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The sky before the storm last night. It was even yellower in person — like butter — but my iPhone...
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Gouache painting of Rapunzel
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in-infinitumetultra asked: Hi! Do you have any book recommendations? Likee, what are your top 10 fav. books? :D
Hi there! These are my personal favourites - they might not all appeal to you personally so don’t...
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Your friends use your fame, it’s kind of, like, a joke, like, a game!
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Three year-old me: oh my god dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.Me now: oh my god dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.
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me: makes a mistakeme: thinks about mistake every night for the next 7 years
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Correct.
1) Robot fight scenes are the hardest things to draw ever.
Over the past five years of working fulltime in comics, I’ve drawn a wide variety of things. Summer camps, creepy alien birds, graveyards, ships, ghosts, schools, ponies …. but nothing is as difficult to draw as two killer robots fighting to the death. Robots are hard enough to draw when they’re standing still, but drawing them flying through the air to do battle? I may have broken down weeping over my drawing desk a few times.
2) It’s important to escape the drawing desk every now and then.
I really love my job of making comics. I probably love it a little too much, because when I’m away from my drawing desk and not making comics, I’m mostly thinking about all the comics I’m going to make when I get back to the studio. This is kind of terrible and unhealthy! I got serious about running while drawing Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, and can now jog 8 kilometers at a pretty good clip. I’d like to jog 10 kilometers at some point this summer. I hate jogging in the winter (I live in the often freezing cold Canadian city of Halifax), but in the summer it’s wonderful to get outside and spend some time with things that aren’t comics. Like the sun, and grass, and the ocean and even other people! Then I can go back to making comics.
3) I need to do better with diversity in my comics.
I was on a panel at a recent comic festival about diversity in comic books, which is a huge issue. Comics struggle a lot with representing different people, different ethnicities, different sexualities, and it’s something I want to do better. One thing that was brought up at the panel was the idea that diversity shouldn’t mean just making sure that “your group” is represented, it should be that all people are represented. I thought that was really important and useful. I’ve been very focused on women in comics (we are pretty underrepresented), and I feel I’ve been successful in making lots of comics with women and girls in them, and encouraging my fellow Lady Cartoonists. Now I need to look beyond that, and do a better job of representing the diversity of the world around me.
4) Collaborating is great fun.
Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is the first adaptation I’ve done of someone else’s story. It was really fun to dive into a fully formed story where I didn’t have to do too much reshaping, and just start drawing. Prudence did most of the heavy lifting for me already! All I had to do was beat her story into graphic novel shape.
5) I am a sucker for a cute boy and a geeky girl.
So, spoilers, but two characters in Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong get together in the end. That was not in Prudence’s original story, but I snuck it in at the end because I am a geeky girl, and I like seeing the geeky girl get the cute boy. Also I may secretly want Prudence to write a Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong fanfiction (can you do fanfic of your own book?) about Nate and Holly dating. Because that would be hilarious.
Find out more about the graphic novel at the official website for Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong.
Read Faith Erin Hicks’ graphic novels now (check them out on our online catalog by clicking here)!
Do you love audiobooks? Are you a fan of YA fiction? Are you a teen? If you’ve answered yes to all three of those questions I’ve got good news for you. This summer, starting May 30 SYNC will be offering two free teen audiobook downloads. These MP3 titles can be downloaded for free via Overdrive Media Console. Titles will alternate over the summer and you’ll have seven days in which to download a book. Below is the first two weeks schedule of titles and their dates, so don’t miss it! For more information also check out the SYNC website.
May 30 to June 5, 2013
Of Poseidon by Anna Banks, read by Rebecca Gibel (AudioGO)
The Tempest by William Shakespeare, read by full cast (AudioGO)June 6 to June 12, 2013
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Book 1: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood, read by Katherine Kellgren (HarperAudio)Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, read by Wanda McCaddon (Tantor Audio)
We posted this once, we’ll post it again! Check it out!
Who’s ready for Snack & Study???
Don’t forget - 2 to 9pm, Monday through Thursday at the Oak Lawn Public Library!
Squeee, we can finally share this with the world! (well, I’ll post something later to share with the rest of the world who are still asleep, but for now….YOU GUYS, YES, YOU - CHECK THIS OUT! ^_^)
So, myself, Kate Brown and Paul Duffield have been doing a little work with the Tower of London. Yes, the Tower of London! If you’re half as much of a history nerd as we are, you’ll know how exciting that’s been for us. The scaffolding shown in the photo just went up this week. We chose a few key moments/characters from the Tower’s history for the project. Kate and I illustrated and coloured a few scenes each, while Paul pulled it all together and added design elements with the amazing arches. And the Tower have printed them up onto the scaffolding hoarding. Life sized, baby!
(and yes, all you Richard fans, that there is a life-sized Richard III - just for you <3)
The scaffolding will be up for a good few months. So if you’re planning a visit, enjoy! ^_^
Awesome stuff!
If you’re ever visiting the Tower of London, check it out!
JUST ONE DAY is getting a new cover!
One of the things I love about travel is the mystery of it; how you never quite know what is around a corner, or who a new day might bring into your life. But when you’re willing to travel openly, magical things happen. I think this cover suggests that somehow.
Read what RT has to say about the new cover HERE
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Tuesdays at 8 PM)
The ABC show we’re most curious about since , you know, The Avengers. And because it’s from Joss Whedon. The trailer didn’t give much away, and we’re not particularly in love with any of these characters (well, except Clark Gregg who is reprising his Agent Coulson role from the movies). But in this particular case, the teaser didn’t really matter — there’s no force on Earth or in Asgard that can keep us from watching every second of this thing.Read more: Fall TV 2013: ABC Upfront Preview
Will you be tuning in?
(I know I will!)
Book Review: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Recommended for fans of: The Fault in Our Stars and Anna and the French Kiss.
Reading Eleanor & Park felt like falling in love for the first time, complete with stomach butterflies, tingly palms, and growly chest monsters. Rowell’s critically-acclaimed novel is a sweet and heart-wrenching love story of two misfits, set against the backdrop of a richly authentic 1980s America.
Rowell’s prose flows like poetry and her characters were beautifully, vividly real. The relationship between Eleanor and Park is slow-burning in the best way possible. Neither character is your usual YA romantic lead (Eleanor is known as “Big Red” and Park is “the Asian kid”). Eleanor wears men’s clothes; Park wants to wear eyeliner and get blonde highlights. Eleanor is bullied at school and her home environment is unstable to say the least. Park is a reluctant part of the popular crowd, but feels as though he doesn’t belong anywhere. From the first few chapters they seem like the unlikeliest of couples, but Rowell makes it work and the reader is rooting for them from the moment they begin to bond over comic books and The Cure. If you liked the adorable romances of Anna and Etienne or Hazel and Augustus, you will love this one.
There’s some content which could be triggering in Eleanor’s story arc - sexual/emotional abuse and domestic violence. Rowell handles these themes with sensitivity and I was impressed by the decisions her characters made in the end. John Green’s glowing New York Times review completely captured my own feelings as I read this book: “Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what it’s like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it’s like to be young and in love with a book.” I already know that this book is going to be one of my favourite reads of 2013.
Rating: 5 stars
Review cross-posted to Goodreads
I’m With Stupid by Geoff Herbach
Life After Theft by Aprilynne Pike
Click the titles to find them in our catalog! :D
Across the Universe
A Million Suns
Shades of Earth
Written in GallifreyanCause that’s how I roll, yo.
Check it: use this generator to write stuff in Gallifreyan.
The post it here so we can see it!
The books that will move you, inspire you, make you cry, make you think, make you laugh. Are there any books that you would add?
Find these books at our library by clicking here!
Happy Tuesday! It’s a bright & sunny day here in Wheeling, but I’m here with a review of a book that’s sure to give you chills: Dark Triumph, by Robin LaFevers.
Sybella was raised in the house of her father, d’Albert, a powerful and ruthless noble who has murdered six wives and now seeks to steal the throne of their kingdom from its rightful ruler, the Duchess. Several years ago, Sybella escaped from her father’s brutality and entered a convent, where she swore an oath to serve Mortain, the god of Death. At the convent, Sybella was trained as an assassin, learning to strike down those that are marqued for death by Mortain. Now the abbess of her convent has sent Sybella back into her father’s household, where she is tasked with reporting her father’s plans to the Duchess and killing anyone that displays the marque of Mortain. Between her father’s cruelty and the increasingly twisted love of her brother Julian, living in her father’s household nearly drove her mad once, and Sybella isn’t sure she can survive it again. When the convent sends her another assignment, this time one of rescue, all of Sybella’s skills will be tested.
This book was AMAZING. It’s the sequel to LaFever’s novel Grave Mercy, and if you haven’t read that one yet you need to run out and get it right now! Dark Triumph has a complex plot, with lots of secrets and political intrigue, plus plenty of action and of course a bit of romance. This book does tackle some pretty dark themes, so it is recommended for more mature teen readers. This is a great read-alike for fans of the show Game of Thrones!
Rating: 5/5 stars
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Want to read Dark Triumph? Request it here!
Your Guide to Summer Movies Based on Books
(via BookRiot)
The Great Gatsby isn’t the only book getting the cinematic treatment this summer. Book-lovers, it’s shaping up to be a great summer at the movies.
YA novels are getting the star treatment, most notably, World War Z (June 21), Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (Aug. 7), Austenland(Aug. 16), and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (Aug 23)
Click Through to get the scoop on some other book-based films out this summer!
To celebrate the release of Jacqueline Green’s TRUTH OR DARE (May 14th), many YA authors have come together to share two truths and a lie about themselves for you readers to guess!
First up, we have Anna Banks, author of OF POSEIDON and OF TRITON.
(The lie is revealed in the bottom right hand corner!)
