Sean Rubin's Blog

2012-02-08T14:40:00.000-05:00

A real page-turner.

2012-02-07T22:51:00.002-05:00

The sore neglect of this blog is a misfortune I hope to reverse shortly. -SR

2011-04-04T09:41:00.002-04:00

Pictures: Annie

2011-02-08T18:14:00.007-05:00

Brian Jacques

Monday morning, I received word that my dear friend Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series, had passed away. After a day spent writing to mutual friends, I decided to expand one of the letters into this post. Brian's death was sudden and unexpected. The last time we spoke, the future seemed boundless. “I hope we can work together on many other books. Take care of yourself!” Part of mourning Brian is mourning the books I know he would have written. I’ll miss the regularity of the novels, year after year. When I was young, I would get them as Christmas presents. Eventually, I would see the manuscript only days after our editor did, neatly stacked into a huge package that was more cement bag than envelope. The pages were typed on an old typewriter to the very end.

Brian leaves a legacy not only of books, but of lives and communities made better by his imagination and his generosity. In reconnecting to the fan community, I've been counting the marriages, relationships, careers, educations, and other blessings that came through Redwall. Spouses that met through internet message boards, friends that met at book signings, people deciding to become software engineers, or authors, or journalists, or English professors, and tracing these decisions to the first time they picked up a Redwall book.

I wouldn't have become an illustrator if not for Brian's belief that I already was one. Drawing characters from books was something I did, and loved, since childhood, but to make a life out of it still seems like a miracle. Brian would eventually write my college recommendations, and my admissions essays focused on his influence and my work on the Redwall series. At Princeton, I studied medieval architecture and poetry.

The last time I saw Brian in person was late 2007. Penguin threw a wonderful party for Redwall’s 20th Anniversary, and Redwallers from both sides of the ocean reunited or met in person for the first time. Eventually, I gravitated towards a group I saw was like me. I may have been the only illustrator, but I was not the only person who owed Brian his place in the world. A fellow Princeton alumnus, an attorney, also had his college recommendation letter written by Brian. “You’re like the Godfather,” he said. But in a good way. Brian stopped what he was doing and slipped into an excellent Marlon Brando impression.

Brian was much better than the Godfather, though. When Brian gave, he never asked for anything in return. It’s difficult to describe this without seeming gauche, bragging. Sometimes, Brian met a child, and he decided to do what he could to see that child’s dreams come true. I do not know why I was included in this number. I never asked. I don’t know that any of us did. Brian didn’t just write books, he wrote lives. He was, and is, an extraordinary example of what an artist can make possible. When you knew Brian, you believed that anything was possible.

My mother, who met Brian several times, had a way of putting this that only a parent can: "Rest in peace dear friend of children, and thank you for making a child's dream a wonderful reality."

2010-10-28T21:55:00.002-04:00

Diversions: Fire Island et al

Deer stalking.

2010-10-11T18:47:00.001-04:00

Teaching: Positive distraction

2010-10-11T12:56:00.004-04:00

Other Artwork: Batman and Gothic Architecture

A sort of perspectival experiment. A bit static, but I was satisfied with the overall impression.

And the pencils:

2010-10-08T22:57:00.001-04:00

Con Report: Day One

2010-10-07T12:53:00.004-04:00

Shameless plugs: Mouse Guard and NY Comic Con

Artwork by David Petersen

If you're going to NY Comic Con (and if you're not going, really, what's up with that?) Our friends at Archaia are hosting three signings for advanced copies of Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard Volume 1, which comes out ahead of Issue 4. For more information, Archaia's press release is here.

While a limited number of the anthology's creators will be signing at the Archaia booth (right now David Petersen, myself, and Katie Cook are confirmed), according to David's blog, Ted Naifeh, Alex Kain, Terry Moore, Mark Smylie, Karl Kerschl, and Joao Lemos will all be at the convention at one point or another. Collect all ten.

I'm not in Artists' Alley, but I will be at the Archaia signings.

2010-10-07T11:00:00.000-04:00

Shameless plugs: Legends of the Guard #2 Reviews

Although I managed to put it off for months, I thought it might be good to post something ahead of NY Comic Con, which starts tomorrow. This is a collection some of our favorite reviews for Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard #2 which featured "Potential," a story I did with Alex Kain.

As total noobs, we are just thrilled with the response Potential and the entire issue received. Thanks everyone!

Comic Book Resources: "As we see a mouse successfully take out a bear, there's excitement and adventure, and I was actually a little sad once it was over" -Greg McElhatton.

Good Comics @ Comic Book Resources: "Kain and Rubin gives us a story of a mouse fighting … a bear. Yes, a bear. Because the Mouse Guard totally rox, man! The point is that the mice will do anything to protect their territories because they all have to stick together, but it’s really just an excuse to show a mouse fighting a bear" -Greg Burgas.

Hollywood Jesus: "It began as an epic tale of mousian survival in a harsh landscape, but has evolved into a universe. It speaks to the survivor and adventurer in all of us. We see the struggle of the small against the large, of David versus Goliath. Everyone can relate to that. There is a beautiful truthfulness to these kinds of stories" -Jesse Johnson

Fandomania: "To give you an idea of how the comic read — imagine if Brian Jacques’s Redwall somehow mated with The Canterbury Tales. Legend of the Guard mixes elements of both into a wonderfully entertaining, beautifully drawn love child"-Maddy Good.

Comics Alliance: "A group of mice at an inn are have been issued a challenge by the innkeeper: whoever can tell what she judges to be the best story will have their bar tab cleared. I'd like to stop for a moment to lament the fact that such competitions have gone out of fashion in the past few centuries" -Chris Murphy.

Broken Frontier: The warrior’s response: “To the Guard, every mouse is worth fighting for—worth dying for.” Here we have an interesting theme being expressed—patriotism. Mouse Guard is oftentimes filled with wonderful and thoughtful adventures, but writer Kain cunningly explore why exactly the Guard does what it does" -Steve Surman.

Comic Impact: "The first tale of #2 is Potential with... Rubin’s near obsessive line work and cross-hatching" -John Mueller.

Player Affinity: "Swords don't kill people. Mice with swords kill people" -Neil Rodriguez.

Graphic Policy: "This limited series is just wonderful and something for the whole family. It’s one of those you’ll want to sit back with your kids and read aloud.." -Brett Schenker.

Omni Comic: "The art in this story contains great detail in the textures of things. I wish I had more technical training in art because I’m sure there is a name for the style of high texture with muted coloring, but suffice it to say I loved it" -Tom at Omni Comic.

Comics Bulletin:"Embedded in ["Potential"] is the idea of universal protection--if the smallest of us fall, then so do we all. On the other side of that argument (responsibly presented here) is the sense of obligation that follows, with the aid of the Guard taking on new dimensions when it’s clear that acts of protection are also opportunities to scout new soldiers for the ranks" -Charles Webb.

2010-09-22T21:04:00.003-04:00

Teaching: Student Projects

I've been reading Scott McCloud again. More on that later, maybe, but I really liked his observations on authors that work with a consistent character ensemble to the point where their characters are like actors and actresses in a troupe. Some of the students I worked with last year have been acting in plays and musicals with each other for more than a decade, really forming a theater troupe in their own right.

The following performance was done by a member of the "troupe." Naomi tended towards strong female roles, so I previously cast as her as Clytemnestra, Juno, and Hera (although she has remarkable range, even to play male roles, like Lumiere). Jill Lawton, who was choreographing GCA's production of Annie, suggested that Naomi would make a great Medea. Naomi stitched the following monologue from several parts of Euripides' Medea, and performed the work as part of her final project. I was expecting her to be great from the beginning, but this totally blew me away.

2010-09-16T17:22:00.001-04:00

Diversions: Sailing with Uncle Eddie

2010-09-11T22:10:00.002-04:00

Sketches: Batman

Mostly Prismacolor.

2010-08-14T13:36:00.003-04:00

Friends: Weekend candids

2010-08-08T17:58:00.003-04:00

Friends: Drew and Al is hitched!

2010-07-19T13:32:00.000-04:00

Other art: Even more fun with textures

Same poses as below, appropriated for a texture experiment.

2010-07-18T22:28:00.002-04:00

Other art: Sketches

Ripping off Michelangelo, master of the contorted male torso. These are from the Sistine Chapel.

2010-06-29T22:47:00.007-04:00

Sketches: Media experimentation

Summers are more humid than hot in New York, and paper tends to absorb the moisture pretty happily, making in a pain to sketch and draw with graphite. I usually switch to micron pens sometime in June, saving pencils for final projects but doing all my sketching and brainstorming with ink. I thought I'd mix it up a bit this year by buying some Prismacolor marks in varying shades of grey. I'm still getting used to the media, but I really like the overall effect. The above is based on a Venetian party mask I bought for a Masquerade birthday party.

2010-06-28T12:34:00.004-04:00

Illustration: Redwall: The Rogue Crew

Happy to see that Redwall.org recently announced The Rogue Crew, Brain Jacques' 22nd Redwall book! Our friends at Penguin kindly asked me to illustrate The Rogue Crew back in October, and work is well underway. Here's the blurb:

From Salamandastron's Western Shores, to the High North Coast, here they come. Captain Rake Nightfur, and his Long Patrol Hares, with Skor Axehound and the Rogue Crew Sea Otters. Marching boldly into a thrilling saga, singing, feasting, swashbuckling, and battling. Questing for the infamous ship Greenshroud, crewed by Searats and Corsairs, Captained by the murderous Razzid Wearat, terror of both sea and land. His aim, the conquest of an Abbey! Was there ever such a blood and thunder chase? The fate of Abbot Thibb and his Redwallers hangs in the balance. Who will be first to the gates, who can save the legendary Abbey from the clutches of a Wearat? On, on, to victory or death!

2010-06-24T14:45:00.003-04:00

Travel: Chile: Food

Shared dinner platter at Pisquo Elqui, February 14.

2010-06-21T16:20:00.003-04:00

Comics: Mouse Guard Legends of the Guard: Process

Now might be a good time to admit that I never drew a comic before- at least not for publication. I have sketchpads and notebooks filled with strips, layouts, and at least one twelve page story featuring the inevitable submarine (Maybe more on that sometime?) but I don't know that I ever thought seriously about drawing comics professionally.

My buddy Alex Kain introduced me to David Petersen at NY Comic Con last year. David and I didn't have much opportunity to talk then, but through some subsequent emails we started discussing a pin up for Mouse Guard. Soon Legends of the Guard came up, and the possibility of doing an entire story was on the table. At this point I was feeling a bit like a little dog trying to bury a dinosaur bone. Alex and I had been looking to do a project together for years, and this sounded like a great opportunity. Someone apparently misread our names as Kavalier and Clay or something because we got the stint.

"Great," he said. "Now how in the heck do you make one of these things?''

Our Legends story started as a script, and the script started with a description of the first page. I was pretty firm on that. The first panels ran as follows:

A glass vial opens, some crushed herbs pour out onto the ground. We see Eskel and Osric in the tree, the contents of the vial fluttering about as they settle towards the ground. Similar to Fall, their names are displayed in boxes to show who they are.

Illustrating scripts is fascinating. One thing that comes up continually is the difference between what the writer and the artist think is important. I became very interested in the glass vial, but I also thought the image of popping a cork or a stopper was too minute to read well in a panel. What we finally decided to show was determined by what actions looked good on the page. Put another way, I drew a series of hand (paw?) actions that looked interesting and then drew a container that fit into the actions. This gave me a sort of metal canister that opened with a skeleton key. We later agreed that the contraption made sense because the mouse is carrying around bear bait and he wouldn't want the thing the open accidentally.  To make room for these developments, the name-display panels were dropped. We also wound up revealing the mice on the second page instead of the first.   The panels themselves were thumbnailed on copy paper with a .5 mm pencil. Once approved, they were traced on a photographer's light box onto 400 Series Strathmore cream drawing paper, scanned, and tweaked in Photoshop.

I tend towards muted colors because I really like the tone of the paper, and I try to get the colors to blend with the base. In this case I wound up looking at a lot of Andrew Wyeth watercolors, which have always been a huge influence on me. The first panel was actually just given an overlay of one color with the layer set to Linear Burn. I found Linear Burns were really effective for adding color while maintaining the detail of pencil drawings:  

2010-06-09T19:33:00.004-04:00

Travel: Scotland: Glen Coe

Drew, setting off the landscape as always. Difficult to believe we started this trip a year ago this week.

2010-06-08T22:19:00.011-04:00

Teaching: Student's Projects

For their final project in the 10th Grade Omnibus (integrated humanities) course, two of my kids proposed a stop-motion video adapting the Iroquois creation myth (They also wrote papers. Really!). We covered this story during our creation mythology unit, mostly because I loved hearing Mr. Nobile tell it from memory in 7th Grade. Caleb A. and Franny G. put some 16 hours of work into this film, and it's really an extraordinary accomplishment.

2010-06-08T21:41:00.014-04:00

Teaching: Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice

In Belmont is a lady richly left;

And she is fair, and, fairer than that word, Antonio...

Had I but the means!

Addendum, from Sarah: "Dear Sean, I want to join your class. I think we should have impromptu stagings of Shakespeare in random beautiful places all the time." :)

2010-05-27T11:50:00.006-04:00

Illustration: Previously Secret Projects: Mouse Guard

As many already know (probably because it was announced here at the end of March) game-design wunderkind Alex Kain and I are contributing a story to Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard Issue 2. Legends of the Guard will be a 4-issue, non-canon series that's part of the larger Mouse Guard universe. Mouse Guard is an Eisner-award winning series created by the incomparable David Petersen (For the benefit of my eighth graders, I'm using quality adjectives). It's difficult to explain just how stoked we are to do this. So stoked, perhaps, that I'm using the word stoked in a public forum.

As we get closer to the release date in June, I'm hoping to put together a few blog posts on the project's origin and its process. In the meantime, the above is a finished drawing based on the sketch posted a few months ago.

2010-05-03T21:23:00.001-04:00

Other art: Sketches: Danish axe and sparrow

2010-04-25T00:35:00.011-04:00

Illustration: Redwall Detritus
Nothing wastes time like unpublishable studies. This is probably why they're so fun to draw.

"Aye."

"Blimey."

And finally, my art director, who is very smart, suggested Dure's hare drawing as inspiration out of my sudden habit of making hares look like plush toys.

2010-03-22T00:07:00.000-04:00

Nostalgia: Conversations

Overheard once upon a time at the Princeton Quadrangle Club-

Person 1: Okay, I know how you can get money. You're going to write a proposal to the Department of Defense asking them for a grant to create the technology to destroy zombies.

Person 2: Yeah, right.

Person 1: No, wait. See, they'll laugh it off, but then a week later I'll send out my own letter to the Pentagon, asking them for money to perfect some nearly-finished research to create zombies. I will also casually explain that I sent a similar letter to fourteen other major governments, and that they're in a bidding war and a race against the clock. They'll panic and send you your money immediately.

Person 3: Do you think you can get a grant to make the Philosopher's Stone? Or a shrinking ray?

Person 1: What's wrong with zombies?

Person 3: They're just messy.

2010-03-12T18:09:00.004-05:00

Other Artwork: Painting

I kinda miss the sanctioned egomania that was large format painting in Princeton's Vis Arts program. I also miss having the time, space, and equipment to do things like this. Mike helped me build the canvas for this monster, which at 6.5 feet square was the largest thing you could make in the woodshop and still get through the door.

Football. Oil on canvas, 78"x78"

2010-03-12T00:08:00.000-05:00

Illustration: Secret Projects

Instead of doing the sensible thing and locking down the rest of this story's layout, I spent the night doing a color test for page... I think it's page 5. I'm going to reorganize this weekend and finish up the thumbnails for real. Honest.

This project has become more Batman than Redwall, and yes, it's still neither.

2010-02-21T18:48:00.006-05:00

Travel: Chile: Isla Choros and the Humboldt Penguin Preserve

We finished up in Pisco Elqui on Monday morning, after doing a brief photowalk and talking to our hostel's manager. Sasha asked him what he'd do between La Serena and Copiaopo, where we were going next, and he started explaining the Isla Damas. There was a tour, it seemed, where you could be taken to a small island off the coast of Chile and see dolphins. It sounded tropical. We decided to look into it.

Getting to the Isla Damas is very simple. You drive a couple of hours from La Serena to Copiapo, but turn west into the southernmost reaches of the Atacama Desert. Coming down from the mountains and driving through small gorges, you find a gravel road that, at times, transforms into simple track over the bare earth. We took this an additional hour west until we reached the coast and found a fishing village called Punta Choros. The village is essentially a sandlot with a few colorful rows of houses, cabanas, bodegas and churches.

Once there, we were told, we had to find a fisherman or a company that would take us to Isla Damas. Only, Isla Damas is great, but what you really want to see is Isla Choros, which is right next to Isla Damas. Choros is part of a Chilean penguin preserve. We had lunch and surveyed the situation.

"Hiking boots? It's supposed to be a beach trip."
"And a Windbreaker."
"I wish it weren't so cloudy."
"Why? It looks like great penguin weather."

On very flimsly pretenses, I recently bought a red shock-resistent water-proof coast guard watch. I think this watch was feeling restless until Choros. Beach trip? This was an expedition. You needed government permits to go on that island, government permits that we forgot to buy. I followed Sasha down a long jetty to the neon yellow steps of the boarding dock. A digny motored alongside the platform, tossed by the erratic tide, rising and dropping several feet in front of us.

"This looks like a terrible idea."
"Yeah?"
"I love it."

The boat whipped through the 5-foot swells and seaspray to the calmer area near Choros. There we sat, maybe a thousand feet off the island, when a family of bottle-nosed dolphins began to show off like it was their job. Maybe it was. We wondered if the boat company has some sort of agreement with the dolphins, paying them in cans of tuna to show up between 3PM and 3.15 and breach a bit for the tourists. Possibly. It seemed that the dolphins and the boat captains had a mutually agreed upon time to leave the area, so we spun around and made for the Isla Choros, where we pulled up alongside a cliff.

Choros is a nature preserve, so for the benefit of the animals, no human is allowed on the island. Nevermind. The pilot began banging the hull of our boat violently, and a flock of albatross flew from their rocks toward the sea.

Laughing, he continued driving till we reached an outcrop covered with yawning seals.

We spun around again, entering a cove. Seals lounged on most of the larger rocks, but the center rock had two smaller animals on it, rolling around and playing.

"Look, babies!"

I squinted, ecstatic that they were not. "Those are Sea Otters!"

Now a lot of Chileans not only know the English word for that particular animal, they probably also think gringos have a bizarre and unusual love of the otter. No, not really. Just me.

But let us be clear. The animal we came to see, even after we were completely surprised and delighted by the sea otters, was the penguin. The Humboldt Penguin made it this far north, at least in the summer, and really, the island belonged to the penguin preserve. The island belonged to the penguins. But where were the penguins?

There they are.

My mother's favorite animal is the penguin, and it's been a long time ambition for her to see penguins in the wild. I adopted this ambition as soon as I knew I'd be going to Chile, although it looked like we would be spending more time in the desert than on the coast, so I wasn't expecting success. Grinning happily at the penguins, I noticed our guide was talking to Sasha in clipped, Chilean Spanish.
Sasha didn't catch everything he said, so we had to invent our own translation:

"Here are the penguinos! The penguinos are very skittish, and will commit suicide or have a heart attack if you get too close! Also, they do not have to pay their taxes. This makes the seals very angry."

I will try to post some drawings and more pictures from the trip as I can, during the week...

2010-02-13T00:10:00.004-05:00

Illustration: The Sable Quean: Recorded Books

Teaser for the finished Recorded Books illustration for the Sable Quean... believe it or not, a pretty nice copy of the art comes with the iTunes version of the recording. I discovered this when I purchased Mossflower and had one of my ancient scrawls show up in the album art box...

Good question, but no, I'm sorry to say I'm not sure when the recording will be available. I'll try to post here when I know, however.

2010-02-12T17:50:00.001-05:00

Teaching: Everything else

Today's music selections were:

Hoedown from Rodeo- Aaron Copland
Every Day- Rogue Wave covering Buddy Holly
Grace Kelly- Mika
Not Fade Away- The Rolling Stones (1994, Live at Giants Stadium)

Favorite quote: What are you doing for vacation, Mr. Rubin? Trying to find the lost Ark?

2010-02-08T21:29:00.004-05:00

Illustration: The Sable Quean: Perspective Grids

A late update on the nearly-finished Recorded Books cover, showing the perspective grid, made in Photoshop, which is printed and placed between the finished drawing and a light box for ease of reference.

This still needs tweaking in a few places, particularly near the column bases. I have no idea why I do so many technical drawings; neither does the kink in my neck.

2010-02-07T15:13:00.012-05:00

Reading: Language is Haunted

... how could the ancient Latins, when they knew only how to fight war and plow fields, imagine that with the same term they were expressing the idea of prayer and that of punishment? Who taught them to call fever "purifying" or "expiating"? Are we perhaps dealing with a judgement, a genuine awareness, through which a people affirms the exactness of a term? But do you believe that judgements of this sort could have been formulated in a period when people barely knew how to write, when a dictator tilled his own field, when they wrote verses Varro and Cicero already could no longer understand?

-Umberto Eco cribbing Joseph de Maistre, in Serendipities

Reading this passage this afternoon, I was reminded of a question that arose in one of the school's Latin sections. The kids were surprised to learn that the Latin sacer means both holy and cursed. They were wondering if sacer was an autoantonym, a word like "cleave" which possesses within itself completely opposite meanings. Sacer really isn't this kind of word, insofar as autoantonymns are considered linguistic accidents. There seems to be something intentional in sacer's double meaning. Giorgio Agamben as actually written a book on this problem--and related problems--called Homo Sacer.

Homo sacer as an obscure figure in Roman law, a man who was both banned from society for some crime (cursed) and yet whose life could not be sacrificed (sacred). Agamben argues that homo sacer is a concept that predates the Latins, and may actually provide us with a window into primitive Indo-European society. His evidence is a similar idea present in ancient Germanic law. The banished man in this system was called wargus, a word that meant both criminal and wolf.

Paleoanthropologists tell us the wolf was the first animal to be domesticated, giving us the dog. Modern wolves are incredibly wary of humans, so how our ancestors managed this is not entirely clear. Reasoning backwards, we could imagine that the dog's ancestors were probably wolves that had been expelled from their packs, runts weeded out by the alpha males. Excluded from the hunt, they usually starved to death. Thousands of years ago, one or two such runts may have come upon the garbage outside a human fire circle. After living off the garbage for a time, the humans probably began to feed the wolves fresher meat from their own hunts. These runts, who were already more submissive than most wolves, were somehow bred for two major traits. They were to be comfortable eating with humans, and they were to be tolerant of fire.

Thus the ancient use of wolf to designate the banished man is ironic: as the wolf is the animal who is "banished" from nature and is thus welcomed into human society, so the man who is banished from human society returns to nature and becomes the wolf.

Now this information is of no special use to most people, other than to demonstrate the existence of a strange and ancient Indo-European legal principle that is perhaps more wildly attested than it is understood. However, sacer and wargus could also provide one with a somewhat magical realization. When we speak of wolves or criminals, or curses or holiness, we are making distinctions where our ancestors made analogies. When we speak in analogies, we usually call it poetry. For our ancestors, this poetry was merely language.

2010-02-05T23:12:00.007-05:00

Teaching: Everything else
g
Today our selection was:

Rock Lobster- B-52s
Heroes and Villians -The Beach Boys

2010-02-01T21:22:00.005-05:00

Teaching: Classroombatium

Teacher: Say I gave you an unloaded something-or-another with a filed-off serial number, a ski mask, the keys to some bank, and I can assure you that you can knock the place over and get away with it, completely, why wouldn't you do it?

Female Student: It's a horrible thing to do!

Male Student: Wait, what's the exit strategy?

Teacher: Uh, there's a van driven by a self-destructing robot with a secret hatch on the bottom that drops you into the sewer system, and you follow the pipes to some escape boat somewhere. You're untraceable.

Male Student: Is there a guy on a computer who hacked into the security cameras?

Teacher: Yes.

Male Student: Mr. Rubin, have you robbed a bank?

Teacher: What do you think?

Male Student: You did? What did you do with the money?

Teacher: I sent it to NBC so they could afford to keep Chuck on the air. Why wouldn't you rob the bank?

Female Student: It's just a horrible thing to do!

2010-01-31T00:11:00.003-05:00

Illustration: Secret Projects

Can't discuss this one in too much detail yet. That being said, after a few weeks spent trying to ape their work, I have a profound new respect for comics artists. A novel requires something like 40 unique compositions, and a picture book runs something similar, but these guys are tossing off over a hundred compositions every two months.

This is a thumbnail from a comics project. The biggest hint I can give may also be the most surprising: It's not for Redwall.

2010-01-30T13:06:00.004-05:00

Teaching: Everything else

Cleaning up the classroom takes about 15 minutes every Friday. This was apparently a pretty boring affair (And how was I supposed to know? It took me a few weeks to learn where everything went. Thereafter I spent the time worrying about finishing before the bell), so we introduced the Friday Afternoon Clean-up Soundtrack.

As the kids have been trying to figure out what's been playing, I'm going to start posting the recent play lists.

I'm Gonna Love You Too- Buddy Holly
Horchata- Vampire Weekend
White Sky- Vampire Weekend

The Man of Metropolis Steels our Hearts- Sufjan Stevens
Short Skirt/Long Jacket -Cake
Cousins- Vampire Weekend

California English- Vampire Weekend
Birdhouse In Your Soul- They Might Be Giants
Racist Friend- They Might Be Giants

2010-01-28T22:56:00.015-05:00

Politics: The Court

Photo credit: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

We tend to think of government as the inevitable result of soulless machination. When a photojournalist captures a moment like this, it's an excellent reminder that government is composed of real individuals with unexpected human things like personalities and feelings.

During his State of the Union address, President Obama became the first president in recent memory to rebuke the Supreme Court to its collective face.

They look hurt. The President will probably not do that again.

2009-12-22T00:03:00.008-05:00

Teaching: Logic

This morning, whilst trying to come up with as dreadfully confusing a hypothetical syllogism as I could, I wrote this:

If it is opposite day, then the opposite is true.
It is opposite day.
Therefore it is not opposite day.

Now is this a modus ponens or a modus tollens? Ponens, if you remember, is constructed like this:

if P then Q
P
therefore, Q

Whereas tollens is

if P then Q
~Q (not Q)
therefore ~P (not P)

One would quickly assume that the restatement of "It is opposite day," P, in the second statement would mean it is ponens, even if the first appearance of Q is misleading. Theoretically, Q can be rewritten "it is not opposite day" and, you'd have:

If it is opposite day, then it is not opposite day.
It is opposite day.
Therefore it is not opposite day.

Thus, you might also be able to prove that it's modus tollens, because the second appearance of "it is opposite day" can be construed as a negation of the Q (the opposite of not-opposite day is opposite day) and the conclusion could be construed as a negation of the P (the opposite of not-opposite day is opposite day)!

The kids insisted this made no sense, and I'm actually inclined to agree, so far as anyone could usefully prove the apparent statement "If it is opposite day, then it is not opposite day" actually has no truth value. My colleague Mr. Clements thought it might be a valid tollens provided it does not violate the Law of Non-Contradiction, which mandates that a statement cannot be true and false at the same time. The other suggestion is that the statement "It is opposite day" contains its own contradiction, and thus is inherently unstable and should not be inflicted on 8th Graders.

This next example does makes sense, however. Honest.

If you ask Simon for the right answers, he'll give you the wrong ones.
These are the right answers.
Therefore you didn't ask Simon for them.

Ponens or tollens? It initially resembles ponens, because "right answers" appears in the P and in the second statement. However, the first time "right answers" is part of the P, while the second time it forms the Q. Said again, "the wrong ones" is negated to "the right answers" and the "right answers" is a red herring in the first statement-- you should realize that "you didn't ask Simon" is a negation of "if you ask Simon." Thus, the syllogism is modus tollens:

if P then Q

~Q
therefore ~P

2009-12-07T23:54:00.010-05:00

Illustration: Sable Quean Plates

Traditionally, Redwall novels are divided into three smaller "books." The Sable Quean is divided into four. Full-page illustrations, or plates, accompany the beginning of each sub-book.

I began and completed artwork for The Sable Quean on Bentley Farm in Dutchess County, New York. For the plates I had planned a rather elaborate set of illustrations featuring Buckler, one of the novel's protagonists. Jacob, one of my hosts, drove me up to the farm's highest point so I could sketch him posing as a hare in front of the Catskill mountains. Predictably, these compositions refused to work.

I was buried in a pile of my family's Medieval art books during Christmas when it suddenly seemed very obvious that the plates should resemble the carpet pages of Celtic manuscripts. Convinced this was a briliant idea, I furiously designed two plates- one featured a series of running hares, the next an entwined pair of sables:

The design was sketched on a sheet of graphing paper and scanned into Photoshop. I have a way of using Photoshop that sends me on long walks for short drinks of water. In this case, I inverted the image, then used the brush tool to rough out the outlines of the design, cleaned it up, printed it, and traced it. I added the knotwork and sables as I went.

The entwined sables were borrowed from a shield device I made years ago, working with my friend Leslie Brown. She graciously gave me permission to use the idea for this project. The final product, the plate for Book II, is at right.

Around here I started questioning the idea's brilliance. After completing two and one-half of these things, I both burned out and chickened out. I sent the batch to the publisher unfinished, apologizing for my nerve and promising replacements. Instead, my friends at Philomel encouraged me to finish the set, and these plates became my favorite part of the project.

The Sable Quean

2009-12-06T16:53:00.011-05:00

Work on Brian Jacques' Sable Quean was completed in mid-August. One of the project's more unexpected developments was the suggestion that I work in pencil. Until this point, every normal-release Redwall book has been illustrated in ink. Although I love working in ink, pencil has always been my medium for Redwall projects, so it seemed like a natural choice. I had also just finished reading JRR Tolkien's Children of Hurin and was inspired by Alan Lee's beautiful chapter spots.

For those keeping track, The Sable Quean is Brian's 21st Redwall novel. It will be released on February 23, 2010. Some illustrations are already available online, via the exhaustive Redwall Wiki. Once the book is widely available I'll be doing a thank-you post for those people who posed or otherwise contributed to the project.

2009-12-06T16:04:00.003-05:00

- LONG ISLAND

After three years of fiddling with a website design that always seemed vaguely obsolete, I've read the writing on the wall and transferred my web-presence over to this blog.

People have asked what I'm doing. In June 2009, I finished an AB in Art and Archeology at Princeton and walked 200 miles across Scotland with two buddies. Now I'm back on Long Island and teaching literature, history, and theology to tenth graders at the Grace Christian Academy. At the same time, I'm working on another set of book illustrations (TBA), and a manuscript about something archeological. I'm also collaborating with writer Alex Kain on a small, graphic novel type project, while waiting for The Sable Quean to come out in February.

2009-06-28T13:52:00.001-04:00

2008-02-09T15:24:00.000-05:00

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

General:

Are you an illustrator or what?

Yes! But I also write and spend a lot of time working on design and graphic identity projects. After graduating college, I spent a year teaching literature to high schoolers and I realized how much I enjoyed working with narratives. I’m also passionate about entrepreneurship, so I started a company with some friends, and I try to collaborate with hi-tech start ups in New York.

What do you do for fun?

My career largely consists of doing what I did for fun when I was 12 years old. While is this very often as great as it sounds, you still need hobbies. I love reading, visiting museums, hiking, and traveling. I’m the sort of person who thinks it’s a great idea to walk 200 miles across Scotland, so I did that with two buddies in 2009. And I teach workshops occasionally, usually at schools or museums.

Redwall:

How did you start illustrating for Redwall?

I wrested an ancient sword from the clutches of an evil serpent. Immediately afterward, I was thirteen years old and showed Brian Jacques some of my artwork at a book signing. He surprised me by asking if I would create illustrations for his website. I worked on Redwall.org for a couple of years before illustrating the “covers” for the Redwall Recorded Book series. Sometime in 2008, I was asked to illustrate the interior of The Sable Quean. I finished illustrating The Rogue Crew, the final Redwall novel, before Brian passed away in 2011. I wish I could have illustrated more of Brian’s books, but I’m thankful for the two we worked on together.

Will the Redwall series continue?

So far as I know, The Rogue Crew is the last Redwall novel.

Did you know Brian Jacques?

Brian wasn’t much for putting magic in his stories, but he worked magic in my life and in the lives of many others. Brian was a great friend, and he is sorely missed.

Craft:

Who are your biggest influences?

My influences can change depending on what sort of project I’m working on. When I’m illustrating, I’m inspired by E. H. Shepard, Bill Watterson, the Wyeths, and Alan Lee. Going further back, I love Albrecht Durer, Leonardo da Vinci, and the greatest world-beater in the history of art, Michelangelo.

Writing is more complicated.

What inspires you?

Inspiration can come from anywhere, so I always try to be anywhere just in case. Going on walks and looking around the city helps. I’ve arrived at more important ideas by seeing signs, posters, or graffiti on the streets of New York than I'd care to admit. I suspect that a lot of the people walking around my neighborhood are up to the same thing.

When that doesn’t work, or if it’s raining, I’m inspired by other artists, music, sermons, and especially conversations with friends.

Questions I’m usually asked at book signings and conventions:

Should I go to art school?

The first time I was asked this question, I realized I was getting old. The short answer is, “If you want to.”

The long answer is longer. When I applied to art schools, professors offered to let me in, but almost all of them said that I didn’t really have an art school personality. While I do tend to wear button-down shirts, more significantly, those professors thought my interests were too diverse for me to be a happy conservatory student. My work tends to be a response to my interests, and college gave me an opportunity to broaden and deepen these interests. In the end, I think those professors gave me good advice.

Some people don’t think formal education is necessary for artists, but I don’t agree with that. The deeper the well you have to draw from, the better your work will be. Education is important way to deepen that well. A liberal arts education will expose you to a broad spectrum of ideas, and that might make you a more interesting artist, but a conservatory education will hone your craft, and might make you a technically better and more focused artist. The world needs both kinds of artists, and both kinds of artists need to learn from each other. The decision should be based in your individual priorities.

Why did you move from traditional book illustration and publishing to graphic novels and comic books publishers?

The New York Times ran an obituary for picture books in 2010. A lot of people working in the field were pretty surprised about this. Illustrated books have been around for literally thousands of years, and children’s illustration has been a thriving art form for much more than a century. It seems unlikely that the e-reader or tablet PC will kill either. Books don’t go obsolete, don’t run out of batteries, and you can read the same horrible-smelling edition of Good Night Moon to your children and your children’s children. There’s plenty of incentives to keep the things around, and there are even incentives to make a few more.

That being said, both the economy and all this tech stuff may have changed the way people think about buying picture books. This is a good thing for the art and a bad thing for the profit margins, so it might resemble what’s been going on with the past decade of scripted television. The best illustrated books need to take risks, and their creators need to produce art objects worth your money and the space on your shelf. I think graphic novel people understand this better than most, and while picture books are having difficulty in the traditional publishing industry, all-ages graphic novels are becoming more and more popular in the graphics novel industry.

Do you think graphic novels and comics should be taken seriously as literature?

Just like other novels, graphic novels can be brain-rot, high art, or something in between.

2008-02-09T15:10:00.026-05:00

BIOGRAPHY

SEAN RUBIN was born in Brooklyn, New York. He spent most of his childhood wanting to go to art school, but wound up at Princeton University because it had the biggest library he had ever seen. Sean studied Archeology and spent a year teaching high school before turning to art and writing full time. He still teaches on occasion, usually at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Sean has illustrated for the New York Times Best-selling REDWALL Series, including the final two Redwall books, The Sable Quean and The Rogue Crew. He also contributed to the best-selling Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard anthology, which won an Eisner Award in 2011. Sean’s upcoming graphic novel/children’s book hybrid is due from Archaia as soon as he finishes illustrating it.

When Sean is not writing or illustrating, he works as a graphic designer and branding consultant, primarily serving start-ups. He is also Chief Creative Officer of MNY Group, a company he founded with friends.

Sean still lives in New York, where he maintains close proximity to family, museums, and chocolate egg creams.