JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

I have a memory of what could easily have been my premature death, had things only gone a little differently…

One day, while playing in the front yard of our house, I hit upon the splendid notion that it would be very interesting to see how far it was possible to run with my eyes closed. This was at around the age (between two and three, I’m thinking) that “running” was a new and wonderful super power that had only been recently discovered. I wanted to see what the new limits were, you understand.

Realising immediately that our garden was not big enough to do the experiment justice, I went out the front gate and, closing my eyes, ran as fast as I could down the pavement that paralleled our street. Thankfully, rather than running out into the road and being hit by a passing car, I instead ran full tilt into a concrete telegraph pole, copping a fearsome smack to the forehead from a big rusty metal bolt that was embedded in its surface.

Immediately, blood sprayed out of the gash in my head, while maniacal screams poured out of the quivering hole under my nose. A house painter, working across the street, had the good fortune to witness this spectacle in its entirety as he sat on a scaffold eating a sandwich and having his cup of tea.

It amuses me now to wonder what this man made of the sight of a small boy coming out of his house for the express purpose of running headlong into a telegraph pole and almost knocking himself unconscious. In any case, it was this kindly man who picked me up (still screaming blue murder) and carried me home from my experiment, drenched in my own gore and humiliation.

It was precisely at the moment of bloody impact that I had realised that running with my eyes closed was a supremely stupid idea. Oh, if only that epiphany could have struck me before the telegraph pole…

This was driven home to me in our kitchen, as I was obliged to listen to the kindly housepainter explain to Mum in great detail what he had just seen me do to myself. While Mum cleaned my blood away they both asked me, over and over again, just what the bloody hell had I been playing at? I never told them. The blow to the head had knocked enough sense into me that day to realise that it was better not to let on what my original goal had been…

I have the scar, physical not emotional (or maybe it’s both, come to think of it) from that episode to this very day. It’s right in the centre of my forehead, where the third eye would be if I were more enlightened.

These pics show the “looser” approach I used in the last week or two… These more scribbly elephants will be spread throughout the book so hopefully they wont come across as a jarring style-change.

While I wait for the FINAL proof let me tell you a bit about the Elephant book and how it came to be.

My Dad has written LIMERICKS for years and he has always expressed a fondness for elephants. (I remember his office at work had a few elephanty knick knacks about the place, including something I was fascinated by as a child; a cartoony cardboard elephant head mounted on the wall like a trophy). So, his co-workers started clipping news stories for him about elephants, in response to which he amused them by composing LIMERICKS about the elephants in the news.

Over the course of a year or two he amassed quite a few of these and a co-worker (named Ada Cheung) suggested he compile them into a little book. It was also thought that his cartoonist son might do a few illustrations. I am ashamed to tell you how long ago it was that I agreed to do the pictures… it was more than just a few years ago. I have a hard time keeping more than one project in my mind at a time, so the elephant book often took a backseat to my paying work and my comics. Dad often joked that, at the rate I was getting the art done, the book would be a posthumous publication in his case. However, I was able to get about 14 or so done in full colour and then I made a rough mock-up of the book which I sent my Dad for his birthday year before last.

At this point the intention was to self publish. The book is not exactly kid-friendly because so many of the stories deal with Sex and Death; rampaging elephants, crushed zoo-keepers, failed breeding attempts, elephant poaching, artists using Dung in their artwork and so on. I always thought the book to be a bit too idiosyncratic for a big publisher.

Now comes the really amazing part: Early in 2005, Dad was in the Australian country town of Wollombi (where his sister, my Aunty Marg lives) defending his TRIVIA NIGHT TITLE; a BAKER family team are (or were at the time of this story) the reigning TRIVIA NITE CHAMPIONS at the Wollombi pub. While there, Dad met an ACTUAL publisher who offered to publish the Elephant book when he saw the mock-up I had made… And unlike our self-published version, he wanted to do it in full colour!

Here’s me living on the west coast of the USA, supposedly one of the main centers of the media universe, with some connections in at least one branch of “the media”, yet I had Buckley’s chance of getting this thing properly published. So I had resolved to just do a simple version on my own. Meanwhile, my Dad wrangles a book deal on trivia nite at the Wollombi pub!

I love it!!

It took a while to get the contracts sorted out but while that was going on, the editor and I were still working on the book. She expanded it from the 64 pages that Dad and I had envisaged, which required even more illustrations, and I hadn’t yet finished the initial batch I had planned to do. After I finally roughed out the remaining illustrations in pencil, the designer, then used these to layout the book. That layout came in handy when I was finishing the artwork as I knew where the text had to go.

As to the current form of the book; It will be 128 pages in full colour and it is smallish, about 7×6.5 inches. At last count there are about 60 full colour illustrations and a few of those are double page spreads. The text consists of two things; the series of elephant news clippings Dad has saved over the years, and a limerick he has written inspired by each story. It will be published by EXISLE PRESS. The publisher is Gareth St John Thomas, the editor is Anouska Jones, and the designer is Nanette Backhouse.

The book should come out in Australia next April/May so keep yer eyes peeled. It will be entitled “Elephants in the News: Pachyderms in limerick”.

I have just spent two enjoyable weeks travelling around Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia with my Dad and my brother Jo, who have both become interested in the American Civil War. This daguerreotype (taken at Gettysburg) shows the members of the Lost Brigade:

(from left to right): Major Screwup, General Malaise and Private Parts.

In addition to Gettysburg, We visited other Civil War sites at Antietam/Sharpsburg, Manassas/Bull Run, Petersburg, Richmond and the Shenandoah Valley. For me it was a crash course not just in the Civil War, but also in a broader history of the USA, because we also took in some sites that were not directly related to the Civil War.

All throughout the trip we drove through some amazingly beautiful countryside but the most picturesque by far was the Skyline drive along the Blue ridge mountains. We spent an evening there staying in some very beautiful accomodations in Shenandoah National park.

I enjoyed visiting Yorktown, historic old town Williamsburg and Jamestown, which was the site of the first permanent English settlement in the United States (dating from 1607), and the original capital of the colony of Virginia. The city was abandoned last century and there isn’t much left above ground these days apart from a ruined church and a museum housing the artifacts dug up by an ongoing archeological excavation.

But the place was vividly brought to life for me by a living history guide we met inside the national park. He was dressed in early 1600’s garb, and told a group of us the history of the site, and fielded questions as he stayed very much “in character” as an actual historical figure known as John Rolfe, who was the husband of Pochohontas and was instrumental in establishing the tobacco trade. I found out later that the guide is actually one of his descendants.

I’m always a sucker for people bold enough to play act in silly costumes!

After about a week of touring around, we then headed back to my Brother’s home in Columbia Maryland for some quality time with his family, which included quite a bit of time drawing cartoons with my two nephews.

But we also managed to fit in some more US history field trips, including a visit to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, which withstood a massive British naval Bombardment during the War of 1812 and inspired an onlooker to write the National Anthem.

Also, after 15 years in this country, I finally had a chance to visit the nation’s capital; Washington DC. The highlight of the visit for me was the marvellous monument to Abraham Lincoln. Seeing Honest Abe sitting in his chair after I had just spent several weeks absorbing the history of the Civil War, and the legacy of that particular President, gave the visit more meaning than it otherwise might have had.

After a few weeks of blazing humid heat it is certainly refreshing to be back in the cooler climate of the Bay Area.

My Dad’s limerick book opens with a quotation from the classical scholar PLINY THE ELDER, who was the first natural historian, being the author of the Naturalis Historia. He had nothing but good things to say about elephants, hence the quote. I looked for visual reference on Pliny, but no contemporary portraits of him survive; those that we have were done years after his death, and they range from depicting a heroic, burly Charlton Heston-ish dude to a wizened old Merlin type, as obviously, nobody really knows what he looked like.

So all I knew for sure was that Pliny was a bearded classical scholar who liked elephants. And I thought “HANG ON! I know where to find a perfect model!” So I based my depiction of Pliny on a certain classicist that I know…

Here’s a finished illustration from my Dad’s elephant limerick book. Some of them are coloured digitally (as is the case here) and some analog.

As you may know (if you’ve been to this NEWS page before) I am currently working on some illustrations for a book about elephants featuring LIMERICKS written by my Dad, all on the subject of pachyderms. These are a couple more sketches for the book.

It is a winter’s Christmas Eve where I am as I write this, but it is already a summer’s Christmas Day in my home town, which is where this picture was taken during a break in play at LAST year’s Happy Christmas Day Cricket match played behind my Dad’s house. Shown here, taking a well earned rest from fielding in the summer sun, are Batman and Santa Claus hanging out with my Nephew Tyler.

It’s a magical time of year to be sure…

2005: the year in review
The Bad
JOE RANFT and DAN LEE, Two powerhouse animation talents, died this year.

The many shocking Natural disasters that rocked the world.

The Good
In response to the tragedies, Maverix Studios raise $47,000 for charities in several Art-Auctions, including one for the Asian Tsunami and one for the Pakistan Earthquakes

After a self-publishing hiatus, I completed a new comic that I was very happy with.

I discovered a new literary obsession; the Aubrey Maturin Novels.

I just spent halloween in Maryland with my brother Jo and his family. This is a shot of myself with Dash and Anakin (nephews JACK and TYLER), taken at the Baltimore zoo during the “Boo at the Zoo”

This sketch below (when coloured) will be in a book I am collaborating on with my Dad (written by him illustrated by me) and it illustrates not only the page it was intended for but the urgency being applied to me to finish off the job!

When not storyboarding away in the East Bay, I am trying to finish the sketches for ALL the illustrations for a book of limericks about elephants written by my Dad a few years back. I got roughly half of them done back at that time but then ran out of steam… However I am building up steam again now. Dad put a fire under my arse by finding a REAL publisher for the book, and they want placeholder sketches for all the pics by this December, and final colour illustrations by next February. If all goes well the book will be published next August by EXISLE PRESS of New Zealand.

UPDATE: The final colour artwork, based on the above sketches can be seen HERE.

Check out this recent candid shot of young model RACHEL (my niece) strutting her stuff in some stylin’ NERVE BOMB couture. This ensemble is from our 2005 “food spatter” collection.

There will prolly be a run on the merchandise from all those fad followers out there so get ‘em while stocks last. from the Nerve Bomb Shop

If anyone else has pix of themselves wearing Nerve Bomb stuff, please send them in. If I get enough, I may make a fashion-gallery on the site. I’m already planning a fan-art gallery as there are a number of ROCKET RABBIT pinups that have been sent in.