Meet Tobias.

Dummy booking it up. That’s life these days. It’s the first time since I finished the punk book illustrations that I feel my creative muscles flexing at their optimum level. There’s just something about stringing several ten hour days together that makes me feel like I’m actually doing what I should be. I know it’s not my usual pen and ink stuff, not yet, but it’s still “work” and seeing page after page of sketches turn into a book gives me confidence. And given the state of the publishing world, I’ll take all the confidence that I can get.


I’m going through pens and markers like they were Pixy Stix. I’m half regretting my decision to work at a finished image size and on 100% cotton paper (the stuff just soaks up the ink), but I keep thinking that this is all about putting my best foot forward. If everything goes well, I can use these dummy sketches as a rough layout guide for the actual illustrations as they are proportionately the same as the book I wish to make. That’s something I learned from my stab at the Easter Island/Rapa Nui picture book/dummy book, my failed project of last summer. My illustrations were huge and yet my dummy book was relatively small. The choice of scale was all about speed. I wanted to make the dummy book quickly and get it out the door because I was so convinced that I’d made the coolest book. In the end, my hast led me nowhere. And I didn’t even have rough sketches that would translate, quickly and easily, into the full sized illustrations. It was a short cut that didn’t pay off and I’m not about to make the same mistake twice. Regardless of what happens with this Salem book, whether it goes the first publisher to look at it or if we have to shop it around for who knows how long, as soon as it has a home, I will be ready to illustrate it. No wasted time, no wasted effort. If the quality of my work is to improve, I must scrutinize every step of my working method and push myself harder with each project, then see where things can go. To worry about what an editor might think about this page or that idea or how I made my dummy book is silly. I haven’t made enough money in this business to worry about much of anything. I’m going to do what I do and look for people who like what I produce and want to make it better.

And then, hopefully, you guys will enjoy it.


Part of my current crazy, which is the best way to describe sitting at my desk from sun up to sun down, is my new friend, critic and confidant, Tobias. Well, he’s not really new, he’s been living on my desk for a few months, but he’s new to the book making process.

I rescued him from our aquarium. Mandy keeps trying to introduce betas (one a time, mind you, and not all at once because that would turn into a bit of a brouhaha with bloody fins flying everywhere ) to the rest of our fishy world. Since we have friendly fish, everyone gets along fine… the trouble comes from the current in the tank, which has proven to be too great for the betas who have spent the better part of their existence sitting in tiny, stagnant bowls at the pet store. Sure, male betas are all kinds of aggressive when they’re going to throw down with another male in a fight to the death in the hope of macking on a lady beta, but otherwise, they’re the 90 lb weakling of the aquarium world. So, rather than let Tobias die of a massive coronary while battling the Gulf Stream in our 30 gallon tank, I put him in a decent-sized bowl on my desk.

It’s so much nicer talking to a fish than talking to myself. Instead of saying “I’m such an idiot!” when I mess up, which prompts me to look around and wonder about the state of sanity; I can say “Tobias, I’m such an idiot!” and he jumps, Tobias is easily startled, then swims in little circles until such time as he decides I’m not likely to bother him again, and in those seconds, I realize that I’m not an idiot and that I’m not losing my tenuous grip on reality. I’m just a guy at desk making teeny marks with ink on paper who occasionally makes a mistake just like everyone else. Over the last few months, Tobias and I established a connection. Plus, he’s much less angry than I am, which is kind of funny because he’s the sort of fish who is supposed to get all pissed and puff out his gills and Grrr up his bowl, while I’m the kind of artist who makes it his “thing” to define the often hidden nobility of humanity. Obviously, I have some things to learn from peaceful Tobias.