I interviewed Andrew Joyner recently at the Sydney
Writer’s Festival. He was a political illustrator for the Sydney Morning Herald
and today authors children’s picture books which are sold internationally. His
latest book The
Terrible Plop has received an award from
Speech Pathology Australia and has also received an award for the Best
Children’s Cover from the APA Book Design Awards.
We spoke about a wide range of topics from Dr. Seuss, childhood education to
the future of children’s picture books in the context of a digital age.
Christine Jiwon: Today you’re a successful
children’s book illustrator and author and you also contribute illustrations for
the Sydney Morning Herald. What were some of your personal childhood dreams
when you were growing up?
Andrew Joyner: I think I always wanted to be involved in comics. I loved
cartoons in the newspapers, even the political cartoons as a kid. I didn’t understand
them but I really liked the drawing style. I probably learned quite a bit of Australian
history from political cartoons, like the Whitlam dismissal in the 80’s. I had
a weird, limited understanding of political history because it was only through comics and cartoons that I
followed it.
CJ: That’s
fascinating because now you’re doing that kind of work for the Sydney Morning
Herald.
AJ: Most of my work is with children’s books now. I used to do quite a bit for
the Sunday Age and I used to do a bit of political stuff then.
CJ: How did you come to initially
discover a passion for illustrating? Was drawing pictures much a part of your
life during your childhood?
AJ: I always remember drawing... I
just remember being told often when I was younger “kid, you’re good at drawing”.
At school it was useful because I wasn’t a ‘cool’ kid or anything and everyone seemed
to respond well to drawing. It was a good way to fit in. I didn’t study art
beyond year 10 at school, but I always drew. When I was at university studying
English Literature I drew for the university newspapers.
I had a friend who was an illustrator who encouraged me to pursue illustrating.
By the time I started to, my wife worked full time. I worked in a record shop.
CJ: Yeah,
I read that in your comic!
AJ: Yeah, so I had time to pursue it. It was a lucky time, really.
CJ: Was that a real incident? Where a
customer left their father’s ashes at your store?
AJ: Oh yeah, that is a real incident,
although I did leave out the real ending (a bit of artistic license)… he came back
the next day. The guy did come back the next day to pick it up. I had to leave
a note that said, “that bag apparently contains a customer’s father’s ashes”. It
wasn’t an abnormal type of note, really, to leave in a record store. It’s a
pretty unusual place to work.
CJ: That was absolutely hilarious!
AJ: Yeah, it was fun.
CJ: Lots of people recognize your illustrations for
their bold lines, bright colours and the liveliness embodied in your artworks. Were there any significant artists or authors
who influenced you over the years that helped forge the development of your
unique artistic style?
AJ: It comes probably from my love of comics as a kid. I also really liked
Punch, a UK comic magazine a bit like the New Yorker but more humorous and less sophisticated.
AJ: We couldn’t get a copy of the New Yorker in
Mannan, where I grew up, but my grandfather had a copy of the history of the
New Yorker and I loved all the single-panel comics. I also loved Steinberg. He
does lots of pen and ink but is sort of really adventurous with the lines. I
also really loved Dr. Seuss. I really like the immediacy of using a line when I
draw. It’s just sort of what I’m comfortable with.
AJ: Some of the liveliness, I think, comes from using
a brush rather than a pen because when you use a brush, the width of the lines
change and makes it very lively and expressive.
CJ: Do you have a favourite pen or a
favourite brush?
AJ: Yeah I always use the same type of brush. I usually have cheapish brush. You
talk to any illustrator, they’re usually very passionate about one type of
brush. When they go out of stock they get very nervous…
CJ: Not
only are your illustrations beautiful to look at, but they are also renowned
for their incredible wit and humour. They are extremely clever and they reminded me a lot
of Dr. Seuss. I actually thought of you
as the Modern Day Dr. Seuss.
AJ: Thank you!
CJ: What is it about Dr. Seuss’ style that you particularly loved?
AJ: What I liked about his stuff – and I’d like to have more of it in my work –
is that they are simple compositions, but they are really adventurous. He sort
of bends a landscape to suit a page, the figures and what he wants the drawings
to say. So they’re very bold and immediate. The way he positions things on a
page I think is really striking.
Also, his simple use of colour: I respond much better
to his work with just black and white and maybe one or two colours. The simple colours he used had much more
impact. That could do with the printing techniques then, but I still think it
has a real impact.
CJ: You have a very diverse audience,
but in particular, a lot of your readers are children around the ages of 8 to
12 years old. That’s particularly a time when they are learning how to read and
write. I feel
that the contribution your works make to learning for children with learning
difficulties in particular is enormous, simply because your books are fun to
read. How important to you is the element of ‘fun’ when children read your
stories?
AJ: That is important. I probably had a lot of guidance from Ursula, the author
of The Terrible Plop. What she loved
about the drawings in that book is their happiness. I do try and make something
feel like it’s got a happy, joyful energy.
Even with the ‘Boris’ ones [a series authored by
Andrew Joyner], I tried to concentrate on trying to get the pictures not to say
exactly what the text was saying but to sort of tell a story themselves.
I feel happiest about a drawing when it has a fun energy to it.
CJ:
What’s special to you about illustrating for children as opposed to adults?
AJ: I thought about it a
bit. Nearly all of my illustrations are for children now. In terms of drawing
for adults, especially with selling yourself as an illustrator, you have to
have a style that’s sort of recognizable. Almost like a ‘hip’ style or a ‘cool’
style – something that will have an impact on say, advertising, or something
like that, which I think could be a bit of a dead end – just focusing
on style and trying to get something that appeals stylistically. With children, you’re focused more on the
content of an image rather than a particular style. You’re sort of trying to
draw for an audience – and you know the audience. It’s kind of like giving them
a gift. It has a nicer feel to it. Visiting schools helps. You get a very
immediate response to your drawing.
CJ: Do they cheer or clap?
AJ: Yeah, they are very nice. One thing that’s weird is that as an illustrator,
it’s not really a public job. You’re drawing in a studio, then you go out and
suddenly you’re drawing in front of them. It’s different from drawing at home. You
can’t be too fussy when you’re drawing in front of kids – there’s more freedom.
CJ: I read somewhere in a different
interview that you did that if you could resurrect one person from the dead it
would be William Steig (the original writer of Shrek, now a major motion picture). What is it about
Steig that intrigues you?
AJ: I do love him. He’s a New Yorker cartoonist as well. I really love his
work. He has a lot of joy and life in his stories. He’s a really interesting
guy. By the time he was doing Shrek
he wouldn’t do many roughs – he would just get ink and draw straight onto the
paper. You just either got it right or re-did it. His son was a jazz musician who was very
spontaneous. He would watch his son and decide to do it himself.
I think his illustrations have a real sense of joy in them. His illustrations
are very childlike and often it’s really hard to replicate that – drawing in
the style of a child – it’s hard to get it right. There’s a kind of ‘play’
energy to it, and the way children draw in a way to tell a story. I think that’s
something that changes as you get older.
CJ: Do you think there’s an exciting
future for the children’s book industry as we move more onto digital platforms?
For example, apps, etc.
AJ: I think so. Although, a
lot of illustrators and authors say ‘It’s hard to beat the book’. There are
lots of things you can do with a book, like turning the page. It’s sort of like ‘unveiling’ each time you turn a page; sort of like unveiling
a new image. You begin a joke on one
page and it ends on the next, and that has a real impact.
CJ: … and the time it takes to actually turn the page
creates impact with the joke.
AJ: Yeah it’s
like timing, in comedy, and it’s hard to replicate that kind of timing in an
app. It is very hard to beat a picture book, unless you can get an app to
emulate a book. There’s something very natural about it. In an app, you would probably have to
‘scroll’, which is just not the same…
CJ: I collect children’s picture books, so
hopefully I can come up with a collection of really nostalgic ones eventually,
but one thing I really appreciate about children’s books is the thickness of
the paper. Especially when a book has very thick paper, it’s like having a mini
art gallery in the palm of your hands.
AJ: That’s good to hear because a lot of illustrators argue a lot about the
thickness of paper. Illustrators always love the best quality paper, and we’re
very impractical too! We don’t have to worry about how much it costs to print
it. There is something to be said about the thickness of the paper though – I
agree – it has a real impact. The Terrible
Plop has got quite thick paper. And when you’re reading out to a group [of
children] it stops the paper from falling over and it prevents what they call ‘show
through’ where you can see the reverse side of the image you are looking at. You
can sort of see through the image you are looking at and that effects the
image.
I think what initially attracted me to picture books is mainly that I found the
art so inventive.
