A quick intro: Do you remember #IllustrationFriday? It was a project where once a week (on Friday) the Illustration Friday moderator would post a theme word. Illustrators, cartoonists, graphic designers from all over the internet would post a piece of work from their collection that best matched that theme onto their blog and submit a link to the main Illustration Friday website (don’t go there now, it’s all crypto currency and Russian brides). The result was a long, long list of art, the perusing of which would take up my entire Friday. It was fun and inspiring and it’s one of the things I miss most about the old internet. As I’ve seen more and more creative people grow disillusioned with existing social media platforms (Bluesky excepted), I’ve seen some wondering if they should maybe try blogging. If you’re one of those people, I invite you to write a blog post on the theme of “Book Inscriptions” and share the link in the comments below. Here’s mine:

Marjory Ruderman posted about inscriptions over on her blog and that got me thinking about the books in my collection that are signed and how I feel about them. In short, I’m a sucker for any book inscribed by its creators. I will admit, it kind of bugs me to have a book signed by either only the author or only the illustrator so I tend to pick up books inscribed by author-illustrators. For example:

This book is inscribed to “Sophie” and I kind of love that. Sophie is one of my favorite names and it seems, here, particularly well suited to this book. Besides which, I don’t figure I’ll ever find a book inscribed to a “Jerrold”. Also of note is Molly Bang’s handwriting. Isn’t it lovely? Interesting penmanship always catches my eye. Speaking of which, guess who’s signature this is?

Give up? It’s no other than Levar Burton’s!

I have no idea how long it takes Levar Burton to sign his name but I got this book as part (if I recall correctly) of a Hurricane Katrina relief fundraiser and I imagine he must have signed several hundred of these as the donation perk. His poor wrist!

Here’s another favorite. A book I picked up from an Andrea Tsurumi book signing and which I had inscribed to my students:

I used this book fairly regularly, either for lessons about environmental stewardship or marine biology, both of which were always a big hit in my classroom, but the fact that I met an ACTUAL author always impressed the kids.

I’ll wrap this up with my most recently acquired inscribed book, one I picked up just last weekend at a used bookstore up in the redwoods. SHAKE, RATTLE & ROLL by WHO NEEDS DONUTS? author illustrator, Mark Alan Stamaty.

I’m always delighted to find a signed book but this one was extra special because the inscription came with a doodle!

But what I like most about this is that there’s some kind of a story going on here. At some point, someone named Eero (great name!) claimed this book from someone named Tim Ferguson (another great name!). Eero wasn’t worried about the provenance of this book and preserving the authenticity of the original inscription. Eero’s bookplate, with its inscrutable squirrel-beaver, is pasted right over top of the previous owner’s name and claimed the book as their own.

This made me think of that Maurice Sendak anecdote where a parent wanted their kid’s copy of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE signed, but the kid was less than impressed and only said to the master of children’s illustration, “Don’t crap up my book!”

THIS, actually, is my greatest worry as I get closer and closer to JIM’s launch. I have been practicing not just my signature, but my tag line as well. I’ve been toying with the idea of writing “Viola Swamp is watching you!, -Jerrold Connors” and “The Stupids say Hello! -Jerrold Connors” but those aren’t my characters and it feels weird to tack them on to my signature. At the moment I’m thinking “Hooray for James Marshall! -Jerrold Connors” but I’lll probably just wing it when the time comes and hope I don’t crap up anyone’s book.

Starting a tradition of celebrating my birthday by posting the greatest single comic panel of all time:

FOX ALL WEEK is on Fuse 8 n’ Kate!

I am thankful and honored Betsy paired this book with mention of my own but the star of the show is undoubtedly Fox. I won’t spoil the ending of the podcast by revealing what rating Kate and Betsy gave this book, but I will say I loved hearing how Kate described Marshall’s Fox (Kate had asked for a book where a Fox was the hero of the story):

“So, foxes are usually portrayed as the villain and I feel like we see different sides of this fox to make him a more three-dimensional character. Sure, he’s deceiving in the first story when he lied about being sick but we also see him being remorseful when he admits to lying about smoking cigars. We see him being helpful when he makes dinner for his mom and sister, we see him make mistakes—like giving away his grandma’s chocolates to a complete stranger. And finally, we see him being supportive of his friend who got braces. So, I think this is better than seeing a fox as a hero, we see the Fox as being a relatable character instead.”

So good.

To add to the discussion, here’s a link to 2014 James Marshall Fellow Sandra Horning’s blog post where she dives into the dummies for FOX ALL WEEK, taking special note of what Marshall considered a perfect funny ending.

The mystery of who Edward Marshall is is uncovered in another of Sandra’s blog posts, here. (I could tell you who Edward is, but what fun would that be?)

I’m offering four hours of my time for the #KidlitForCeasefire auction. I’m calling it a mini-mentorship, but I’m happy to tailor the four hours into any type of sessions that meet your needs.

From the auction description:

Four hours of Zoom time with Jerrold Connors, creator of Donuts for Everybody, author-illustrator of the upcoming James Marshall biography, JIM! Six True Stories About One Great Artist. The Zooms can be based on Jerrold’s popular and groundbreaking “Dummies for Authors” class (a course that teaches authors how to make physical drafts of their works in progress), or they can be centered on the winner’s needs. Where ever you are on your publishing journey (from querying, to subbing, to actively debuting), Jerrold can help elevate your work with joy, creativity and intention.

I will only add that the last time I offered this, my auction earned less than Kim-Hoa Ung’s Giant Pencil, a humiliation that was immortalized in this video. Please don’t let me suffer this fate again. Bid now! Bid early! Bid often!

Back in 1990 a memorial service was held for Jim Henson. The event was broadcast on PBS, where I watched it. I was invested in the moment because I was a big Muppet fan and (separate from just Sesame Street) found a lot of comfort in PBS. So there I was, in Revelstoke, in our home’s basement rec room, standing in front of the TV watching one of my heroes being laid to rest on my favorite TV station.

I grew up Catholic and was an altar boy for many years and served at a lot of funerals so much of the ceremony was familiar to me but I think I remember feeling detached. At some point, Big Bird walks down the aisle to deliver his eulogy. As he does he turns to someone in the congregation and does that funeral nod people do in these situations. I immediately think, “Ya ruined it, Big Bird. Ya ruined Jim Henson’s funeral.”

You see, Big Bird, at the time, was six years old. And if you’ve ever seen a six-year old tasked with this kind of responsibility, you know they perform it with an intense earnestness. A six year old would have fixed their eyes on the podium and made their way there solemnly. I would have.

Big Bird’s nod was not just an adult affectation, that kind of sympathetic “I know” people give to one another at funerals, it was also a specific kind of move that, to me, draws attention to the artifice of puppeteering. I didn’t know that the puppeteer who performed Big Bird was Caroll Spinney, an indisputable master of his craft, but in that moment I believed whoever was working Big Bird made a poor choice.

When a piece of art or performance grabs me, I go all in. Few people can suspend disbelief as high as I can—there’s video evidence of me shouting myself hoarse at professional wrestling matches—but if a piece of art doesn’t grab me, then all it takes is the slightest small thing (something as small as a nod) to make me say “Ya ruined it”. And I never know what that one thing is going to be.

So, why are we talking about this? Well, I went into this blog post with the idea of asking myself how I’m going to react to criticisms of my own work. JIM! is on the cusp of being reviewed widely (as of writing this, I have already received my first review… it was forwarded to me three days ago, it went live today) and I know the prospect of bad reviews are something that can cause a lot of authors a lot of stress. All the same, I’m not sure I have anything interesting to say on the subject! Maybe it sounds phony or falsely brave, but I’m less concerned with how many stars the book gets than I am with what the reviewer takes away from it. The aforementioned review… it was good. Very good. And I’m grateful. But what moved me most (and there’s video evidence of me being moved) was that the reviewer appeared to understand exactly what I set out to do with the book. I’m thankful for their review—if it’s not too corny to say it, I felt seen.

Perversely, I’m looking forward to the slightest small thing in JIM! that’s going to land the first “Ya ruined it, Jerrold!” in my lap. People’s personal peccadillos are unpredictable, but I think I know what’s going to do it:

Uneven wardrobe choices among my characters (eg. pants, no shirt versus shirt, no pants, versus completely nude). I mean, really, what was I thinking?!

I’ll share one more funny detail from Halloween… among the 1,200 trick or treaters was a special visitor, a DHL courier who we all assumed was a grown-up wearing their work uniform as a costume but who was in fact an honest-to-goodness delivery person dropping off my printer proofs, fresh from China. I was engaged with kids, so my friend Anien accepted the package. It was only at the end of the night that I realized what had landed on my doorstep. Here’s my face when I did:

I was supposed to be writing a treatise on sasquatch urine but I started painting some color studies this afternoon and got carried away well into the evening. No regrets. Between coloring these and another half dozen pages, I think I’ve unlocked something in my usually trepidatious approach to watercolor.

A good feeling. Let’s see where these cows lead us.

Thank you, Madeleine.

I’m starting to wonder if the old internet really is dead or if I’ve just been too distracted by my phone to realize that there’s still people out there making sites “just ‘cuz”. Sites like HAD. Stumbled across it today and saw this poem I liked.