Kidlit Haha Week Day #5: THE NEXT PAGE COULD ALWAYS BE ANYTHING with Andrew Joyner

I immediately loved Brittany’s manuscript for IT STARTED WITH A P (available for preorder here) – it’s so funny and vibrant and snappy. Which might explain why my very first sketches of the characters were so close to their final version.

Here’s something from a sketchbook, as well as the first sample drawings I did on my iPad (in Procreate).

My editor Claire Tattersfield suggested losing the facial hair on King Liam and . . . voila!

Trust me, this doesn’t usually happen. I’ve illustrated 50 or so books, and most of the time I feel like I’m scratching around in the dark, especially in the early stages. Gradually, after drawing and redrawing several pages, the characters start to appear.

Usually there’s one picture that ‘unlocks’ the whole book for me, where I feel like the book and the characters have created their own cohesive world. Sometimes it can even take until I’m revising my first round of roughs for it to happen.

I’ve learnt not to panic and just trust that it WILL happen. With IT STARTED WITH A P I got lucky, because King Liam, Cedric – and even the whole kingdom – appeared to me basically in my very first drawing.

So, while I like the idea of “first thought, best thought,” it doesn’t really apply to me. Although I definitely aim for that feeling in all my illustrations. I want my final pictures to look like they just appeared on the page, without too much sweat or craft or labour. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to hide the work!

Speaking of “first thought, best thought” here’s a quick note on sketchbooks. I favour cheap sketchbooks, because if they are too nice, I get nervous about drawing in them. And nerves are my enemy! Nearly all my work on a picture book is done on an iPad, using the app Procreate, from roughs to final art. But I like to start by drawing freehand in sketchbooks with a fountain pen.

I think the advantage of these drawings is that I can’t plan or rework the drawing – I just fill up the page with whatever comes out. These drawings are also useful if I’m stuck, at any stage of illustrating a book. Just picking up a sketchbook and drawing can be surprisingly useful when you’re trapped in an illustration that has become zero fun and all problems and logistics.

I always think of illustrations as pictures that are meant to be read.

IT STARTED WITH A P has a big background cast, and quite a few complicated drawings. That can be a problem, and it can be challenging to make a crowded picture readable. And then there’s simply the logistics of trying to fit everything onto the page.

I think it helps to embrace any problem, so I made this cast into an asset, a way of packing more fun and jokes and entertainment into each picture.

Even with a complex picture like this, I also strive for a kind of simplicity and directness. I do this by building the composition around one main action. In the above spread, it is Cedric waving farewell to Polly, his pet parrot.

And in the spread below, it is King Liam sailing back to the palace with the various banished Ps (people, pigeons, pets, princess, piranhas, etc).

It’s very hard – or maybe impossible – to draw one character doing several different actions in the one picture. Of course, if you look at the text on this spread, I could have illustrated it as a sequence of actions, almost like a comic strip. That could definitely have worked, and worked well. But for me it felt more fun to pack all of these details and events into one picture, and then tie them all to the main action of King Liam sailing back to his palace.

Readability is a crucial element to cover design, and you can see how it was the guiding principle as I reworked my cover rough to create the final version.

All of the elements are there in that first drawing, they just need to be organised differently. Once I drew that piranha popping through a pizza, I knew I was on the right track.

When I was young, I used to love copying the cartoons from the Punch magazine collections that my grandfather owned. I still have these books close to my drawing desk and flick through them often. Whenever I look at them I feel like I learn something new.

They are perfect examples of how to make a drawing “readable,” and even the most complex drawing is skillfully  (and often elaborately) orchestrated to service the joke.

Later I would discover the work of New Yorker cartoonists, and I’ve always loved the way artists like Charles Addams or Peter Arno could conjure a whole world through a single drawing. Maybe I’ll forever be an aspiring cartoonist who happens to illustrate children’s books!

I’m going to leave you with a quote which is not strictly about humour, or picture books, or illustration. But I like to reflect on it, in my own adapted form, when I’m working on a book. It comes from an essay in the New York Times (Jan 25, 2022) by the poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert, “The Lyric Decision: How Poets Figure Out What Comes Next.” 

Here’s the quote:

“When I’m writing a poem, and I get stuck, it’s often because I’ve forgotten this principle: The next line could always be anything.” 

And here it is, paraphrased in my brain:

Kidlit HaHa Week is giving away one copy of IT STARTED WITH A P (US ONLY)

To enter, comment below with a new children’s book you look forward to reading before April 7, 2025, 12pm ET.

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His books are now published in more than twenty-five countries. He lives with his wife and children on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. Visit him on the Web at andrewjoyner.com.au.