Oshi and Otto

Last year I was commissioned by the Fitchburg Public Library to write and illustrate two books using grant money from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. They were looking for one picture book which would be distributed to all of the city's Kindergarteners and one comic book that would be distributed to all of the city's Sixth Graders. My assignment was to teach the students and their families about some of the services the library offers in an entertaining way. Fitchburg has a very diverse population and a many of them speak only Spanish so both books were to be bilingual. Printing was finished in April of this year and they were distributed to the students in May and June.

Oshi Goes to the Library is about Oshi the octopus who recently moved to Fitchburg with her family after her dad got a job on land. Her mom heard that the library is a great resource so the family take a visit and get a tour from a very wise librarian.

Otto and José Save the Library is about an alien who crash lands their spaceship on the top of a library. With help from Ottos' new friend José they need to find a way to save the library from being destroyed by a meteor. Half of the book is the story in English and the other half is the same story in Spanish.

Me with a couple of awesome librarians at the Fitchburg Public Library. 

And me reading Oshi Goes to the Library to one of the groups of Kindergarteners.

Oldest child enjoys San Francisco where she lives with her cat and works and plays Roller Derby. Middle child graduated from high school and is now going to college in NH.  Youngest child is in middle school and enjoys friends, the saxophone, anything with wheels and video games. We currently have a bunch of pets living with us including 2 cats,  2 hamsters and the best dog in the world. :-) Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year!

I attended the New England Society of Writers and Illustrators conference this past April in Springfield, MA. While there I participated in an intensive workshop with Giuseppe Castellano, art director at Penguin Books. The assignment was to draw an illustration from a Beatrix Potter story in our own style. I chose this scene from The Tale of Jeremy Fisher. 

My oldest child sending Christmas presents to the East Coast by robot drone.

Happy Holidays to all!

Below is last year's family Christmas card where a friendly reindeer flies presents along with some young passengers from Boston to San Francisco.

 

Another piece of art for a new story I am working on. 

I just got some stickers back from the printer. I created these for the pediatric division of an orthopedic imaging company.

A few months ago I was hired to teach a small group of middle schoolers how to draw portraits at a birthday party. Afterwards I drew a caricature of each of them while they took turns drawing each other. Great group of kids and very nice family. The birthday girl's mother sent me some awesome photos and permission to post them. I get photographed while I am drawing at events a lot, but I rarely get to see them. So this is very cool. She said the girls had a great time and they all loved their portraits.

 

New art finished art from a story I am working on. More on this later.

 

On this Christmas Eve, a boy and his dog are decorating the Christmas tree while
one sister is talking to the other sister across the miles on her computer. 

Happy Holidays to all!

Happy Halloween from the Sneaky Ninjas!

This was going to be a multi-panel comic, but I though this one panel said everything.

I think this cartoon accurately displays my children's (and pets') personalities. 

Happy Holidays to all!

Yummy Fish

One of the mini comics I sold at the MICE event over the weekend was "Yummy Fish". It is a two sided letter sized paper folded 5 times to something around the size of a business card. These sold very well. They are color so they stood out. They were also piled next to a bowl full of free Swedish fish candy.

MICE 2013 Ended

Well MICE 2013 is over and now it is time to reflect on the weekend. I had a great time. I sold some comics (more than I thought I would), I drew some caricatures and I met some great people.

It was a great experience and I plan to do this again next year. I have a couple more ideas for some small comics. Plus I plan to do a few more Sneaky Ninja comics. Now it's time to get to work.

My table.

Here I am with my daughter on Saturday. She was a great sales and PR person.

New Comics for MICE 2013

Now that everything is printed I am really looking forward to MICE this weekend. I will be selling two new comics. I will also be doing caricatures at a much lower price than I usually do. This will be a special for this event only. Plus I will have a couple other things on the table that will hopefully get people to stop by.

Here are the covers:

"Attack of the Bunny Blob" is a small 28 page comic about a terror from space. It is safe for children and was inspired by one of my favorite movies "The Blob".

"Yummy Fish" is an 8.5" x 11" piece of paper folded to something very small. As you open it you will be following a story where the panels get bigger until you get to the surprise at the end.

MICE 2013

I will be at MICE (The Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo) in Cambridge on Sept. 28 and 29, selling a small comic I made called "The Attack of the Bunny Blob". I will also be drawing caricatures for cheap money to people who want to hang out at my table for a little while so I don't feel like a big loser.  (I might draw very slowly...)

MICE is great. If you've never been you should go. There are a ton of exhibitors selling their comics and art. There are also panel discussions and workshops that are related to comics. 

After going there for the last couple of years as a visitor and being inspired, I decided on a whim to get a table at the event. A small table that I will be sharing with other exhibitors. The people at MICE seemed to be expressing a special interest in comics geared toward kids and since that is the audience I have been writing for I thought I would send in an application. I had nothing to sell, but I thought it would be a good deadline to get something done. Even if it is only one book. I do not know what I was thinking. I have been frantic all summer working on a couple of small comics that I hope someone other than my kids like. It is already September and the pressure is really on now. I will be gathering all of my materials this week and printing them hopefully by next week. I am freaking out about my website though. The url is printed all over my cards. I took the website down and am working on a new one in Wordpress but there is no way that it will be done by the end of the month. So I will be forced to make an unfinished website live.

So while I have been agonizing over all of the things I still need to do, something else finally occurred to me. That I might be mentioned as an exhibitor on the MICE 2013 event website. So I clicked on it and this is what I found:

Not only am I mentioned, but I am first. Of course the fact that the list is alphabetical and that I use a period after the first 'A' in my name made that a guarantee. Fortunately I used this blog as my url instead of the unfinished ajjerrett.com, BUT I haven't made an entry since Christmas!

So here I am. My first entry in 9 months and I am writing about how unprepared I am for my first MICE event.

Merry Christmas 2012

 

This Christmas was the year of the elf at my house. My 7 year old son loves elves. He draws them all of the time. Over and over. They are quite good too. He has 4 elves that move around the house when no one is looking. When we are out shopping he goes right to the Christmas section of any store to stare at and touch the elves that are on sale. As a matter of fact, he bought one of his elves a few weeks ago with his own money. So as I was working on sketches for our Christmas card this year, my son told me that I had to include elves. So I drew an elf infestation. They are sneaky little creatures that the pets can see, but people are oblivious to.

Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

We had a great Christmas and are looking forward to a fantastic 2012. All the best to you and yours. Happy New Year from the Jerretts. 

 

This is the second page of the book dummy I am working on. I will explain the story another time. I have one more 'finished' page to do and I think the dummy will be ready to show. As I am looking at this I think I might change the color of the little boys clothes, mask and cape. Not sure.