There goes the neighborhood.

Salutations!

Walk right in.  Sit right down.  Daddy let your mind roll on.  Whatever the heck that means (if anyone happens to speak 1960s, drop me a line and hip me to the jive).  If "Daddy let your mind roll on" means "read this here update of 'Saturday' the book", well then...good news!  'Cause that's exactly what these words are.

Right now (as in "currently", not right this second of course) I'm working on the cover.  I've read that the author isn't supposed to do the cover because the publishing company will likely want to design it for optimal marketing stuff and nonsense.  But I always figured drawing the cover would be more fun than a bouncy castle full of puppies and margaritas,  and I wasn't about to pass the buck to someone else.  As luck would have it (I want to see how many colloquialisms I can cram into a single update), it is more fun than said bouncy castle.  And slightly less messy.

Aside from working on the cover, I'm also still researching agents and publishers.  And the more I read, the more I understand that it's going to take a while to see the book in stores.  In my mind, where I do the lion's share of my thinking, I would finish the book and then shortly thereafter it would appear magically on shelves.  However, this expectation turned out to be slightly unrealistic.  C'est la vie.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a little more of "Saturday" than usual.  So, I've mentioned that the book is huge, right?  It's 11" x 17".  Which is way bigger than most books you'll find.  That was part of the point.  I wanted a book in which you could get lost.  Most of the pages are made up of multiple panels, many of which I've shown you in these posts.  Some of the pages, though, are giant, full-page spreads.  You turn a page and there's just one massive drawing that fills the whole thing.

Sometimes Herge would do that (he wrote and drew "Tintin").  I still remember the feeling of awe the first time I turned the page and saw one of the full page illustrations in "The Crab with the Golden Claws".  Well, you've heard the quote "Good artists create, great artists steal?"  If stealing the idea for full-page spreads makes me a great artist, then man, am I talented.

This is the view from the McGreevy's front porch.  It's what India is looking at on Saturday morning when her parents kick her out of the house.

Here's the full, finished page:

Cheers.