Christopher Robin's blue braces

Disney was the man who substituted schmaltz for honey in Pooh's diet and stuffed him so full of it that his soul burst. Shepard succeeded as an artist, Disney only as a drummer, as a latter day Sam Slick. Now it is rumoured that Disney's artistic heirs are planning to castrate Christopher Robin on the grounds that his tunic, long hair and millinery would look better on a girl; no doubt it will render Piglet's fetishistic obsession with Christopher Robin's blue braces slightly more acceptable to the Creationist suspender-wearers of Kansas. Why bother since Piglet is going to be replaced by a chipmunk anyway to help Disney boost the sales of Pooh in the Muslim world?

This just isn't true. It just ISN'T. Otherwise I'm prepared to agree with him, happily and vengefully, about Disney's treatment of the material but that whole para about children's books is untrue and shit.

xp

"It is rare to find illustrations in children's books that fit the book let alone match it in quality. Book illustrators are too often conceited, wilful people who have failed at other more prestigious forms of art and are trying to compensate for their low standing...."

>> This just isn't true. It just ISN'T. Otherwise I'm prepared to agree with him, happily and vengefully, about Disney's treatment of the material but that whole para about children's books is untrue and shit.

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I dunno about this ... I was talking with an illustrator-friend who has worked extensively in the field of young adult literature. She said that it's beyond rare for the hired-hand artist to read more than the jacket copy of the book they're about to illustrate, or occasionally the first chapter, and that it’s basically unheard of at a number of major publishing houses (she mentioned two big guys in particular, but I don't want to get her in trouble...). More often the case is that a rep. from the advertising division will contact the artist with a ‘scheme’/ target audience/style, a brief paragraph describing the protagonist (excerpted by the ad division), and that the artist will work on commission from this information. Generally speaking, my friend said, the artist will then submit the proofs to the in-house layout designer who will complete the cover, also without having read the text. Layout, (at big publishers A and B) includes digitally tweaking and/or changing the color, shape, and detail of the original art, even the elements included. My friend did a new watercolor cover for Huck Finn a few years ago; the layout artist removed Sawyer’s straw hat to add a woolen beanie (“looked cooler”) and digitally lightened Jim’s skin (“so the book didn’t seem all about race.”) The goal – kinda obviously – is to make the the cover as hip and saleable as possible. There’s no concession made to the author’s feelings, or their agent, or even sometimes the intent or substance of the book. I can’t think of any better example than the constant, hackish, illustrations of the Ramona Quimby books. Beverly Cleary, no small figure in YA fiction, has herself been quite outspoken on the issue: all she ever wanted was the gawky little girl so aptly drawn by L. Darling.:

For example:

http://www.evpl.org/kids/featuredBook/images/covers/10.jpg

http://www164.pair.com/fictiona/pictures/0380709562.jpg

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n34/n172798.jpg

In sci-fi/fantasy cover art, I have to admit, I've seen characters who are made a really big deal of as being green-eyed illustrated with blue eyes instead, which is retarded, but in that case you're not paying the illustrator to read a 500-page manuscript. Up to the editors, and mass market covers are THE most commercial thing in the business, and them's the breaks, sometimes.

this thread is extremely strange