If you are an admirer of quirky illustration, and you’ve never heard of Lane Smith, then clearly, you don’t know Jack. If you collect beautiful picture books, and The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is not part of your collection, your collection doesn’t know Jack. And if  you own a goat, and you’ve never checked them for gappers, not even once, then forget about Jack, you need to know Capable, the spiky-haired, brighter than bright heroine of this strange and deceptively brilliant story.

The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is an inspired collaboration between two artists at the peak of their excellence and eccentricity: George Saunders, humourist & short story fabulist, and Lane Smith, visual maverick & current focus of my deepest jealousy. The writing, illustration, design, and ideas expressed in this book elevate it beyond the usual children’s picture book fare, and even beyond the unusual. It’s a true gem.

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Edward Lear, J. Patrick Lewis and Gary Kelley walk into a bar…

Bosh!

The trio have not come together as the preamble to an old joke. They are in fact, the inspiration for, and the creators of Boshblobberbosh, one of the most beautiful and unusual picture books ever published for children, and more than a few adults who collect this sort of nonsense.

Boshblobberbosh is a loving homage to Edward Lear: parrot-painter and word confabulist, devotee of all things furred and feathered (with the exception of dogs and camels), companion to a cat named Foss, who lived for 31 years*, and a man who was, in all respects, the King of High Bosh.

Although the book is written by prolific author and poet, J. Patrick Lewis, the poems are inspired by Lear’s extraordinary life. With every ‘runcible’ word, tumbling across each oversized page, up one side and down the other, in the rich, almost sculptural thereness of the illustrations, Boshblobberbosh is a one-book argument against the digitalization of print literature, in particular, illustrated print literature.

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Guess Who's Coming for Dinner?

Sometimes it’s just too much. I fall for a pretty face in a bookstore, take the book home, and then think, ‘why did I buy this?’ After many years working in an independent bookstore, and in the years beyond, I’ve accumulated many such indulgences. It’s bibliophelia in combination with a bit of shopaholism and a soupçon of misplaced affection. Every so often I feel compelled to bring a book home, even when I know it’s not true love. I wish to support bookstores, authors, illustrators, and in particular, the continued publication of high quality (printed) picture books, but funds and especially space are limited. If the thrill starts to wane a day or two after I’ve purchased a book, or worse, as I’m walking out of the store, it’s a sign that something other than affection was driving my decision. I try to buy only what I love, but sometimes I mistake admiration for love, and even that can be complicated by other factors which inevitably lead to misunderstandings, and an accumulation of unwanted books on my shelves. I suppose this is true of any sort of over-consumption of mood-altering substances, even those that are printed and bound.

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There are many obstacles on the way to my drafting table. As a result of a locally contained cosmic rip in the space-time continuum, unusually thick molecules have leached into the atmosphere, making the air almost impenetrable, effectively gluing my ass to the chair; movement of any sort nigh on impossible. The severe restrictions on mobility leave few options: reading, watching television, planning picnics with my cat.
 Also, you know the horror movie gimmick where someone is trying to escape a bogeyman and the approach to the door suddenly telescopes out, making the door unreachable?
There are days when my drafting table seems a million miles away, even though it’s only a few feet from my chair. Artists face many challenges in their quest to put paintbrush to canvas, pen to paper, piss to copper Christ. It’s just part of the landscape.

In Tim Wynne-Jone’s On Tumbledown Hill, an artist is repeatedly thwarted in his efforts to paint plein air by 26 unruly monsters, who are, “much bigger than me and stronger, too, with arms that are longer and thicker through.” The monsters, depicted as children, play and fight and wreak havoc with the painters ability to create. This is a GREAT excuse. Wish I’d thought of it.

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