Author Study Example: William
Joyce
Bibliography:
George
Shrinks
Rolie
Polie Olie
Snowie
Polie Olie
Big
Time Olie
Buddy
A
Day With Wilbur Robinson
Bentley
and Egg
Santa
Calls
The
Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs
The
World of William Joyce Scrapbook
Nicholas
Cricket (illus. only)
Humphrey’s
Bear (illus. only)
Shoes
(Illus only)
Tammy
and the Gigantic Fish (illus only)
Ideas:
William
Joyce has written and illustrated his own books and illustrated books for other
authors. His illustrations have a sense of impressionism in their artistic
quality. He has a satiric and somewhat sarcastic sense of humor. Children find
his books extremely humorous with an exciting sense of adventure. Santa Calls
is one of my favorite Christmas stories. He uses people as well as animals as
characters. I find his books excellent read aloud stories. Most of Joyce’s
books have unique illustrations. These could be looked at for their artistic
value alone, or as models for children’s illustrations. The humorous nature of
his books along with underlying metaphors and moral ideas make for great read
aloud discussions. Joyce’s books have been turned into Disney cartoons and
Rolie Polie Olie is on the Disney channel.
Author Info:
Bill Joyce
was born in 1957 in Shreveport, Louisiana, and grew up in a household of
eccentrics much like that of A Day with Wilbur Robinson. He says he was raised by his TV set.
He loved Where the Wild Things Are, and his favorite illustrators were Maurice
Sendak, Beatrix Potter, and N.C. Wyeth. But Walt Disney profoundly influenced
him just as much as anything he ever took out of the library. What he liked
best about school was art class. He was drawing all the time and swiftly
progressed from depicting cats and dogs to spaceships and sister-eating
dinosaurs. His parents, teachers and librarians encouraged his talent, but
Joyce was never interested in drawing things just as they are. His vivid
imagination would not allow it. He hoped one day to write and illustrate his
own books.
Author
Interview: What influences you as
an artist and author?
I'm a
first-generation TV brat. My brain was welded to the solid-state circuitry of
our RCA Viewmaster black-and-white television set. Every day and night I saw
all the past, present, and future pulp the tube had to offer. Plus there were
comic strips, my family, and other illustrators. George Shrinks is King Kong in
reverse. Nicholas Cricket is Casablanca with bugs. In The Leaf Men and Bently
& egg the characters are as dashing and heroic as Robin Hood. In Santa
Calls there are elements of The Wizard of Oz, Davy Crockett, The Lone Ranger,
Rin-Tin-Tin, Little Orphan Annie, Jules Verne, and the Warner Brothers
cartoons. For Dinosaur Bob I thought about Paul Bunyan and Casey at the Bat.
Not only does a dinosaur become the family pet, but he also plays baseball and
the trumpet, and dances the hokey-pokey. A Day With Wilbur Robinson is a
combination of Dr. Doolittle, The Absent-Minded Professor, Invaders from Mars,
and an exaggerated version of my own childhood.
How does
your childhood show up in your picture books?
I was raised by a congenial horde of southern screwballs. We had
artists, bongo players, photographers, opera singers, actors, and geologists in
our family. Everyone over fifty had dentures, which were always being mixed up
or misplaced. We sometimes played shuffleboard with them. My grandfather had
the added bonus of a glass eye that he swore could see even when outside his
head. I had an uncle who convinced me he was from another planet. With a
household like that, writing and illustrating.
William
Joyce has said that doing children's books is like being paid for recess. The
same is true of reading them. His work exudes exuberance. So infectious is his
sense of fun that it is nearly impossible to look at his work and not break in
to a broad grin. He has been called 'campy,' 'looney,' 'whackey,' zany.' But
his giddy playfulness should not suggest that there is anything silly about his
ability. Joyce is a wonderful artist and exceptional illustrator. He has
mastered various media -- pen-and-ink, colored pencils, watercolor, oils. He is
a superb painter and draughtsman with an extraordinary imagination. His
monumental compositions are characterized by clean line and clear color, and
the child can read every detail without difficulty. And one never knows what
might be lurking behind a bush or just around the corner in Joyce's
neighborhood. Much of his humor arises from the clash of startling incongruity
and matter-of-fact technique. He also writes as well as he draws.
Joyce is
perhaps the most eclectic American children's book illustrator since Maurice
Sendak, a childhood favorite of his. He plays with the cliches of popular
culture and transforms them into his own myths. His work embraces all
children's book genres and is no part of any of them. His designs are rich with
echoes of half-remembered books, movies, cartoons, and comic strips. Dinosaur
Bob effectively
crosses The Great Gatsby with The Thin Man and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Wilbur Robinson must be a direct
descendant of the Swiss Family Robinson as well as Heath Robinson's youngest
American cousin. Casablanca meets Hoppity Goes to Town in his paintings for Joyce Maxner's comparatively tame
Nicholas Cricket. Joyce's work is like one unending Saturday matinee. King Kong
pops up in the oddest places in all of his books and on his 1991 poster for
"New York is Book Country." George shrinks like the Incredible
Shrinking Man; and Joyce transformed Errol Flynn's Robin Hood into the leader
of the Leaf Men. His books are full of big production numbers right out of
Busby Berkeley musicals. Joyce's style might by called Looney Tune Deco. There
is a Silly Symphony synchronicity about his picture books. He decorated the
North Pole of Santa Calls in early Oz and vintage Slumberland. And it is all
pure Joyce. His pictures ache with a nostalgia for a past this young man has
never really known. He has reinvented not only his own childhood but that of
America itself, a more innocent, sweeter time than the post-war era in which
the artist was never really like the world which William Joyce depicts, but it
should have been.