Doodleday by Ross Collins - review

There are some picture books that I gravitate to so strongly, it's like they are the Sun and I am a speck of planetary debris.

Hm. "Debris" sounds so drab. Brightly colored planetary debris. Planetary crayon shavings. Or... planetary confetti. I am wearing my calavera cowboy shirt today, and feeling not at all drab.

Plus I am looking at this orangey yellowy and bright white picture book, which is probably what made me think about the Sun, and that book is not making me feel drab either.

Because - as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself - sometimes I will run across a picture book that lights me right up. Maybe it will be the illustrator's slightly pencilly line quality, or warm, off-kilter color palette, or sometimes it will be the gesture and posture of the characters, and that book will instantly become a favorite of mine. Favorite? No. That's not the word.

The first time I encountered Jean-Luc Fromental's 365 Penguins, I realized I wanted fabric printed up with those penguins, and I wanted to make a sundress out of that fabric.

When I met Marla Frazee's drawings for the first time, I wanted to befriend them and have them over next time we grilled.

I literally hear music when I pore through the textures and patterns of David Roberts's illustrations in The Dunderheads, Iggy Peck, Architect, and The Dumpster Diver. (Todd Rundgren, since you ask. Human League.)

And I have been racking my brain for two weeks now trying to express what it is about Dan Santat's blocky heads and wide-set eyes that makes me feel immediate affection - affection! like the drawings are pink-bellied puppies in a pet shop! - for anything he draws.

So it is with Doodleday. So it was, in fact, with a semi-graphic-novel based on Greek myth called Medusa Jones. That book came and went in a flash, and I remember love love LOVING the illustrations. So that's how I know Ross Collins.

How do you know Ross Collins? Well, he has illustrated and sometimes written a number of picture books, but you may be most familiar with him as the guy who did the wonderfully grotesquely glamorous illustrations for Vivian French's Robe of Skulls novels. Those are cute, fun, smartalecky middle grade novels, by the way, even though I've never gotten around to reviewing them. My friend Phoebe, who is the Lower School librarian at an all-girls private school, recommended them to me. She loves reading them aloud to her girls.

 

Doodleday is a natural story for an artist, especially a kid artist. In it, a kid named Harvey is planning a happy morning of drawing when his mom snatches away the pencil. "Are you mad? NOBODY draws on Doodleday!" Then she goes away, and Harvey is like, "WTF, PARENT" and fetches out another pencil.

What good ol' Mum has not explained is that on Doodleday, everything you draw comes to life! YES. Also, everything Harvey draws not only comes to life, but comes to life in the giant economy size, so you can imagine how bad things get and how quickly.

Have you ever watched a kid draw? Many kids - not all, but many - draw narrative. Their process of drawing is a story that they're telling to themselves. Sometimes you can even hear them narrating it as they draw. This is why a kid's drawing will often be a really nice spaceship picture with pirates and aliens and whatnot, but with a bunch of seemingly random lines drawn on top. Those lines have been drawn sequentially, as first this guy climbs through the hatch, and then the leader guy comes over on this walkway, and then all the little spider robots come out from here...

 

Doodleday is that kid's daily daydream come true. It's silly and fun, and manages to be fairly gentle even as a giant bird rips the rain gutter off a house like it was a metal worm.

But let's talk about the art. There's a combination of angular and rounded that I like here. There's a self-assurance about shape. Ross Collins is so comfortable drawing perspective that he doesn't mind putting an old-fashioned non-flatscreen TV in an illustration... at a 60 degree angle to the picture plane. (That means he has to draw the bowed-out screen at an angle - you try it, it's hard!) 

What else do I like? Well I sure as heck like the mom, with her flyaway shag haircut, minidress, and cowboy boots. I like how the dad's body arches as the giant spider wraps him up with silk. I am super amused by the fact that one of Harvey's neighbors appears to be a middle-aged She-Hulk, gone slightly broad in the beam but still wearing rockin' green boots.

But mostly it's the slight arch of a line, the proportion of chunky hand to slender arm, the confident drawing style that draws me to this work. Doodleday's little tale will strike a chord with every kid who has ever taken pencil and paper into his own hands to tell the story his own way, and the art will inspire that kid to keep drawing. Yeah, I love this.

 

 

By the way, National Doodle Day - yes, there is one, but no, I don't think that means everything you draw is going to come to life - is May 12. Tons of celebs and artists have donated doodles to be auctioned off to benefit Neurofibromatosis, Inc. Go investigate the idle scribblings of interesting minds such as David Duchovny, Heather and Jessica of Go Fug Yourself, Neil Himself, Seth Green, Tom Lichtenheld (Cloudette), former Baltimorean Cat Mihos, Andy Runton (Owly), and - scroll to the end to find - the kids of Bookie Woogie!

Maybe I've never mentioned it before, but those kids - Gracie (age 10), Isaac (12) and Lily (8) are my heroes. They are so commonsensical and descriptive when they talk about art, which, although I've been doing it for one reason or another for going on twenty years, is still something that I find very difficult to do. It's worth it when you find art that you really love, though - looking at it for long enough to find the right words makes you appreciate it even more... which is something that I bet Aaron Zenz, the Bookie Woogie dad, knows all about.

Ok that's enough of the introspective stuff. Rock-a-honey rock-a-honey woo-hoo! Go put on some fun music and sit in the sun! Cowboy shirt recommended but not essential.