Fan Mail Corner #013: Ed Emberley

The third book, and creator, who changed my life

Hey folks,

It’s been a while! But I’m still here. Thanks for being here, too.

Look I made this little logo thing:

Pretty sweet!

And this time, after two months, I’m back with the THIRD of THREE posts about books that had a big influence on me as a kid, and which still resonate today. You can read about Roald Dahl here, and Arnold Lobel, here.

There are a ton of authors and illustrators and books that have stuck with me. I feel weird that Tomi Ungerer won’t be on this list of top three, but I didn’t really discover his work until later in life. Same with William Steig. And Milton Glaser. Saul Steinberg. Ben Shahn. Tove Jansson. Abner Graboff. George Marshall. The Provensens. Mary Blair. Too many that I found too late. I love all of their work. But when I was a kid, I hadn’t heard of any of them.

But I was obsessed with Ed Emberley.

Ed Emberley’s impact on me has been profound. When I was a kid, this was one of my favorite books:

A well-loved copy

Like many kids, I learned to draw “the Ed Emberley way” - breaking things down into geometric shapes and often drawing with shape, instead of line. For me, a kid who changed schools a lot, who didn’t take art classes, who learned to draw at the library, copying from books - this book and Ed Emberley’s other “Drawing” books - they were my classroom.

Here’s some stuff from a sketchbook I kept when I was a kid:

I still draw this way, by breaking things down into simple shapes, and I delight in showing kids how to draw all of my characters using the same five shapes that they all already know how to draw.

I drew this poster for a library I visited last week, and drawing in front of people, though nerve-wracking at times, is sort of like performing a magic trick. I learned a lot of those tricks from Ed Emberley.

Thank you to Berry Steiner and the 50 or so people who came on a Wednesday!

Now that I’m a bookmaker, the thing that I like about Ed’s work - and I didn’t know this as a kid - but his books are radically different from one another. He won the Caldecott Medal for Drummer Hoff, and probably could have had a decent career making woodcuts for the rest of his life. But he didn’t do that. He invented his drawing books, he made The Wizard of Op, he made his ABC book, he illustrated Suppose You Met a Witch, he did Go Away Big Green Monster! -(I think this is his best-selling, too) - he did a lot of different stuff, and wasn’t afraid to try new things.

Some of Ed Emberley's many, many books

Ed Emberley, along with Kevin Henkes, William Steig, Maurice Sendak, Tomi Ungerer - they all seem to be able to try new things and somehow it all works. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I guess just that I like his work. I like how different and varied it is. And I like that it often feels like it’s just about to fall apart - like Violent Femmes, or The Breeders - like it’s just crazy enough to work - does that make sense to anyone else out there?

Anyway.

A few years ago I got to meet Ed.

I visited him and his wife (and collaborator) Barbara, and their daughter Rebecca, in Massachusetts.

My wife Kay and I got to spend a few hours with him at his studio, with his prints scattered everywhere and original Richard Scarry drawings tacked to the walls. It was a playground. I got to show him some of my books, and he signed some of his books for me.

Here’s Ed drawing the image below, now framed in my studio

It was one of the most surreal and magical experiences of my life, and I’ll never forget it.

They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes. But I don’t think that’s true.

Personally, I recommend it.

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Thanks for reading! Back soon with an updated look and a game plan for future posts.
Happy summer!

GP

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