The Ball and the Cross (or: GKC and Me)

There is a new edition of G.K. Chesterton's crazy odd-couple fantasy novel The Ball and the Cross, illustrated by me! It looks like this:

You can find the book online here.

In a 2004 speech, Neil Gaiman gives a wonderful account of his first discoveries, when he was still quite young, of the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton. Of Chesterton he says:

I was always aware, reading Chesterton, that there was someone writing this who rejoiced in words, who deployed them on the page as an artist deploys his paints upon his palette. Behind every Chesterton sentence there was someone painting with words, and it seemed to me that at the end of any particularly good sentence or any perfectly-put paradox, you could hear the author, somewhere behind the scenes, giggling with delight.

I didn't discover G.K. Chesterton, his wit and his works and his larger-than-life figure, until I was in college, but I had much the same reaction as Gaiman. Probably because, as Gaiman points out, Chesterton is an artist's writer.

I found my first Chesterton novel in the quiet basement of the college library. The book was The Man Who Was Thursday and I didn't even take it to a table; I just sat there on the floor in the aisle and read this weird nightmare story about anarchists and spies. I returned to the same spot over the course of a couple days to finish the book. I was hooked.

And so last year when my friends over at Chesterton Press approached me about drawing a set of illustrations for The Ball and the Cross, well, I wasn't too hard to convince. The book, thanks in no small part to the wonderful friendship that develops between the two main characters, remains my favorite of Chesterton's novels.

In fact, I already had character designs, dating back to 2006, for the two leads (the humorless Catholic-born Evan MacIan and the scrappy, lovable atheist Turnbull). At that time I had briefly held the opinion that this book would make a good graphic novel. I was wrong about that. But as a novel-with-pictures I think it works!

The book also features a fair number of sword fights, and a lot of fat Victorian police running around with helmets and billy clubs. Both of those things are fun to draw.

So without further preamble, here's a look at a few of my favorite interior illustrations from this edition of The Ball and the Cross:

Oh and did I mention there's a flying ship?

And as I said at the top of the post, you can find the book here:
http://www.chestertonpress.com/new-the-ball-and-the-cross-illustrated-by-ben-hatke/

Finally, here's a goofy picture of me dancing with Chesterton (it's a cover illustration for an upcoming issue of Gilbert Magazine):

Snowy Travels, New York and Angoulême

Time to answer a reader question:

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Blogger Clare says...
What happened to Mr. Hatke?
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Well, Clare, it's been a busy couple of weeks since my last blog entry. I've finished a set of illustrations for an edition of G.K. Chesterton's The Ball and the Cross (still, I think, my favorite of his crazy novels), and I've been hard at work on my next, Not-Yet-Announced graphic novel (it's very exciting and I'll be able to talk about it soon, I promise!). I've also spent a lot of time working with my friends at Mirandum Pictures on the book trailer for Zita 3. Book trailers are a funny phenomenon... But this one came out wonderfully,thanks some very talented people, and it will be online very soon.

Last week I made a trip up to New York for an actual in-person meeting with my publishers, the good people at Macmillan. The snow storm turned a one-day trip into a magical two-day adventure. There was a moment after sundown when I was walking down the snowy, take-your-breath-away cold streets of Brooklyn toward a friends apartment when I stopped to push a car out of a snowbank. And as the car crawled away on the unplowed street, I walked on, thinking about how how weather brings people together.

Oh, and this arrived yesterday! It's a really real thing now:

And finally here I sit, surrounded by half-packed bags as I get ready to go to Angoulême. I've been studying French furiously and, I'm afraid, to very little effect. Quelle tristesse!

So if France and beautiful comics are your thing, stay tuned for my Angoulême report! There will be pictures. Oh, there will be pictures...

Zita the Spacegirl.com BACK ONLINE.

That's right: after several years zitathespacegirl.com is back online! Big thanks go out to my friend Bill for his help in turning my flaky ideas into a functioning site.

In celebration of this auspicious occasion I've posted a new short (3 page) ZSG comic which you can read by clicking on the image below:



I'l be updating and adding to the Zita site in the coming months, so feel free to bookmark it. And for those of you following the Jail Comic, fear not! I'll be posting another installment tomorrow.

Oh and by the way: Here is a link to a cover of G.K. Chesterton's book The Napoleon of Notting Hill as illustrated by Hayao Miyazaki! I had heard about this book cover before but until now I'd never actually seen it. Thanks to Miss Mary MacArthur for finding it!

Bonus Update: I will be at SPX in Bethesda MD, Saturday Sept. 11. I'll have COMICS. More on this soon.

Chesterton Once Again

Man, this guy just doesn't take a break! This is actually a commissioned piece that I recently completed and I ended up pretty happy with (drawn in sepia pencil):



This drawing took me two attempts to get right. The first version, done in pen and ink wash, was horrible. Like eye-curdling horrible. It was SO horrible that I scanned it and then filed it as "the worst thing I've ever drawn." I think it's a little bit like the tiny sliver of Kryptonite that Superman gives to Batman -a fail-safe to be used if Supes ever gets out of control. If I get over confident in my art (or if I become an evil dictator) all I have to do is take a quick look at this awful picture and then I will be too busy weeping to do any more harm.

A Short Chestertonian Post

Here’s a small illustration I made for Gilbert Magazine for an article celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first Father Brown detective story.


You know, someday I may try my hand at a group-photo-style picture of the many English detectives. the whole gang would be there regardless of time period. I would even include Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby from the Midsomer Murders.

A Grab Bag of Blog

This is an illustration that recently drew for an Australian periodical called The Record. It had been awhile since I had drawn either Chesterton or Father Brown, and it was fun to revisit both:

And here is another compilation of little sketches and studies -this one featuring Lion-O! Poor Lion-O had the most unfortunate costume of all the Thundercats. Though Tygra wasn't going to win any prizes either.



Finally, there are several comics-related links I’ve been meaning to post. Here is batch one:

Sailor Twain -a webcomic by First Second's own Mark Siegel.

Zahra’s Paradise -another webcomic from First Second. This one about a bloggers quest for his brother in Iran. The comic is running in seven languages.

Kate Beaton’s St. Francis Comic -Francis loves the birds!

Matt Phelan answers five questions about writing and reading the graphic novel. Remember: "the silent panels are to be read just as carefully."

And a happy (or at least tolerable) monday to all! I have something pretty cool to post soon...

The Ebay Plunge

Edited Post: Only hours into this and I've pulled two listings. I will let the Gilbert cover run it's course. The other two pieces ...they have a different destiny.

Sorry for flip flopping on the issues.

The Merchandise: Part One

Getting a surprise in the mail is certainly among Life's Simple Pleasures. I'm lucky in that I seem to get a lot of surprises in the mail. Although, I should admit that one of the reasons I get surprises in the mail is because I am pretty good at Forgetting About Things. People who forget stuff generally get a lot of surprises.

Anyway I had completely forgotten about the American Chesterton Society's project of turning this magazine cover I illustrated for them:



into an actual 3-dimensional reality. So it was great to find this in the mail the other day:



I think the sculptor did a better job than I did. These great ornaments are available for purchase on the ACS Merchandise Page (They alo have a GKChesterton Frisbee).

And in other news: You may have noticed the title of this post was "The Merchandise: Part One. That's because I'm thinking of auctioning some of my recent artwork on e-bay in an effort to fund some ...costume-related activities. Hmm...