The Story of the Fox (1937)

 Today I sat down to close some browser tabs. You know the ones—you find something that makes you think “oh, oh, that’s interesting. I will share that somewhere” But instead of sharing the link or bookmarking the site you just keep the tab open. Any day now you’ll get back to it. But you don’t. You keep the tab open for months. And when you finally think things are getting just too ridiculous you sit down meaning to close tabs and then, somehow, you have even more tabs open. 

Well, this time around the first tab, the one that’s been open for ages, was something I’ve been meaning to share here. Last October I posted a Youtube link to a 1920 film called Der Golem. Sometime after that I happened upon this fantastic 1937 stop motion film recounting the original Reynard stories. It’s wonderful:

I hope you enjoy it as much as I will enjoy having one less tab open on my computer. 

And while we’re on the subject of Reynard, here is a look at a close-to-final version of the title page for Reynard’s tale:

This illustration originated as an attempt at a cover, but the final cover will be a little different. I liked this picture, though, so we moved it to the title page. 

Sweet Drolatic Dreams

A very peculiar book has recently caught hold of my magpie mind. I discovered it thought the Public Domain Review's Instagram account. It’s a book from Renaissance France, right around the time Montaigne was kinda-sorta inventing blogging (well, okay, inventing the rambling personal essay). The book is called The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel and it’s so wonderfully weird and I love it.

Published in 1565, Drolatic Dreams is just a big parade of goofy-ass monsters that look like they crawled out of Hieronymus Bosch’s ears after a hard night’s drinking with H. P. Lovecraft and Alexander Dumas (there's a swashbuckling, cavalier look to many of them). There’s no text beyond the introduction, just creatures galore. 

It all just goes to show that weird books and zine culture were right there with everything else in the wild early days of publishing. 

You can read more about the book here, and you can flip through the whole thing here.* 

I’ve already copied out a couple of the creatures in my notebooks (sort of a #drawthisinyourstyle). Here's one:

One of the best things about finding this book is that it felt like a missing piece for one of the weird side projects I’ve been slowly (slooowly) fiddling with over the last year. Everything suddenly snapped into focus and the story felt more alive. That’s a good feeling.

But more on that later…

*For some reason I think leafing through the Drolatic Dreams pairs well with this playlist based on the travels of Ibn Battuta.

A Video that Helped

 The months immediately following Ida’s death are a bit of a blur. It’s hard for me to remember what happened when. But there were two very important things that happened with work. First, my publisher seemed to sort of fast-track an agreement for a third Julia’s House story (the one that would become Julia’s House Goes Home). Second, my friends Zack and Jerzy swooped in and, with some help from Colin and Rose and a few other friends, wrapped me up in the project of making a short music video, with puppets, to the tune of a nearly forgotten Halloween song called “The Mummy’s Ball.”

There came a moment when I needed to work, and I needed to just lose myself in creating something, to keep from falling beneath the waves. And my friends seemed to know that. They seemed to know it was time to just make a little magic with cardboard and markers and cheap craft supplies. 

The Mummy’s Ball was made so quickly, and with the help of such dear friends, that I didn’t even have time to feel guilty and horrible for doing something resembling fun. 

That’s why this video will always and forever be tremendously special to me: 

The Mummy's Ball - Spooky Halloween Music Video (with puppets!) from Mirandum Pictures on Vimeo.

I must wrest the life-giving word from the dreaded spirit Astaroth

 It’s October. There’s no denying it. And I have a movie recommendation for you, dear reader. It’s a 1920 silent film called Der Golem wie er in die Welt kam (The Golem: How He Came Into the World). 

Will you like it?

Well. 

I'm pretty sure that I saw Edward Scissorhand’s when it came out in 1990—if not then I saw it pretty shortly after, and I confess that it left me kind of lukewarm. But the thing about it that I loved, the thing that burned itself into my visual upbringing, was the scene where Peg (the mother) is wandering through the inventor’s mansion on the hill, up the steps and into the ruined rafters where she finds Edward crouching in a shadowy corner.* That scene is pitch perfect and gorgeous and I will love it forever. 

The set of the inventor’s mansion, with it’s otherworldly curves and angles, is what really sells it. It’s almost entirely black and white, textured like paper mâché, and perfectly balanced between whimsy and menace. It’s dark fairytale perfection from a world where every row of gingerbread rooftops is also a set of pointed teeth.

And I think that set design and that scene owe almost everything to German expressionism and, I bet, Der Golem in particular. 

So if you liked that scene in Edward Scissorhands, then I bet you'll like Der Golem. 

The caveat, of course, is that it’s a silent film from 1920, so the editing is slower than we're used to and while the sets and costumes are perfect, the Golem himself looks more goofy than frightening. But, if you’re in the right mood, I think it’s a great (and spooky!) piece of art and history. 

OH! And the biggest shout out to my pal Zack Giallongo who introduced me to Der Golem. 

*the other thing that I love from Edward Scissorhands is, of course, Danny Elfman’s score, which plays on a loop in my heart from October through December. 

Frog Pond

 So my dad started a youtube account.

What's that?

Why yes, it is a funny time to have parents, isn't it?

He’s an architect, this dad of mine, and so that’s what his videos are about. It’s a series of short stories and tidbits from the history and practice of architecture. Here’s one that I like a lot—it’s about various methods used to adjust the movement in very tall buildings:

Here’s another one about the legend of how the Corinthian column developed and how that eventually lead to one of the most famous drawings in history:

I love these videos. I love them because some of them surprise me and also because some of them—the rivalry between Bernini and Borromini, for instance—are stories I’ve heard many times before (though, being a dad myself, I realize now that part of the job is telling the same story a thousand times but always with the same invincible innocence, like it’s brand new). 

I also love these videos because I love my dad, and these are very much him.*

It was my dad, of course, who first taught me that drawing is not just fun, but a very fundamental and powerful way to communicate. When I’d ask a question he more often than not he’d grab a notecard and a pen from his front shirt pocket and draw the idea out (he always wears button-down shirts, often pink, and always with pens and notecards in the pocket).

So if you enjoy these, feel free to like and subscribe.

*Okay, I also love that you can see the full series DVD collection of Thundercats in the background, but you didn’t hear that from me. 

Talk It Up

Hey friends.

Last week I made mention of an upcoming project that was "unlike anything I've done before." Well that project is launching today -it's a podcast called Galaxy of Super Adventure!

GoSA is an art-of-storytelling podcast that I'm co-hosting with my friends Zack Giallongo and Jerzy Drozd. Some episodes will be more technical (art tools, plotting, working on licensed characters) other episodes will explore more purely fun topics (80's fantasy movies, Role Playing Games).

And with Halloween almost upon us our first episode is all about MONSTERS. Have a listen:

March of the Wolverines

Last week, for reasons that are a bit of a mystery even to me, I drew a whole series of pictures of the Marvel mutant hero Wolverine dressed in a series of other characters clothes. Wolverine has never been the worst dressed character in comics (there are many contenders for that title), but ol' Logan has never had the best luck with clothes either.

Case in point: when I was a very young Ben Hatke I collected X-Men comics. I recently came across this article on io9.com that was a look back on an issue where the X-Men spend most of their time lounging around the pool at Professor Xavier's mansion. I remembered that I OWNED this comic. For most of the issue Wolverine (as drawn by Jim Lee) is sporting very short cutoff jean shorts.

That comic made Very Young Ben Hatke think, briefly, that it would be cool to roll his own jeans shorts way, way up. Very Young Ben Hatke was SO, SO WRONG about this.

And so maybe my reasons for putting Wolverine in a series of wrong costumes aren't all that mysterious after all. Maybe it's just a little payback.

Here's the whole series, beginning with °Weepy Wolvie° in his classic 90's duds:

And the last one, of course:

No hard feelings, bub.

Children's Choice

Just popping in with a few links that will hopefully be of interest.

First, The Return of Zita the Spacegirl is a finalist in the Children's Choice Book Awards.

Zita is one of of the five finalists for book of the year in the 5th and 6th grade category. Anyone can vote online for these awards, just follow this link and pick the book you like best in the category (it doesn't have to be mine).

Second on my list of things to share is this: at the end of May I will be heading to New York for Book Expo America. I will be doing all sorts of things at BEA but the coolest thing I will be doing is joining an unbelievable group of comics creators for a panel discussion called "Comics are Awesome." That's a very broad title, isn't it? Maybe I will take the role of devil's advocate and insist that comics are not awesome. Not awesome at all.

I'll be sharing the stage with Jeff Smith! And Jenni Holm! And RAINA! Raina is not only one of the very best creators out there, but she's given me granola bars in cities all over the country. I forget to eat at conventions sometimes. I wonder if that will come up at the panel.

Click here for a bit more about the event.

Finally, here is a lovely short piece about reading graphic novels aloud with children (a thing that can be challenging), by a mother who particularly enjoyed reading Zita with her daughter.

And so ...Spring is here! This is what I'm looking forward to:

A Few Zitas More, Plus Twitter and Goodreads

Tomorrow afternoon (that is, Wednesday the 5th of November), from 4:00 to 4:30pm, I will be participating in a live twitter chat on behalf of the Miami Book Fair (which I'll be attending, and you can find more information about that RIGHT HERE). The idea is that you can use the hashtag #MBFIBenHatke to ask me questions. And I will try to answer those questions. I've not done this type of thing before, so I'm a tiny bit nervous. I feel like I'm co-hosting a text-only party. Please feel free to come! Bring chips!

On twitter, I am @BenHatke.

And another bit of social media news: I just found out that Julia's House for Lost Creatures is a finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards for picture books. If you use goodreads, please consider voting for your favorite picture book (they are all good choices).

And now, here's a few more of my favorite Zita the Spacegirl costumes from Halloween:

This Zita had a screed candy pail!

This little Zita had an impressive Robot One candy collector. Here's a closer look:

Inktober: A Wellspring of Wizards

Well, it's become apparent that I am not going to end the month with 31 wizards, but this has been a very invigorating process nonetheless. I feel like, with this inktober wizard project, I've been stretching my creative muscles a bit. It's a good thing because all my book projects right now are in the writing and development phase -it's all text files and notebooks full of scribbles. So it's good to be pushing in different directions.

Here's the latest batch of characters from my world of Outlaw Wizards:

Crowquill isn't really a wizard at all. He's a government agent in a ludicrous disguise, sent by the nobility to spread dissent among the wizards. For if there's one thing the nobles fear it's that the exiled magic users will begin working together.

Mighty Rael isn't a wizard either. She was a contented ex-soldier-turned-farmwife until the day her husband was killed by crab-like mage. Now she wanders the Outlands hunting down magic users, and wearing the claws of the wizard that took her true love... (so dramatic!)

Emelia the All-Seeing is a professional treasure hunter and dungeon delver.

And finally there is Emerit the Handsome who is a very powerful wizard, but regrets ever starting down the path of magic because every time he casts a spell he becomes just a little bit smaller.

And that's all for this batch.

In other news, here is a link to a fun photo interview that I did with a book club at the Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle.

And here is an illustrated column in the New Yorker, titled The Endangered Bookstores of New York which has stories from the bookstores across the city and makes a brief mention of me at the very end.

Okay! That's all for now.

UPDATE: Oh! I meant to leave you with a link to this crazy video about the Great Martian War. Discovered via Michael Gagne. It's crazy in the best possible way.

Missed Events and Whispers of a Short Film

I apologize to anyone who missed seeing me this last weekend at either the Princeton Book Festival or the Baltimore Book Festival. I seem to have run myself into the ground a bit.

The past few weeks have been crowded. A road trip to Indiana to visit my family was followed by the Baltimore Comic Con, which was followed by a whirlwind 3 days of shooting a short film (more on that in a bit), which was followed by SPX. I missed the first day of SPX to something like food poisoning, but I pulled myself together for the second day (and what a second day it was. It reminded me just how nice a show is SPX). After SPX we had some awesome guests for a few days and then I had a day of school visits and car trouble.

Then I just couldn't get out of bed.

The little cough I'd been trying to ignore finally blossomed into Something Terrible and I have nothing but gratitude for the dead car battery that kept me from going to New York this weekend. And now, thanks to a nice doctor and a round of antibiotics, I am just starting to feel like me again. I've made promises to rest a lot this week. Because this weekend is the beautiful Baltimore Book Festival. I'll be speaking there at 2pm (info here) and probably doing a reading of Julia's House for Lost Creatures.

But what's this about a short film? I hear you asking. Well...

My friends over at Mirandum Pictures have been putting together a series of scary shorts for Halloween. I helped them with a couple of the shorts and then, somehow ...I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I found myself writing my own short. And then I found myself directing the short.

It's a small thing, only a touch over 3 minutes long, but it was an absolute blast to make. As you'd expect it leans heavily toward fantasy, and I hope it catches the flavor of Halloween. I ought to be able to share it here in early November so stay tuned for that. But for now here's the title treatment and a production still:

Robot Comic #30

Okay, Robot Comic Number 30 is special. It's made up entirely of animated gifs AND I APOLOGIZE FOR THAT. I promise I won't make a habit of this.

But you see, Robot Comic Number 30 is also a special announcement...

Thanks right! Our Little Robot is getting his very own book! If you want the whole scoop, head on over to The Beat and read all about it.

Cookies and Cards

The Memory Dragon orders, one and all, have shipped! Everyone should receive their cards within the next couple of days (except for you international orders. Arrival time on those is a mystery to me).

Anna's hand-sewn bags, with their gold lining and dragon-scale patterned exteriors, looked very fine and the cards printed beautifully this time around thanks to National Media Services in Front Royal. I will definitely be producing some more items with their help in the future. Posters, perhaps? Maybe a poster of the image below? (you can click on the image below to biggerize):

And here, for everyone interested in process, is a little gif showing how this image developed from a rough pencil sketch to the final colored piece:

Finally, look what I found online the other day!:

A bakery in Austin, Texas, Curious Confections, was asked to make custom Zita the Spacegirl sugar cookies and they look awesome! Thanks Google alerts!

Snowy Days, Podcasts and Watercolors

Note: This is the LAST CALL for the Memory Dragon game! I’m going to close down the shop late tomorrow or early Friday and start putting together the orders so that I can get them out in time for Christmas. So if you were hoping to nab a copy you can still CLICK HERE TO ORDER.

And now back to our regularly scheduled blog post:

The Hatke Family has been snowed in to our little farmhouse since Sunday. The girls have enjoyed days of snowmen and sledding and snowball fights (and hot chocolate and movies). I’ve enjoyed those things too, and I’ve also taken the opportunity to catch up on some freelance work and commissions. Here are some ink-and-watercolor seed packet designs I worked on for a friend:

And here is a Christmas card design another friend commissioned. This one was fun to put together:

Finally, yesterday I had the opportunity to have a fun Skype conversation with the fantastic Jerzy Drozd for his Comics Are Great podcast. We talked about writing heroes, depicting the guileless good guy, the recent Superman movie and much more. Here’s a link to the show:

COMICS ARE GREAT EPISODE 92.

Claus the Mighty

His beard is white, his sword is sharp, his magic is thunder:

Nicholas was...

A bishop in warmer lands, uncounted lifetimes ago. Now blessed (or cursed?) with something like immortality he wanders the Frozen North doing small kindnesses, leaving small gifts, vanquishing terrible things.

And all the time he waits.

He waits for the day when the cities crumble and the Dark Things rise and he is allowed to charge, laughing, into the last great battle.

Ho!

Ho!

Ho!

---

Happy Saint Nicholas Day! The format of the description above was taken from Neil Gaiman's hilarious, dark interpretation of Santa from the very short story "Nicholas Was..." which you can read here. By format I mean it starts with "Nicholas was" and ends with "Ho, ho, ho."

Good ol' Saint Nick, patron not just of children but also of archers! And thieves. I take heart. This guy was made to look after the Hatke House.

Oh, and thanks to everyone who ordered a copy of Memory Dragon! There's still plenty of time to nab a copy of your own!

Angoulême!

Well, the news is official: Zita the Spacegirl (or more precisely, Zita la fille de l’espace, the French edition published by Rue de Sevères) is one of the official selections for this year’s Angoulême festival! And I will be going to France to attend!

Angoulême is one of the largest comics festivals in the world and attending the event has been on my dream-list for some time now. France has quite possibly the strongest comics-as-literature culture in the world and some of my very favorite artist/writers (or at least their publishers) will be at the festival. I can’t wait.

Here's the list in The Comics Reporter, and here's another article about the selections (and Hawkeye).

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One other bit of comics-related news: I was recently the guest on Mathew Winner’s Busy Librarian Podcast. Here is a link to the episode where you can listen to me talk about the graphic novel-making process, picture books and maybe hear a little bit about the project I’m currently working on. Matthew has interviewed several of my creator-friends including Zack Giallongo, Dave Roman, Colleen AF Venable and Matt Phelan. It’s all here:

www.lgbpodcast.blogspot.com

Mountain Hiking Comics

Over the weekend my friend Jason and I took his kids and my kids for an 8 mile hike up Old Rag Mountain. It's one of the best hikes in our area, full of boulder hopping and rock scrambling and an incredible view from the top. I made some comics about it:

Another bit of news: I was recently interviewed on the New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy podcast. If you want to listen to me yak for an hour about comics and picture books and storytelling and what the term "all ages" means to me then, by all means

CLICK THIS LINK.

Commissions Update: Still working away on these! Just a few more to go...