Making a Magazine: Inside Issue 1
Snapshot of our Issue 1 Contents
Some of you have been asking about what you can expect to find in our premiere issue. After some months of feeling like an overprotective mama bear guarding her treasured babes, I'm finally ready to let these cubs roam just a tiny bit away from their cave.
In issue 1 you'll find interviews with Aaron Becker, Caldecott Honor award-winning author/illustrator of Journey; Newbery and Eisner award-winning graphic novelist Cece Bell; and chef Rayneil De Guzman of Ramen Shop Oakland. You'll read original essays by artists including the celebrated singer, violinist and master whistler Andrew Bird. You'll also discover original comics, illustrations, and stories by a list of swoon-worthy contributors including Lark Pien, David Goldin, Zack Soto, Laurel Snyder, Molly Maeda, Martin Cendreda, Andrew Jaffe, Katherine Tsina Bird, Zack Giallongo, Lisa Maloof, Leela Corman, Thien Pham, Teri Sloat, Brave the Woods and more. With activities, book reviews, music recommendations and a recipe to boot, kids and grownups are sure to find inspiration in these packed 64 pages of joyful visual storytelling and creative expression.
It's impossible to choose favorites, but I'm quite proud to be premiering Elizabeth Haidle's Literary Giants as Kids series, with the first of this 2-page Docu-comix featuring Maya Angelou and her remarkable story from silenced child to internationally renowned poet. I'm also especially thrilled to be sharing Cece Bell's story about the making of her graphic novel memoir, El Deafo, with an audience of young readers who will surely be as moved and inspired by Cece's making-of story as they are of her unforgettable, brilliant book.
Get ready: in just a couple months, these cubs will be off and running, roaming their way into your city, town, and (if you subscribe) mailbox. For now, I hope our issue 1 contents give you a sense of the fresh, new ideas we've been brewing up here at ILLUSTORIA and entices you to join us!
Who We Are: Marc Weidenbaum
illustration by Agnes Lee
Name:
Marc Weidenbaum
Location:
The Richmond District, San Francisco, California
Profession:
writer/editor
Favorite artist/illustrator:
That's a tough call. I'm purposefully only listing here the names of people I've never worked with. For superhero comics it's been a tight race between Frank Quitely and Chris Bachalo for a long time, with David Aja and Adrian Alphona also prominently in the mix.
Chris Bachalo gets some young X-Men into surreal trouble.
In a more "literary comics" realm, right now I'm pretty fixated on Jillian Tamaki and Jason Shiga — Shiga especially as a visual-narrative thinker. Honestly, there are so many great artists working these days, I'd have a hard time keeping this list to under 50 names. In manga, I spend too much time lost in the work of Jiro Taniguchi and Yuichi Yokoyama. There's are so many I'd put as these folks' equals. We live in a Golden Age — oh, Golden Age is taken, so make that Platinum Age — of insanely fluid, original, varied comics art.
And speaking of surreal, here's a very dreamy image by Jillian Tamaki.
Best book you've read in the past year:
I don't think I've super-loved any of the books I've read in the past year. The best is probably Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. Starts off with a planet-wide catastrophe, and then speeds into the future.
Kids book you could read every night:
A Summery Saturday Morning by Margaret Mahy. Not all rhyming books are created equally. Some just rhyme, more as a matter of course than out of some sort of artistic purpose. Some rhyming books, as well, are more musical than others. This one inspires singing as much as reading. We've got a good little faux calypso (faulypso?) thing going with this household favorite.
Best memory of being a kid:
I grew up in the suburbs of New York City, out on Long Island. My favorite memory is something my parents used to do with us a lot, which was to go to Manhattan where we'd visit art galleries during the daytime and then head at night to Chinatown for dinner, usually Sichuan food. I've pretty much constructed my adult life so it takes my childhood memory and makes it a daily reality: a mix of artistic pursuits + spicy food. We also camped a lot when I was a kid, which is where this throwback photo of me originated:
Maybe this is from the summer when a Crater Lake ranger taught me the word "aesthetic."
Favorite weekend activity:
A packed day with my five-year-old, hitting museums and playgrounds, doing everything in the city by bus and foot.
Song currently on repeat:
"Saddest Continent on Earth" by Nonkeen (a band featuring keyboardist Nils Frahm) from a recent album called The Gamble.
Favorite meal:
If I have to choose one, dim sum.
Last time you made something with your hands:
Does it count that I've been constructing a modular synthesizer for the past year or so? Probably not. Frankly, I don't do this enough. I need to learn to solder.
You'd be amazed how much fun a 5-year-old has with these bleeps and bloops.
Fun fact about you:
As of this summer I will have lived in the Richmond District of San Francisco for 20 years (not counting the four I lived in New Orleans, from 1999-2003). I've lived in three homes here, each one closer and closer to the ocean.
Children's Book Week Roundup
Children’s Book Week is 97 years old this year, and ILLUSTORIA is brand spanking new! But the nice thing about children’s books is that they bring together the young and the old, the new and the nearly-forgotten. So I thought I might take a moment and talk about a few of my favorite new and upcoming picture books, and also some older books that those titles bring to mind.
The Airplane Book, by Lisa Brown
What Do People Do All Day?, by Richard Scarry
Remember the joy of being a kid, sprawled on the floor for hours, staring at Richard Scarry books? They gave me the sense that if I just stared long enough, I’d totally understand the world, with all its various details and motions and people and parts. Well, The Airport Book by Lisa Brown gives me that very same sense—that if I read it again and again, I might genuinely comprehend all the details and inner workings of the airport. (And let’s be honest—kids LOVE airports.)
When Green Becomes Tomatoes, by Julie Fogliano; illustrated by Julie Morstad
A Child’s Garden of Verses, by Robert Louis Stephenson; illustrated by Tasha Tudor
I can still recite the poems I read in A Child’s Garden of Verses. In fact, I still probably mumble "The Swing" at least once a month, whenever I walk past a playground. And though the subjects here are different—Julie Fogliano’s new poems are all about the new buds and cold snow and falling leaves of the four seasons—I can’t help but wonder if kids today won’t be mumbling them in a few decades. Julie Morstad’s pictures are poetry too, and a perfect match for the grace and natural delicacy of When Green Becomes Tomatoes.
A Hungry Lion, or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals, Lucy Ruth Cummins
Pierre: A Cautionary Tale in Five Chapters and a Prologue, by Maurice Sendak
These two books are very different, but I can't ever read about a hungry lion without remembering Sendak's Pierre. Both books marry sweetness and darkness, and both books end up in a slightly different place than readers might at first expect. There's also a generally classic feel to Lucy Ruth Cummins' art, and the book's design. I intend to give A Hungry Lion as a baby gift, as I've often given Pierre. Children need a little healthy fear in their lives.
Good Night Owl, by Greg Pizzoli
Owl at Home, by Arnold Lobel
I dare any fan of Arnold Lobel to stare at the cover of Good Night Owl, and not immediately think of another owl, tucked into bed.
From Owl at Home, by Arnold Lobel
Greg Pizzoli must have known this, and I admire his chutzpah. In fact, the two books are very different. Pizzoli’s story of an owl who can’t fall asleep because of a mysterious noise doesn’t offer quite the melancholy of Arnold Lobel’s tearwater tea in Owl at Home, but Good Night Owl is a wonderful book for early readers, and will make a perfect bedtime story for a jillion kids who can’t (or don’t want to) sleep.
This Is Not a Picture Book, by Sergio Ruzzier
The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was in It, by Carl Sandburg; illustrations by Harriet Pincus
I can’t exactly put my finger on why Sergio Ruzzier’s new book, This Is Not a Picture Book, reminds me of The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was in It, an odd picture book from my youth. But I love them both. In Ruzzier’s tale, a funny looking duck finds a book with no pictures, but then discovers how the experience of reading can conjure vivid images all the same. The Sandburg book is a strange tale of two household objects getting married, and really, couldn’t be more different. Yet—there’s something in the off-kilter landscapes Ruzzier creates, and the slightly surreal creatures, that leaves me feeling similarly (and wonderfully) discombobulated.
LAUREL SNYDER is the author of many award-winning novels and picture books for children and a mom to two boys. Her most recent titles include Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova, illustrated by Julie Morstad, and Seven Stories Up. Visit her at laurelsnyder.com.
Process: Designing ILLUSTORIA's First Cover
Introducing...our cover for the premiere issue of ILLUSTORIA!
After a long cover design process during which we conceptualized, developed, reiterated and debated for many months, we had that "A-ha!" moment when we saw this version. We think it's contemporary and fresh with a DIY feel that speaks to who we are: a totally new kind of magazine for kids & grownups.
As we worked on our cover, we asked ourselves: how do we spark the curiosity and interest of a 9-year-old and his or her parent? Will artists and writers find camaraderie? Will teachers and librarians see value? How do we stand out from the crowd with a single image and just a few words?
It was a real identity challenge and pushed us to make an authentic statement about who we are and what we value through pictures and words—which is what our magazine is all about, after all.
For those who want to get beneath the surface, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the making of our very first cover.
Step 1: Settle on a logo!
Our very first logo, which we still love and use sometimes.
This is the logo we were very happy with for quite some time. Interestingly, when we applied it to a mock-up cover we learned that what worked on stationary and business cards felt out of sync with our visual aesthetics, which had evolved over almost two years of incubation and development.
We wanted our logo to show off a DIY attitude and be, as one of our team members put it, “perfectly imperfect.” Our aim was to not stray too far off course from the original which, as mentioned, we were still smitten with.
Logo variant #1
Logo variant #2
Logo variant #3...which we really liked.
We finally settled on a design close to the more understated original but with a bit of an edge.
Final logo. We opted for the simplicity of b & w + red.
Step 2: Cover art!
We went through several really strong cover mockups that were quite beautiful. But beauty isn’t everything and we needed to make an instant connection on an emotional level too. That happens through tone, mood and an original voice which can be really hard to pinpoint. We wanted to say to our readers-to-be, “This is good stuff. We have something unique to offer you. Look and linger a while.” Even, “You and I—we’re gonna become quick friends, I can tell.”
The experiment that inspired our cover art.
It's strange how you sometimes find inspiration--or rather, it jumps at you--when you least expect it to. Our creative director, Elizabeth Haidle, was working on an ILLUSTORIA gift card. Out of convenience she used an existing piece of art to create a placeholder fake cover, meaning to swap it out later. But seeing the image and the logo together…something immediately clicked for us. A happy, happy accident.
I asked Beth to illustrate a young reader in the same pose, perhaps with a book in her hands. Within a day she came back with several cover options that instantly said to us, “Watch out, world—there’s a new kid (err, magazine) in town!”
These were gorgeous though I'm sad to say we ended up nixing the egg being laid in midair!
We experimented with a colored background and hand lettering. Along the way we corrected the trim size, which was off in the first iterations. See how minor details take time to finesse?!
Step 3: Integrating text and art
We experimented with showcasing our featured articles through words and pictures—sometimes only pictures. A high priority for us, as a magazine that celebrates visual storytelling, was to integrate the text callouts with the cover art in a way that worked together seamlessly. I didn’t want the text to feel secondary, and we certainly didn’t want the art to get cluttered by too much editorial content. It was important for the callouts to not be dry and overly informative. They needed to engage and appeal to both kids and grownups.
As much as we adored the thumbnail images, they distracted some from the simplicity and impact of our main illustration. It was a tough call, but ultimately the word balloons won out. We continued to futz around with the typefaces and hand lettering and even corrected a typo that had (admittedly) been overlooked for weeks, until we settled on...our winning cover!
Step 4: Make it look effortless
Our final cover
So get to it and spread the word! Order and subscribe to ILLUSTORIA and ask your local bookstore or shop about stocking it. You won’t be disappointed by all the good stuff in the packed 64 pages of each issue. We're just scratching the surface of what may become a wonderful, lasting friendship with all of you: our coveted readers-to-be.
Made By You: Call for Submissions!
Stella, age 5. "A made-up animal" with polka dots and a bow on its head.
We at ILLUSTORIA love kid-art! And we're pretty sure that chances are you do too. There's nothing like the pure joy, fantastical imaginations and uninhibited creativity found in kids. As the master painter Picasso once said, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." Ahh, to think and create like a child again!
Our MADE BY YOU gallery page showcases kids' artwork in the form of drawings, collages, comics, paintings, pencil sketches, calligraphy, poetry, crafts...you name it! As grownups to creative kids, everyday we find inspiration in the beauty, silliness, simplicity, complexity, irreverence and unfiltered aliveness of the creative expression of kids. Here is a place to show off those images and to share a bit of the love and fun.
We welcome you to contribute to this shared gallery space for a collective, daily dose of joy and inspiration. What are your creative kids up to? What's on their minds and being made with their hands today? We would be thrilled to see. Please send contributions to madebyme@illustoria.com and we'll share them here...or for a chance to see it in our print magazine.
Who We Are: Elizabeth Haidle
Name:
Me & Eli
Location:
Portland, OR
Profession:
Freelance artist & musical saw player (& Creative Director of ILLUSTORIA)
Favorite artist/illustrator:
recent discovery: Nathaniel Russell; also Jillian Tamaki, Brecht Evens, Emily Carroll
Best book you've read in the past year:
Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe, by Yumi Sakugawa
Kids’ book you could read every night:
What Was I Afraid Of? by Dr. Suess
Best memory of being a kid:
Dressing up as a ham sandwich for Halloween, made with scraps I scrounged from my dad's studio. My head stuck out of a bite mark at the top. I had a little trouble climbing on the bus & standing during the ride to school, but it was worth it. Absolutely zero other people were a ham sandwich that year.
Favorite weekend activity:
3-course breakfasts. Also anything involving a hammock.
Song currently on repeat:
"The Very Thought of You," by Billie Holliday; I just know everything's gonna be alright when Billie sings.
Favorite meal:
Last time you made something with your hands:
Accordian fold mini book entitled: 'Inner Donkey'
Patterned postcards using eraser chunks as stamps
Fun fact about you:
I'm terrible at wrestling and my son always wants to, so I made up my own moves. One is called 'Cheek Pin', where you press the other person down by smushing your cheek really hard against theirs. Also they are maybe paralyzed by laughter, which helps. Another is called 'Cashmere Head Clamp' and requires one to be wearing a cashmere robe. Which I wear often.
Andrew Bird's First Instrument
Photo: Merlijn Torensma
We are thrilled to be featuring singer Andrew Bird in issue 1 of ILLUSTORIA! Singer, songwriter, musician and master whistler, Andrew shares with readers how he began playing the violin at age 4. From the process of learning alongside his mom to becoming a father and uncovering how to guide his own son, Andrew's contribution is a must-read for music lovers and creative thinkers of all ages.
illustration by Leela Corman
Who We Are: Hannah deBree
Name:
Hannah deBree
Location:
Oakland, California
Profession:
Mom of Stella and Djuna, and Director of Marketing + Social Media for Illustoria
illustration by Agnes Lee
Name:
Hannah deBree
Location:
Oakland, California
Profession:
Mom of Stella and Djuna, and Director of Marketing + Social Media for ILLUSTORIA
Favorite artist/illustrator:
I love the installations and artist books of Christian Boltanski, Sophie Calle, and Ann Hamilton. I'm also a big fan of Kambui Olujimi's work; he's a friend and an amazing and prolific artist. One of my favorite illustrators is Adrian Tomine.
Best book you've read in the past year:
Another hard question… I can never pick just one. A few favorites from the past year were My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard, The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson, and A Manual for Cleaning Women, stories by Lucia Berlin.
Kids book you could read every night:
Zachariah OHora’s No Fits, Nilson! It’s a quick and fun read. OHora is another favorite illustrator.
Best memory of being a kid:
Some of my favorite memories are from a trip my family took to Europe when I was eight: swimming in the Aegean and lounging on the black sand beaches of Santorini, eating endless gelato in Florence, riding the tube in London. I loved it all.
Favorite weekend activity:
Going to the farmer’s market with my husband and kids. We see friends and family. We buy fresh produce. We listen to music. It’s great.
Song currently on repeat:
It’s not new, but I keep going back to this live version of Julian Casablancas singing “I’ll Try Anything Once.”
Favorite meal:
Sushi. Ramen. Tacos. Pizza from Boot and Shoe Service. The pork chop from Wood Tavern. Any of the salad options at Penrose. Steak. I have so many favorites.
Silly monster by Stella
Last time you made something with your hands:
I drew silly monsters with my daughter yesterday, and made vegetable soup last night for dinner.
Silly monster by Hannah
Fun fact about you:
I started playing the cello at age 4 1/2.
Hannah playing the cello, age 5
A Sneak Peek at ILLUSTORIA
illustration by Agnes Lee
Talented artist Agnes Lee not only illustrated the team portraits gracing our About page, but she developed a mini-world-within-a-world for ILLUSTORIA. You'll see our roots in Oakland and some fantastical landscapes that are pure delight. Agnes' mini-world will appear in Issue 1 as a large-format b&w coloring spread.
Who We Are: Joanne Chan
illustration by Agnes Lee
Name: Joanne Chan
Location: Berkeley, CA / hometown: Oakland, CA
Profession: Mom of Sonia & Marcas and publisher of ILLUSTORIA
Happy Together: Marcas, Mark, me, Sonia
Favorite artist/illustrator: Pina Bausch and Hayao Miyazaki
Best book you’ve read in the past year: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Kids’ book you could read every night: Spider & the Fly by Tony DiTerlizzi (because we really do), Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing by Judi Barrett & Ron Barrett, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown.
Best memory of being a kid: shaking the blossoms off our plum tree and pretending it was snowing in Oakland; generally being out in the backyard and helping my dad water the garden, picking and eating apples, plums, mandarins, loquats and the sweetest cherry tomatoes on earth…catching butterflies and, sad to admit, putting them in jars to admire.
Favorite weekend activity: making granola and watching the kids play pirate-Harry Potter in the yard (a trip to the art museum at some point is a plus)
Marcas as pirate-Harry Potter with Dumbledore's staff
Song currently on repeat: Three White Horses by Andrew Bird (at home) and Piggies by The Beatles (in the car)
Favorite meal: any pasta dish made by Mark shared with family and friends, darkest chocolate and mint tisane for dessert
Last time you made something with your hands: lavender satchel necklace + denim tote bag + pencil case for Sonia’s 10th birthday
Birthday lunch note
Fun fact about you: I once choreographed and danced in a duet (with my dearest friend) in an abandoned subway tunnel in Brooklyn.
What I Did Before I Moved to ILLUSTORIA
Image by Matt Madden
So, one day you wake up and realize you've been editing comics for almost a quarter century. It's unclear how that happened, but it can happen.
As we get going here at ILLUSTORIA its founder, Joanne, asked me, as the magazine's Editor-at-Large, to talk a bit about where I’m coming from. Way back in 1992 I was a very junior editor at a music magazine called Pulse!, which was published by Tower Records, based in West Sacramento, California. I'd moved to Sacramento from Brooklyn shortly after college to take the job. My main role at Pulse! was editing and writing non-fiction coverage about music and musicians. I also edited the letters page.
One issue, in 1992, I introduced a small illustration by a local young comics artist, then still in high school, to the letters page. Much of our letters section was dedicated to people sending in lists of their “Desert Island Discs” — those are the 10 albums they'd want with them if they were stuck alone in the middle of the ocean. This is before MP3s and streaming, and before the advent of the Internet browser for that matter. That all kinda makes me feel old, but when you're working on a magazine for kids, as we are here at ILLUSTORIA, a sizable age gap comes with the territory.
An early comic from Pulse! magazine by Adrian Tomine, from 1992
That young cartoonist, Adrian Tomine, turned his illustrations into a monthly strip for Pulse!, a strip he maintained after graduating from high school to attend college. Around the same time, Justin Green, a couple generations Tomine's senior, began a musical strip of his own in the magazine. Titled Musical Legends, it was a trip down Memory Lane, and roads further still off the beaten path.
Other comics joined the work of Adrian and Justin. The back page of the magazine was given over to additional monthly comics I edited. The first was by Peter Kuper, and a host of fine talent followed in his wake. I'm proud that it included early (and early-ish) work by Frank Santoro, Jason Lutes, Barry McGee, Ellen Forney, John Porcellino, Jorge Colombo (perhaps best known these days, like Adrian, for his New Yorker covers), Jessica Abel, Tom Hart (author of the recent heartbreaking memoir Rosalie Lightning), Brian Biggs (who these days is drawing many books for kids, including the Frank Einstein series written by Jon Scieszka), Ed Brubaker (a writer who no longer draws, and whose Winter Soldier storyline informed the new Captain America movies), Tony Mostrom (who did all the portraits for those two Paramount Records box sets that Jack White put together), Brian Ralph, Leela Corman, Megan Kelso, Matt Madden (that image up top is from a comic he did for Pulse! back in 1999), and many others. Some already-accomplished artists also participated — including P. Craig Russell (of Elric, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, and so many other comics), Archie's Dan DeCarlo (he drew an actual Josie and the Pussycats story for us), as well as Carol Swain, Chris Ware, Carol Tyler, R. Sikoryak, Bob Armstrong, and Gary Panter among them. (There's a nearly complete list at my website, disquiet.com, if you're interested.)
A back-page comic by R. Sikoryak for Pulse! magazine, from 2001.
Writing about music, crafting stories about music (and occasionally movies), was my job at Tower Records, and the comics I edited were a means to accomplish that job in a creative way. Sometimes the comics (that’s “comics” broadly defined — some were abstract visual works with barely a hint of narrative) were themselves by musicians, including Marcellus Hall, Damon Krukowski, Naomi Yang, and Jack Logan.
Later on I ended up working in comics unto themselves, as Editor-in-Chief of the U.S. edition of the most popular manga magazine in Japan, Shonen Jump, where I had the honor of working closely with editors at the Japanese publication, and getting to meet and interview many of the magazine's greatest talents, including Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball), Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto), and Eiichiro Oda (One Piece). I learned a lot during my time on Shonen Jump, about cultural differences, national literatures, long-term narrative continuity, facial expressiveness, and depicting action. It was a tremendous time.
A cover of the U.S. edition of Shonen Jump magazine, from 2010
I've edited other comics projects along the way, including a four-part series for Red Bull Music Academy that involved light touches of animation, and that allowed me to engage with a talented Japanese manga editor and a pair of manga-ka (that's Japanese for "manga creator"). These included the story of MF Doom seen as a superhero comic, from writer Gabe Soria and illustrator Dean Haspiel; a childhood incident of DJ Krush’s, as drawn by Haruhisa Nakata; how Damo Suzuki met the band can, as told by illustrator Connor Willumsen and writer Zack Soto; and a profile of Japanese synthesizer legend Isao Tomita by writer Jordan Ferguson and illustrator Yuko Ichijo.
And I had a kid of my own, which is why I was, as a relatively new parent, doubly excited when Joanne invited me to be a citizen of ILLUSTORIA, which I like to think of as a diverse and sprawling city-state built out of comics and other illustrated stories: whether you draw or write or read, you're a full-fledged member of society here. I love Joanne’s sense of comics as a subset of what we're usefully thinking of as “visual storytelling.” As I write this little blog post we're working on the finishing touches of our first issue. I'm getting to assign work to some people I worked with decades ago, some that I've wanted to work with for decades, and some who are fairly new to comics, or at least new to me. In some cases we’re commissioning comics and other art by people who already draw for kids, and in others — and this is especially of interest to me — we’re reaching out to people whose work we admire and wondering if maybe they’d like to consider a kid as their audience, perhaps for the first time.
Anyhow, that’s what I was up to before I became a citizen of ILLUSTORIA, and what I’m up to now. We hope you’ll join us. And if you need to reach me, I’m at marc@illustoria.com.
Lark Pien Sketches Before Building
These are rough initial character studies for a four-page, full-color piece that Lark Pien did for the debut issue of Illustoria. She loved the idea of sharing this in advance of the magazine's publication because, as she put it via email, "the thumbnails inform people on the process of design and making comics." Her four-pager is titled "Dream Before Building."
These are rough initial character studies for a four-page, full-color piece that Lark Pien did for the debut issue of ILLUSTORIA. She loved the idea of sharing this in advance of the magazine's publication because, as she put it via email, "the thumbnails inform people on the process of design and making comics." Her four-pager is titled "Dream Before Building."
A Good Children's Story
We at ILLUSTORIA couldn't agree more with the message of this quote. Our aim is to gather stories, art, comics, and interviews that can be enjoyed by kids and the young at heart.
This lovely illustration is by the talented Elizabeth Haidle, our resident artiste extraordinaire. Visit her at ehaidle.com.
We at ILLUSTORIA couldn't agree more with the message of this quote. Our aim is to share stories, art, comics, interviews, book reviews, music playlists, and activities that can be equally enjoyed by kids and the young at heart.
This lovely illustration is by the talented Elizabeth Haidle, our extraordinary creative director. Visit her at ehaidle.com.
The ILLUSTORIA Story
Hello and welcome to Illustoria, a place for visual storytelling and DIY culture. Two years ago when I was a children’s book editor at Lucasfilm working among some of the most amazing storytellers in film, television, comics and books, I had a vision for a new type of magazine for kids—one that would celebrate stories, art and creativity. A magazine that, like any good book for children, could be equally enjoyed by grownups.
Handmade book by Marcas, age 6
Welcome to ILLUSTORIA, a place for visual storytelling and DIY culture. We commission and celebrate the works of established and up-and-coming artists, writers and makers. Our commitment is to providing a high-quality print magazine that inspires and delights creative kids & their grownups through original stories, art, interviews and activities. This is the origins of our story:
Two years ago when I was a children’s book editor at Lucasfilm, I had a vision for a new type of magazine for kids—one that would showcase stories and art while giving readers insight into the creative process. A magazine that, like any good book or entertainment for children, could be equally enjoyed by grownups.
Why a children’s magazine at such a precarious time for print? For one, for the love of print. But also because I really wanted to see this vision out in the world. As a mother of two working in the field of children's book publishing, I felt fortunate everyday to be collaborating with amazingly talented illustrators, comic artists and storytellers. At Lucasfilm I was surrounded by passionate people who shared a love of storytelling in all forms--through writing, illustration, animation, film, television, performance and music. It was around all this creative energy that I felt compelled to express something unique and true to myself. I was ready to create something meaningful that I could not only bring home to my kids, but share with them.
I wanted an experience where kids and grownups could enjoy comics and stories together, be exposed to contemporary artists and makers working their crafts out in the world, discover the next best song to put on repeat, find a fun new recipe to cook up for dinner, feed their imaginations and get inspired to make, journal, draw, craft and express something unique and true to themselves.
I was also witnessing the incredible renaissance taking place in the realm of children's books. Like wildflowers spreading on the High Line, new ideas and styles and voices were thriving. For all the agonizing over the decline of print publishing, there came a surge of high-quality picture books, graphic novels, chapter book series and early readers. Artists and writers declared a new playing field with the picture book manifesto. New indie presses and established houses dared to go against the tried and true and readers began to find books without pictures, graphic retellings of classics, oversized books that don't fit spine-out on bookshelves, books that enchanted big people as much as they did little people, books without happy endings and books that said something brand new and made us wonder.
Also all around me I saw a proliferation of quality print magazines that put content, design, and artistry above ads and mass production. These were magazines that I couldn't get enough of, that I wanted to pore over, collect, share and keep on my coffee table forever. They were founded by fellow staunch lovers of print who captured an audience eager to slow down and take in well-curated, beautiful, intelligent stories and pictures.
I was sure that a well-designed, thoughtful, contemporary children's magazine--one that celebrated visual storytelling and artists as much as it did a DIY ethos--was not only missing but would be welcomed by a new generation of parents and young readers. Where was the publication, like all those wonderful children's books, that I'd want to read and feel inspired by as much as my own two kids would? I couldn't wait to shepherd the idea to life.
Now, here we are in 2016 and that vision, the magazine, is taking shape. I have an awesome group of folks realizing and creating ILLUSTORIA along with me, whose smart ideas and playful perspectives have made it something bigger and better than I could have imagined. With backgrounds in design, comics, illustration, writing and publishing, they share a belief in the power of stories, art and creative expression. We are hard at work on our first issue, all about beginnings. In it we learn from Cece Bell about the making of her graphic novel El Deafo, discover how Andrew Bird prototyped a make-shift violin at age 4, glimpse into Aaron Becker's process illustrating Journey. On top of that we have original contributions from dozens of new and familiar artists and writers in the form of illustrated stories, comics, DIY activities and more.
I hope you follow along on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, and make sure to sign up for our newsletter so you get the latest ILLUSTORIA news in your inbox. If you like what you see, please consider a subscription or a gift subscription for a loved one to our magazine. I would be thrilled to have your company as we see this vision through and embark on this new adventure.
Happy Reading!
Joanne