight and of wonder.  In the world of ERB, all bets are off and most anything is possible.  There is a sense of energy, drive and, for want of a better word … pep.  ERB is a tonic; read him and grow young again.

And … ERB believed in adventure.  Much of the literary establishment has written off ERB not only for his prose, but also for his abundant output and for his choice of genre.  ERB was no hack, churning out novels at a penny a word.  Rather, ERB lived in an imaginative landscape that was a real to him as the workday world is real to us.  His Martian society, the (mostly invented) African jungle of Tarzan, and the land at the Earth’s Core all share a sense of … conviction.  In his way, ERB was a serious novelist--as his worlds mattered to him; there was a compelling urgency to his vision that is evident in his fiction.

Finally, ERB had a very definite sense of what life should be.  Unlike many contemporary writers, ERB let it be known that life was for living.  Or, as the hero in Beyond Thirty says when finding land:

"It is the nearest land," I replied. "I have always wanted to explore the forgotten lands of the Eastern Hemisphere. Here's our chance. To remain at sea is to perish. None of us ever will see home again. Let us make the best of it, and enjoy while we do live that which is forbidden the balance of our race—the adventure and the mystery which lie beyond thirty."

I was thinking about Burroughs recently when I luckily came across his book Beyond Thirty while rummaging through the invaluable www.manybooks.net.  This is a resource of public domain books available for free download – and if you want to learn more about ERB, there is no better place to start.

At any rate, I cannot think of the summers of my past without thinking, too, of ERB.  I make it a point to at least revisit one of his novels every summer, or, if possible, read one I have not come across before.  Beyond Thirty (sometimes also called The Lost Continent), was first published in All Around Magazine, and did not appear in book form in ERB’s lifetime.  It was collected in book form first in 1955, and later in 1963 with a delightful cover by artist Frank Frazetta (1928-2010). 

The story takes place in 2137, when Pan-American’s Navy Lieutenant Jefferson Turck, commander of aero-submarine Coldwater, patrols the 30^th meridian from Iceland to the Azores.  The ship’s anti-gravitation screens fail, and it drifts beyond the forbidden territory into Europe.

Europe had been off limits to Pan-America since the start of the Great War in the early 20^th Century, and Turck and a handful of loyal men find themselves in a now savage landscape that was once the civilized world.  Ladies and gentlemen, Beyond Thirty is a corker.

Most science fiction is never really about the future – but, rather, serves as a distorted mirror to the present.  Written in 1915, the world was then plunging into the conflict of the Great War.  The vast majority of the American population (and their politicians) favored an isolationist approach.  What would the world be like, ERB seems to ask, if the New World withdrew from the world stage?  It would appear as if ERB anticipated the American Century before most of the world did – for his tale tells of a unified North, Central and South America that has achieved many marvels of super-science, while war-ravaged Europe perishes when left to its own devices.

Also interesting is what ERB posits happens to a Europe ravaged by global conflict without American intervention.  In short, England descends into barbarism, the countryside now ravaged by wild animals that were once kept in zoos.  Continental Europe is now largely enslaved by Moslems from Abyssinia – who are using slave labor and whatever military expertise they have to prepare for a definitive conflict with the sleeping giant that is China.  With a little tweaking, it would seem as if the foreign policy concerns of a century ago were as pressing today as they were then.

Beyond Thirty is a remarkable and satisfying romp by one of the masters of the form.  It is an extremely short novel, and as a free download, would serve as a terrific introduction to the imagination of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Billy’s Booger, A Memoir (Sorta), by William Joyce

This week, we look at some books that make for perfect summer reading, and we start with something special.  Any new book by author, illustrator, filmmaker and poster boy for high-spirited shenanigans William Joyce (born 1957) is a cause for celebration.  But his new book – Billy’s Booger, A Memoir (Sorta) – is sufficient for bursting out into song, headstands while doing a Tarzan yell, and unrestrained fits of the hokey-pokey.

Not that Billy’s Booger is your ordinary, wonderful book.  It’s snot.  It is something quite unique – an illustrated memoir by a master of the form.  In it, he chronicles his participation in a school-book competition, and includes his first opus, Billy’s Booger – The Memoir of a Little Green Nose Buddy.  In short, this is the portrait of the artist as a (very) young man, and provides an insight into the formative components that make up Joyce’s protean imagination.

The story does snot have many fairy tale elements, despite its very traditional beginning of Once upon a time.  Or, as Joyce starts his narrative, Once upon a time, when TV was in black and white, and there were only three channels, and when kids didn’t have playdates -- they just roamed free in the “out of doors” there lived a kid named Billy.

And we’re off for an in-depth look into the Joycean imagination.  Most books in Joyce’s oeuvre exist largely as showcases for his stunning depictions of glowing, nostalgic Americana.  Billy’s Booger, however, is different – it has the full complement of stunning illustrations (some, the finest of his career), but is more of a masterpiece of design than anything else.

Consider – Joyce includes his initial foray into book creation as a special insert into the book itself, published on different weight green construction paper (and printed in what appears to be white chalk).  In addition to that, Joyce reproduces the illustrative style of 1950s-60s hygiene texts, along with loose-leaf paper doodles, and also includes several loving homages to classic newspaper comic strips.  Nor does he miss an opportunity to display his obsessive creativity and imagination: the endpapers include schoolboy doodles of the most mischievous sort, including my favorite: Replace Hallway Floors with TRAMPOLINES – why has this not happened? 

Joyce fills the book with quotations of his many obsessions, as well as many of his early books.  In what may be my favorite illustration in the book, Joyce’s depicts his younger self creating his first magnum opus.  In the background, just perceptible, is the poster from the 1933 King Kong, one of Joyce’s seminal influences.  Nearby is a model spaceship in the mode of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers (Joyce’s sense of science fiction, like that of your correspondent, is locked in 1930s art deco futurism).  On his desk is a brontosaur that may well serve as the model for his later creation, Dinosaur Bob, and doodles on his desk bring to mind his most recent book, The Mischievians.

In other parts of the book, you will see references to his earlier works, including George Shrinks, Roli Poli Oli, and perhaps even a nod to his sometimes collaborator, Michael Chabon.  There is even a little doodle that will become the logo for his animation and imagination company, Moonbot.

And Joyce simply never lets up.  In those pages where he recreates classic comic strips, I was able to spot homages to Peanuts, L’il Abner, a gorgeous Little Nemo page, Flash Gordon (of course) and Dick Tracy.  It is in his affections and deeply-rooted loves that Joyce reminds me most, perhaps, of the late Ray Bradbury (1920-2012).  Like Bradbury, one of the great writers of the last century, Joyce wears his heart and his loves on his sleeve – which is perhaps where they belong.  It is not a fashionable way of looking at the world; and certainly the last thing anyone could ever accuse Joyce of was being “ironic.”  But it is honest, and sweet and boyish and … peppy.  I can’t read Joyce (or Bradbury, for that matter) and not feel young again, or at least young at heart.  If for no other reason, Joyce deserves a medal, perhaps with an oak leaf cluster, if they have one lying around somewhere.

More literal minded readers will wonder how much of Billy’s Booger is “true.”  Well what does it mean when one promises the truth in a memoir?  Is this the actual book Joyce created in his boyhood, reproduced here without editorializing?  Did he, in fact, have such a happy relationship with his principal?  (If so, Joyce was doubly, if not triply blessed.)  And … are these pages lit by the glow of personal nostalgia?

Well … what does it matter?  Billy’s Booger is thickly crusted with enough biographical data to have more than a kernel of truth, and this is the artist’s biography as he remembers it.  Perhaps, one day, there will be a full-fledged autobiography or third-person biography to enjoy in addition to the Booger.

In a culture that values its heroes and children’s entertainment when it’s “dark,” the wonderful world of William Joyce provides a much-needed corrective.  His world is a place of sun-kissed landscapes, mid-century American optimism, and unfettered fun.  His books are for very young children, very old people, and everyone and anyone in between.

For those reasons, and many others, the book Billy’s Booger is our pick of the week.

Some Notes on the Christmas Spirit

A Christmas Illustration By William Joyce, Holiday Artist Deluxe

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy 2015 to all of our friends and readers.

We here at The Jade Sphinx are in the Christmas spirit – and have been for several weeks now, despite the fact that our neighborhood, our city and our country seem to be in a fairly dire place.  Our lives are very disrupted and in constant flux….

But we are still in the Christmas Spirit.  But, at this late date, just what does the Christmas Spirit mean? 

Well … I’m one of those people who is always predisposed to be happy.  I’m a happy man.  And, though I’m most happy at Christmas, I don’t think that’s quite the reason.

I think, for me, being in the Christmas Spirit is being aware of our time and the experience of being alive, and then enjoying it.  Being aware of passing time encourages you to be grateful for the many blessings that you have, for still being alive, for realizing that the world, no matter how terrible things sometimes are, is full of wonders and marvels.  It means reconnecting with the young person that you were, and seeing the world through the eyes of a child.  Of realizing possibilities, of feeling joy, of remembering that we are all human beings who are somehow inter-connected.  And of being happy – even when you don’t want to be.

In short, Christmas is a time for recognizing the miracle of our lives.

And, to be honest, I simply adore all the things that come with Christmas.  I love Christmas trees.  I love Christmas music – both traditional carols and popular Christmas songs.  I love the decorations and the garland and the mistletoe.  I love tinsel.  I love the traditions that are hundreds of years old that are briefly given life once again, only to immediately fade from our modern world.  I love the way people change and the kindnesses and recognition of the season.  I love the whole thing – it’s the centerpiece of my year.

Christmastime is an oasis.  An oasis not just in the course of the year, but in the course of our lives.  In the course of 2014 we did many things.  But Christmastime is a period that is completely removed from that bustle of activity.  It is a brief moment when people really do seem to be of good cheer, and to recognize one another and to live, too briefly, a little differently.  For me personally, it's a moment to reconnect with my sense of wonder, because wonder throbs through Christmastime like a powerful current hums through a high-power cable.  And, more importantly, it's a moment for me to realize that I'm alive, and that's a pretty terrific and wondrous thing.

We will resume blogging in the New Year!  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Batman says, "and I don't smell!"

We Get Letters

One of the many benefits of conducting one’s education publicly, as we try to do here at the Jade Sphinx, is that our broad range of subjects brings us a broad range of letters.  (Oh, very well … emails; but it doesn’t sound quite the same, does it?)

Without further ado, let’s dip into our mailbag in-box, and see what we have there.

You write about children’s literature a great deal.  Do you think that’s a fit subject for adult criticism?

Short answer: yes.  In fact, I’m rather surprised at the question.  There are many children’s books – the works of Andersen, Grahame, Milne and Barrie come to mind – that rank among the most important novels in the language.  More important – a truly interesting children’s book can be read on multiple levels.  I believe that children are amused by the animal shenanigans to be found in Wind in the Willows, while adults will pause at the more subtle philosophical asides and implications. And if my home were sinking into a concrete quagmire, I would salvage a great many classic children’s books from my library before I grabbed many contemporary novels.

And keeping on a contemporary note, some of the most interesting things on bookshelves today are found in children’s books.  Look at the rich imaginative world of William Joyce, for example.

Do you really hate all rock music, or is that an affectation?  And if you do, how do you avoid it?

I am nothing but a catalog of affectations.  But, seriously, yes, I have hated most all popular music from the rock era onwards.  It’s not simply that all of it is bad – though it is; or that it is very bad for you – though it is that, too; rather, it is simply because we have lost so much by embracing so little.  The palette from which rock (and funk, pop, bubblegum, rap … and all the other playground words we use to describe it) paints with sound is a very limited one, indeed.  We now find ourselves in a musical landscape which has very little room for romantic love, or simple idealism, or even, it seems, common decency.  It is no surprise that mores and society have both degraded since the advent of rock.  If a personal library is the measure of a man, then popular music is the measure of a people, and what our music says about us flatters no one.  When contemplating contemporary music, it is inexplicable to me that we do not all simply retreat from it in shame.

As for hiding from it … it is a continual battle.

I found your lamenting a lack of humor in The Iliad and The Homesman to be more than a little quirky.  Do you really think that humor can be found in most anything?

This reminds me of another reader who asked how an aesthete could have a sense of humor.  I think the only possible reply is that an aesthete must have one.

True story: my husband and I were leaving Cambodia on our way to Thailand.  We were at the airport, going through customs.  The customs agent processing my husband’s passport looked at him, looked at the document, stamped it, and nodded him on.  My customs agent looked at me, looked at my passport, looked at me, looked at my passport…. Finally stamping it and holding it out to me.  But – before I could take it, he snatched it away and held up and tiny, printed sign that read, TEN DOLLARS COFFEE MONEY.  I cocked an eyebrow at him and countered, “how much do you want for tea?”

What encounter with art changed you profoundly?

Too many to list here.  Perhaps the most formative was a one-man show by John Gay about Oscar Wilde called Diversions and Delights.  It starred Vincent Price and I went multiple times in my early teenage years.  I’ve never been the same.

When the Apollo Belvedere came to New York as part of the touring Vatican show – again in my teenage years – I stood before it for hours, transfixed.  Here, I thought, was something utterly and completely perfect in every way. 

After reading your piece on the New American Philistine, I suggest you leave your mother’s basement and walk around the real-world for a bit.

Many thanks for the breath of fresh air.  Or something.

Brickbats aside, America isn’t the Land of the Philistine, it’s the Promised Land of the Philistine.  We don’t want to hear it, and pretend that all aesthetic opinions are created equal, and that democratization of taste allows the cream to rise to the top.  But none of that, however, is quite true.  Signs of our cultural decay are all around us, and plain to see.  We are gorging ourselves on junk, and it is killing us. 

Do you have questions?  Send them in for a future column!

A Bean, A Stalk and a Boy Named Jack, by William Joyce

Proving that once again the ridiculous is often sublime, author-illustrator-film-maker William Joyce returns with a new book for young readers, A Bean, A Stalk and a Boy Named Jack.  This is Joyce’s amusing and endearing take on the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale … and perhaps another story or two, thrown in.

Joyce provides the narrative this time, allowing newcomer Kenny Callicutt to provide the illustrations.  The text is Joyce as his breezy, irreverent best.  There’s a drought in the kingdom where small boy Jack lives, resulting in a severe problem: the monarch’s pinky is now stinky.  It’s up to a small boy, an even smaller bean, and a very large stalk to travel upwards to a land of giants (including a rather endearing young giant in his bath), and make the world right once more.  Delivered in a sort of staccato, wise-guy meter, A Bean, A Stalk and a Boy Named Jack is tons of fun for the younger children of all ages.

A special word here about illustrator Callicutt: though his style is similar to Joyce, it is completely his own.  The figures have a wonderful, toy-like quality (as if Mother Goose created a line of Lego toys), and are drawn with a pastel-toned minimalism.  Callicutt first came to Moonbot, Joyce’s company, as an apprentice, and this is his first picture book.  We hope it’s the first of many.

Moonbot, of course, is Joyce’s imaginarium located in Shreveport, Louisiana.  After years as the most creative and light-hearted children’s’ book double-threat in the industry, Joyce created Moonbot Studios to nurture new talents and create extraordinary entertainment for an array of media platforms. Moonbot makes not only books, but apps, games and anything else that is a medium to carry narrative.  If you think that Joyce has created a small-scale Disney down-south, you would be right – but one more nimble, daring, irreverent and, most of all, directly connected to its legion of fans.  Expect great things from Moonbot in the years to come.

Like much of the Joycean oeuvre, it would seem that A Bean, A Stalk and a Boy Named Jack is tied into a larger, mythic universe.  Jack holds a staff much like Jack Frost from Joyce’s Guardians of Childhood series – are they the same person?  The Princess (and we must always have a Princess) is named Jill … are there possibilities there?  And will this book open up an entire series of Joyce’s fractured fairly tales?  We can only wait and see.

On top of the language-play and delightful visuals, it is always a pleasure for your correspondent to welcome the annual offering from William Joyce.  It is an indication that the holiday season is upon us, and that things will always turn out right in the end.

Even if your pinky is stinky.

Books of Wonder Hosts William Joyce

Bill Joyce in the Books of Wonder Gallery (and an N.C. Wyeth Behind Him)

During our recent (too long) hiatus, readers have asked where we have been keeping ourselves.

One of the many answers is Books of Wonder, an oasis for bibliophiles, art collectors, and people – both young and old – interested in children’s literature.  For your correspondent, who has been dutifully tracing the history of children’s literature from its Victorian Golden Age to its kaleidoscopic present, it is paradise.  For those who love this often neglected realm of literary and artistic endeavor, or who wish to share wondrous creations with the young, there is simply no better place. 

Books of Wonder has been around since 1980 – it’s an independent store owned and operated by Peter Glassman, who has managed to create a space with something for everybody.

Our recent trips have left us marveling at original illustrations by N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945) and Wizard of Oz illustrators John R. Neill (1877-1943) and W.W. Denslow (1856-1915), as well as original Disney animation cells, in the back gallery.  Also there are glorious first editions of the Oz books, along with facsimile reproductions of Andrew Lang’s (1844-1912) fairy books, as well as brand new books by today’s leading lights in the field.

The staff is always friendly and extremely knowledgeable; there is rarely a Christmas shopping trip when I do not come home laden with treasures, many often for myself.  With the holidays approaching, you cannot have a better resource.

Another great plus for the shop is the frequent appearance of the world’s finest illustrators and writers of today’s children’s books.  Recent guests have included such luminaries as Oliver Jeffers and Garth Nix.  This past weekend, Books of Wonder played host to the doyen of the field, William Joyce.

It is a tribute to his considerable artistry that an equal number of adults attend his public appearances as do children, and his recent appearance was no exception.  He spoke to a capacity crowd, regaling them with stories of his adventures at the Academy Awards (where he won an Oscar, along with Brandon Oldenburg, for his short, The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore); his adventures in school; the creation of his company, Moonbot; his efforts to launch young artists and animators into the field; and, his love of story-telling and images.

Joyce had the crowd gather closer as he showed his recent animated short, the Numberlys, chatted with aspiring artists and writers, and even provided a sneak-preview of his next animated short, an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado.  This was a stunning piece of work – daringly conceived in its overall design and dramatically streamlined to deliver maximum impact.  Be on the lookout for this, as it will rank as the finest animated adaptation of Poe, ever.

Joyce was also in town for a screening of The Numberlys at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, where it was included as part of its permanent collection, and to talk about his new book, A Bean, A Stalk and a Boy Named Jack, which he created with Kenny Callicutt.  (Watch these pages for a review next week.)  And next year, the 2015 holiday season will also see the new installments in his Guardians of Childhood series.  It would seem as if this protean talent is entering a new era of growth and creativity.

William Joyce has been a consistently energetic and enjoyable artist since his debut on the scene more than 20 years ago.  His love of fun and dedication to his craft has provided a much-needed joyous note in these days of “dark and gritty.”  The world of William Joyce is one where everyone is happy, and is a tonic (if not a benediction) young and old alike.  He is, as an artist and a man, someone who matters.

Tomorrow – Bambi. 

Who Is Your Santa, Part III: The Santa Claus of William Joyce

Today, we actually get two Santa Clauses for a single entry as we look at the work of William Joyce (born 1957).

Joyce took the publishing world by storm in the late 1980s-early 1990s with a series of picture books, including Dinosaur Bob (1988), A Day With Wilbur Robinson (1990), and his Christmas book, Santa Calls (1993).

Though Joyce has expanded his talents into film and television production, it is his picture books that I perhaps love the best, and Santa Calls most of all.  It tells the story of Arthur Atchinson Aimesworth, boy inventor, cowboy and amateur adventurer.  With his sidekick, Spaulding Littlefeets, and his sister, Esther, he goes from Abilene, Texas to Santa’s Toyland at the North Pole.  There, Esther is kidnapped by the Dark Queen and her evil elves, and it is up to Art, Santa and the rest of the gang to rescue her.

In summary, it does not sound like much – but in execution, it is nothing short of magnificent.  I have long considered Santa Calls to be Joyce’s masterpiece, and it is a story that I seem to see with fresh eyes every year.

First off, Joyce’s talents as an illustrator were never put to better effect.  The entire book is suffused with a creamy, subtle color strongly reminiscent of the Golden Age of Illustration.  (Without a publication date, anyone coming to the book with fresh eyes could easily mistake it as a work from the 1930s or 1940s.)  True to his art deco aesthetic, Joyce reimagines Santa as a North Pole dandy, complete with flowing red frock coat (trimmed with white), striped off-white vest and dashing monocle.  And his Toyland is filled with gadgets both wondrous and fabulous.  This should not be surprising – as one of Joyce’s inspirations was… James Bond.  Joyce conceived of Santa as an older gadgeteer, and his workshop much like the highly-mechanized fortresses found in the Bond films.  Double-Ho Seven, indeed.

His Toyland – where the motto is The Best of the Old, The Best of the New, The Best That Is Yet To Be – is a major feat of imagination.  Inspired by both the spacious and ornate dreamlands found in Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo strips, it also nods its head at the Emerald City of Oz.  However, with its floodlights, bow-tied elephants, Santa-shaped buildings and walking beds… it rather makes the Emerald City look like Dubuque.

The action zips along as quickly as a Robin Hood adventure, and is richly garnished with Joycean pop culture references to everything from Punjab in Little Orphan Annie to silent screen cowboy Tom Mix to the pets found in Doc Savage.  But through it all beats a warm and generous heart, and I guarantee that this overstuffed and gorgeously designed book will leave you weepy at the final revelation.  It is my favorite Christmas picture book.

Joyce has revisited Santa in his overarching cosmology – the Guardians of Childhood.  This is his effort to tell the origin story of such childhood touchstones as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, among others.  Here, Santa is a reformed Cossack bandit, who learns magic and compassion from the wizard, Ombric.  Though the series is not yet complete, we see some of what Santa will become – in the latest installment, he has already started construction of his Toyland.  This Santa is a dashing, reformed brigand.  He has a sense of style and the dramatic, and is more an adventurer at this point of the series than anything else.  Armed with swords or a robotic genie, this Santa is ready for all comers in his efforts to protect his band of Guardians, and we see the nurturing, patriarchal side of the man emerge.  It is an interesting transformation, and we wonder how Joyce will end the series.

In the film version released last year, Rise of the Guardians, Santa was voiced by Alec Baldwin, in what has to be the voice performance of the decade.  It is perfect holiday fare, and as Christmas approaches, you could not do better than spending it with the Guardians of Childhood.

One Last Santa Tomorrow!

The Mischievians, by William Joyce

Just in time for the holidays, William Joyce returns with a delightful new picture book. 

We here at The Jade Sphinx do not hide our admiration for the animator, illustrator, author William Joyce (born 1957) one of the great talents of our age.  We think that he is, in many ways, a modern-day Winsor McCay (1867-1934), an artist-showman with a distinct genius for entertaining children of all ages.  For some time he has been involved in the creation of a series of books centered on what he calls The Guardians of Childhood – creating a cosmology that explains the origins of beloved figures from childhood folklore from Santa Claus to the Man in the Moon.  (And we will review his latest prose novel in the series, The Sandman and the War of Dreams.)

His latest picture book, The Mischievians, however, is not part of the Guardian series, and is something of a palate cleanser for those following the series.  It is also completely unlike his earlier picture books, in that it is not a narrative story but, rather, a playful notebook/encyclopedia on Mischievians – the little gremlins responsible for missing socks, hanging boogers, bellybutton lint and a host of other social ills.

The book was Compiled with illuminations by Dr. Maximilian Fortisque Robinson Zooper, MD, PdD, LOL, OMD, QED, & Golly Gee.  Done while snapping his fingers in the air.  Just kidding.  Mayb  (the final e is stolen by a sneaky Mischievian).  So, we know already that we are in the realm of Joyce at his most raucous and, perhaps, his most naughty. 

The book details questions asked of Zooper by two children eager to know more about the forces at work that create smells, lose socks and enable embarrassing situations for us all.  And Zooper responds, outlining the various types of Mischievians with full-color illustrations.

The illustrations are quite wonderful, some done in Joyce’s customary luminescent Golden Age of American Illustration style, while many of the paintings of the Mischievians are completely alien to his other, published work.  These drawings, with all of their febrile energy and boundary-pushing intensity, owe more to Ed “Big Daddy” Roth (1932-2001), famed hot rod and bubblegum card illustrator.  But Joyce’s revamped sense of design is evident everywhere in the book, from the purposely faded and heavily-used cover (looking like a much-thumbed schoolbook) to the constant little hands of Mischievians everywhere, taking the very letters from the page.  Once again Joyce demonstrates that book design (and books themselves) are not static enterprises, but sources of both fun and motion.

Here’s a sample of the delights found in The Mischievians:

Question:

Dr. Zooper, you know when you look in the mirror and see a booger dangling out of your nose and you know it’s been there maybe all day and everybody has probably seen it?  Did a Mischievian do that?

Answer:

Yes!  This mischievous duty is performed by Danglers.  A small group of Danglers live in your nose.  Their only job is to lure the nervous Booger out of the nostril.  (Boogers are notoriously shy.)  Once out, Booger discover that they love to see and be seen.  When the Booger is visible, the Danglers return to their hideout in your nose.  Never by embarrassed by a Booger that is dangling.  A dangling Booger is a happy Booger.

Question:

Do I have to leave the Booger dangling?

Answer:

That’s between you and your Booger.

Here is William Joyce as you’ve never seen him before.  A hoot from start to finish, The Mischievians is good, old-fashioned mischievous fun.  Recommended for all children, and for the young at heart.

The King of Skull Island

The famed explorer and filmmaker stood before a theater of First Nighters and New York sophisticates and said, Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here tonight to tell you a very strange story — a story so strange that no one will believe it — but, ladies and gentlemen, seeing is believing. And we — my partners and I — have brought back the living proof of our adventure, an adventure in which twelve of our party met horrible death. And now, ladies and gentlemen, before I tell you any more, I'm going to show you the greatest thing your eyes have ever beheld. He was a king and a god in the world he knew, but now he comes to civilization merely a captive — a show to gratify your curiosity. Ladies and gentlemen, look at Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World.

March marks the 80^th Anniversary of one of the greatest American films ever made, King Kong.  Though that comment might drive more elitist cineastes up the wall (where they belong), it is an incontrovertible fact.  Indeed, Kong is not only a great American film, but perhaps one of the most iconic, with a closing sequence that has entered into myth and has become part of our folklore.

For readers who have never had the privilege of seeing Kong, the story is simply this: world explorer and filmmaker Carl Denham sails to an uncharted island in the Dutch East Indies to make a film about whatever he finds there. With him are Ann Darrow, a down-on-her-luck actress, and Jack Driscoll, the tough first mate of Capt. Englehorn.  What they find is a primitive tribe, separated from the rest of the island by a gigantic wall.  The natives kidnap Ann to sacrifice her to their god – Kong, a 50 foot ape.  Denham, Driscoll and others breach the wall to rescue her, finding a lost world of dinosaurs.  Capturing Kong, they bring him back to New York, where he escapes.  Recapturing Ann once again, the great ape climbs the newly finished Empire State Building, where it fights for life against a squadron of biplanes.  Once the great Kong lies dead in a Manhattan street, Denham stands over the body and says, “Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty that killed the beast!”

Though set in a then-contemporary 1933, Kong is a portal into a lost world in more ways than one.  Much of it takes place in a now vanished Manhattan peopled by wisecracking operators who speak in a particularly 30s American patios.  The dialog, by James Ashmore Creelman (1894-1941), who would commit suicide by jumping from a building, and Ruth Rose (1891-1978), crackled with an electrical energy often found in Depression-era films.  Its signature note is a combination of sentiment and cynicism and is a delight to hear.

The middle third of the film takes place on the remote Skull Island, home of the last of the dinosaurs.  The world of 1933 was a much larger place than it is today; there were many uncharted islands, and great portions of many continents were still unknown (or largely unknown) by the western world.  The notion in 1933 that one could head out into a wide-world full of the unknown and adventure was not beyond the realm of possibility.  (By the end of World War II, most of the world would not only be successfully mapped, but also closed off for various political reasons.)

To create King Kong, the filmmakers turned to Willis O’Brien (1886-1952), who created Kong and the dinosaurs through a process called stop motion animation.  Kong was, in reality, a puppet about 18 inches tall.  It was a metal, articulated skeleton that could be posed in different positions, covered in rubber, and the rubber covered in rabbit fur.  O’Brien would then position Kong, shoot one frame, re-position him, shoot one frame, and on and on and on.  The final result is that Kong would move with a lifelike grace.  The special effects for Kong are very special indeed, and 80 years later they have not lost their ability to enchant.  (In fact, I much prefer stop motion to the current CGI type of effect; stop motion always seemed to have a touch of the fantastic, and what would Kong be without that?)

For me, one of the most fascinating things about King Kong is how much of it is based on the experiences of the two men who co-directed the film: Merian C. Cooper (1893-1973) and Ernest B. Schoedsack (1893–1979).  Both were globetrotting adventurers with enough exotic experiences to put Indiana Jones to shame, tramping through Siam, Persia, Abyssinia, and the Malaysian Archipelago.  The film’s two protagonists – filmmaker Carl Denham and sailor Jack Driscoll – are actually stand-ins for the real-life filmmakers; Robert Armstrong (1890-1973), who played Denham, looked remarkably like Cooper, and Bruce Cabot (1904-1972), who played Driscoll, resembled Schoedsack.  Cooper stayed active in aviation (and was one of the founders of Pan Am) and motion pictures, working to develop the process known as Cinerama.  Sadly, he spent his declining years a rabid McCarthyite, looking for Reds in every corner of American life.  Oddly, Cooper and Armstrong would die within 16 hours of each other.  Schoedsack continued to direct, but recurring vision problems curtailed his career.  (Screenwriter Ruth Rose was also Mrs. Schoedsack.)

The genius of Kong is not just in its conception, but in its execution.  The first line in the film sets the action and starts racing to its conclusion.  It is exciting and spectacular without ever being flabby or self-indulgent; it is mythic and larger than life without ever losing the sentiment at its core.  In addition to Armstrong and Cabot, the film is wonderfully embellished by a touching and vulnerable performance by Fay Wray as Ann Darrow (1907-2004); when she died at age 96, the Empire State Building dimmed its lights for 15 minutes.

Kong would be remade twice: once disastrously in 1976 and again, with mixed results, in 2005 by director Peter Jackson.  Neither is a patch on the original.  (It had long been my dream that animator William Joyce would remake the film; perhaps some day...)

King Kong is everything to which today’s blockbusters aspire, but seldom achieve.  It’s spectacular, filled with stunning special effects, great performances, smart, funny, mythic, exciting and heartbreaking.  It is, in short, everything a movie should be.

The Art of Rise of the Guardians

Many movie-goers leave an animated film amused or moved or (all-too-frequently) indifferent, but few spare a thought for the incredible amount of work involved in creating it.

Such is not likely to happen with the current animated film Rise of the Guardians, which seems to be the one film to emerge from 2012 that may be a holiday classic for years to come.  One of the most beautifully designed animated films in recent memory, Rise brings to life several of childhood’s most cherished figures, including Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman and Jack Frost.  (Not to mention Pitch, the Boogey Man!)  Such reinvention does not happen without careful artistic consideration or much thinking and re-thinking.

Fortunately for those who cannot get enough holiday spirit (or insight into that remarkable alchemy that is animated films), a new, deluxe coffee table book is there to tell you all you need to know and more.  The Art of Rise of the Guardians details how these iconic figures were reimagined for the film, along with how the many set pieces – from the North Pole to the Tooth Fairy’s palace – were designed.  The book is written by animation historian Ramin Zahed (also editor-in-chief of Animation Magazine), who provides not only an instructive look at the creative process, but also at how large-scale animated films are conceived, produced, nudged-along, and, finally, let out into the world with the best intentions.

This film is, of course, based on the on-going series of books The Guardians of Childhood by William Joyce.  Regular Jade Sphinx readers are well-aware of our devotion for this illustrator, writer, animator, and filmmaker, who is on his way to becoming something of a 21^st Century Walt Disney.  Joyce provides the preface to the book (Alec Baldwin, the voice of Santa, penned the foreword), where he writes about the Guardians: they have vast, extraordinary domains, they are more than just benign gift-givers, they are great and magnificent heroes who would lay down their lives for innocence and the well-being of children everywhere … It will, I think, make kids believe, and for everyone else, it will remind them of how beautiful and powerful belief can be.

The book then shows everything -- from rough pencil sketches to watercolors to intricate storyboards and special effects shots – a creative team at a world class studio can do to harness that belief.  The Art of Rise of the Guardians is a lavishly illustrated book, but the art is put into perspective by a text showing the creative process.  For instance, we learn that Pitch’s lair is not only influenced by such film noir classics as Orson Welles’ The Lady From Shanghai, but also by Venice, Italy.  As Zahed writes, One couldn’t really pick a more appropriate inspiration for Pitch’s home than the melancholy, sinking city of Venice.  The decrepit walls of Pitch’s palace are sliding into the water, and the interiors are covered with mud.  Set in one of the most haunting and beautiful cities in the world, this gloomy Renaissance-style lair is a reminder of the dark turn the villain’s life took hundreds of years ago.

Though the heroes in Rise of the Guardians all have equal time, of course the star turn is that of Santa Claus, perhaps the most famous and beloved Guardian of them all.  The Art of Rise of the Guardians is strongly recommended for believers in Santa Claus (and you know who you are), animation buffs or simply people interested in how intricately-designed, large-scale movies are made.