Garth Nix in-conversation

Garth Nix‘s new novel, The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, is just about to come out! He’s doing an online event through Where The Wild Things Are, and I’m very excited to be the person who gets to ask him questions!

I’ve been a fan of Garth Nix for a long time (and although I haven’t illustrated his books, I have illustrated Frogkisser character cards for him, and he introduced my Flyaway launch for Avid Reader, so it’s a huge honour to (a) get my hands on this book and (b) ask him about it, for a dedicated period of time during which he cannot get away!

It’s on 1 October 2020, 6:30pm AEST (Brisbane) time, and you can sign up through the bookstore website: https://wherethewildthingsare.com.au/events/garth-nix-the-left-handed-booksellers-of-london

Where the Wild Daleks Are

This instalment of The Dalek Game is for Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. I wanted to like the film, but couldn’t. It was very beautiful and atmospheric, and probably a very good film – but it didn’t have any of the brief wild joy and sturdy comfort of the original story, and I couldn’t watch it and forgive that loss (which was, I think, what the film may have been about). Hook came closer to the flight/adventure/return, and sometimes Labyrinth gets a little of it – but really, Labyrinth is best paired with Sendak’s Outside Over There, which in turn has more of the distant eeriness of the Wild Things film.

My favourite Sendak story, however, is still-and-always One was Johnny, for easily-frustrated little Johnny who “lived by himself and LIKED IT LIKE THAT!”

In other news: Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #52 is out, with a story and two illustrations by me (and some by other people) – I talked about them and the process here. And now I must run and eat popcorn and toast marshmallows and draw.

You make my heart sing…

My contribution to ArtSpark Theatre’s altered photograph art challenge. Old photograph altered in Photoshop. I’ve been wanting to do something Sendaky (a side-effect of admiring the lovely art on Terrible Yellow Eyes), but even trying to echo Sendak’s techniques in Where the Wild Things Are gives me so much respect for what he could do.

My favourite Sendak, however, is still One was Johnny.