Latest Installment: Dog King John

Page 3 of the ‘Dog King John and the Stolen Syrup” narrative…

Title Page: “Dog King John and The Stolen Syrup

Title page for the aforementioned book I’m writing for my grandchildren. As you can see here and in other images from the book the linework and type are not perfect – and there’s a reason for that. I’m producing this in the “old-school” manner much like we did forty years ago. I’m using my computer strictly as a stat camera/typositor – all the drawings are done with pencil, pen and template as is the line work and graphic devices. I’m placing the type by hand and designing “by eye”.

You’ll also occasionally see stray construction lines that I’ve left in.

Some people dress in period costume and live in restored villages as a means of “living history”. This project it my way of doing so as well.

Update: Dog King John Page 2

Page 2 of the Dog King John book.

Page-numbering in this book is a little different. Pages that are numbered (1,2,3 etc.) tell the story of the syrup hijacking.  Pages that are lettered (A,B, C etc.) show maps, diagrams, historical notes and other information that expand on the story. I’ll post the numbered pages but I’m holding back the lettered pages to keep the project  special for my grandkids – they’ll be the only ones completely “in the know”, at least  for the time being.

Sketch Cards for Dog King John

As I’ve written before I take great delight in my role as “papa” (AKA grandfather,  abuelo, old geezer) and even though six out of my seven grandchildren live far away I work hard to keep in contact with them. One of the ways I do that is by regularly sending drawings to them as postcards, starting out with one a month to my sole grandson and eventually expanding to a half-dozen every two or three months.

With these particular sketches  have fun and let my imagination run wild  – for example for my granddaughter Hazel I went through a six month run using yetis as a theme. The Yeti is/was Hazel’s own personal boogey-man and over the span of that half-year I worked to change the yeti’s image from something scary to a comedic figure.

Lately I’ve been using the cards as a design forum for my book project Dog King John and The Stolen Syrup. I want to keep the details consistent so I’m using these drawings to work out details before working on the actual book art .

…some of the cards are just cards though. The younger grandkids don’t really understand the book-thing – for them I come up with something quasi-educational like the “fourteen-flounder” card above

The Golden Hound

Preliminary rendering of Dog King John’s personal airship The Golden Hound.

Strictly speaking the gas cells on The Golden Hound are much too small to support a gondola and engines the size of these, but physical science works a little differently in the upcoming book Dog King John and the Stolen Syrup. Lift is provided not by helium or hydrogen but by fly-drogen , a gas that is not only not inert, it definitely has an altitude attitude.