Zack Rock's Blog, page 2
August 14, 2013
Swine Tasting
Posting here has been more sporadic than usual lately as I’m hammering through the final stage of my picture book. I’ll try to get some sneak peeks up soon if I can find a spare minute in my 80-hour work week.
In the meantime, enjoy this cloven-hoofed connoisseur of quality cordials I painted for a friend’s birthday. You might recognize him as the spokespig for Japan’s most popular potable:
“For Relaxing Times, Make it Sowtory Time.”
Sorry, sometimes the puns are a little ham-fisted.
Sorry.
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Remember, you can always find me on Etsy, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram!
August 1, 2013
Taiwannabe
Do you live in Taiwan, or know someone from Taiwan, or are an ambassador to the UN from a country with healthy diplomatic relations with Taiwan and have no scruples against using your position to pull a few strings, magazine-wise?
THEN YOU ARE IN LUCK MY FRIEND.
dpi Magazine, the great Taiwanese journal of illustration art, has recently released their 2013 Bologna Book Fair retrospective, which includes a short interview with your’s truly and a selection from my book Mel Goaté and the Purple Velvet Tuxedo. I can’t remember what I said in the interview, but I’m sure it’s brilliant and well worth a trip to Google Translate. Also included are other, not-me illustrators from the Fair whose work’ll make you feel like you’ve been socked in the eyeballs with a rainbow.
So if you’ve got 480 Taiwanese dollars laying around, pick up a copy today! And I promise that next post will have nothing to do with either Bologna or magazines.
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Remember, you can always find me on Etsy, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram!
May 6, 2013
Back to School
Growing up, I missed out on a lot of those traumatizing childhood experiences charitably described as “character-building.” Never broke a limb, never had braces, never broke a limb while struggling to detach my braces from the braces of my first kiss. Never saw Mac and Me.
And I never had to ride the school bus. So my entire understanding of how they operate is as follows: A) their wheels go round and round, and B) they are fueled by the ear-abusing shrieks of their delinquent passengers.
Little wonder, then, that when I got the assignment for The Normal School‘s Spring issue with the co-themes of “cutting class” and “4-H club,” the first thing that came to mind was a bus stocked with clamorous farm animals. It’s pure coincidence that both school kids and barnyard animals are ecstatic Beliebers.
The issue’s on newsstands now, so if you like quality literature and goats, snatch this up ASAP!
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Remember, you can always find me on Etsy, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram!
April 6, 2013
No fair
One week ago today I returned from the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, and I’m still futilely attempting to distill into words what was easily to best week of my life.
On any given day I’d find myself, say, escorting a 72-year old master illustrator back to his hotel as he described beating up a pickpocket the week prior, or talking Italian politics with my AirBnb.com rentees until 2am as water dripped from the above light fixture, or getting lost in an intestinal labyrinth of a medieval streets with nothing but a pedal-less bike and Beach House for company, or having a two-hour hot chocolate-induced panic attack hallucinations wherein an adolescent Jesus Christ is beating the literal hell out of me. It was stone cold BANANAS.
Prior to the fair itself I stopped in Florence, where you couldn’t walk five feet without running into a Renaissance masterpiece or the best meal you’ve ever eaten. The place was swarming with Michelangelos, Raphaels, Donatellos, Leonardos; ALL the Ninja Turtles! And nothing can prepare a person for the Duomo; it takes up your entire field of vision and occupies every atom of your imagination.
And David! I saw David! I stared at David for two hours and I still couldn’t believe I was seeing David. I didn’t know how to respond, I tried sketching him which ended in tears and then settled on taking an illegal iPhone selfie with David in the background.
Bologna, also incredible. Seeing my artwork up on the gallery wall was surreal, as was being publicly presented with a certificate of participation by some of my illustration heroes, as was the realization that I’d be having dinner with said heroes later that night and they were technically colleagues. Technically.
There was also the opportunity to collect the business cards and handshakes of publishers and illustrators from around the globe, make new friends, meet up with old friends, and get inspired by the foreign books I’d never see otherwise. Even bought a few of them. Google Translate and I are going to spend some quality time together.
[Right to Left: Sarah Brown, Katie May Green, Trudi Esberger, and Becky Palmer. Hire them for all your illustration/modeling needs.]
[Ruchi Mhasane, Rosemary Shojaie, and John Lawrence]But the fair is over and I’m back in Seattle, no longer a minor celebrity. Just another pseudo-hipster in a cat fur-covered cardigan who spends too much time indoors.
Ah, well. There’s always next year.
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Remember, you can always find me on Etsy, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram!
March 19, 2013
Room with a view
[click for larger view]
In preparation for my trip to Bologna Book Fair, I spent the last few weeks getting my portfolio into gear. This included a 20-day tenancy in the museum exhibition space above. Forty different exhibits on display there, not counting the canine. Took forever not only to think up interesting curios to show, but also to organize them on the walls and shelves. It was all worth it, though, because now my children’s book boasts both a human skull and a shining red butt. You’re welcome, parents.
Alright, I’m off! Wish me luck!
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Remember, you can always find me on Etsy, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram!
January 29, 2013
No Bologna
Not to be outdone by December’s book contract news, January has slapped me in the face with yet another dream come true.
Each year at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (the industry’s most important professional fair), the organizers set aside exhibition space to show off artwork of illustrators from around the world. At some point during the four-day event, the fair attendees–publishers, art directors, illustrators, etc–amble their way to the gallery, so it’s an incredible opportunity for the selected artists to reach an international audience.
It’s not easy to get in, however; last year, 2,685 illustrators submitted work, and only 72 were selected. Similar numbers this year, with my illustrations from Mel Goaté and the Purple Velvet Tuxedo padding the stats. Considering the stunning work being submitted just by my friends, I thought the odds of my musical goat stirring the hearts of the judges were slim.
And maybe they were. But that didn’t prevent the judges for selecting my work to be featured in this year’s exhibition!
That’s right, publishing professionals from around the world are going to be subjected to my terrible puns, and there’s nothing they can do about it! They’ll even suffer through them again in the Bologna Annual illustration book. And if you think my gags are painfully obscure in the Western Hemisphere, say a prayer for poor Japan, because the exhibition is also touring four Japanese museums. Soon the whole world will know the true meaning of “Bleat, Bahhh & Beyond”!
But seriously, this is a true honor. Every time I look at the illustrations from the book, I remember the endless months I spent detailing each little element, getting the woodgrain right on the victrola, making sure the county fair food glistened with the adequate amount of greasy glory, sitting motionlessly for hours in what could only be described as a pun coma as I devised names for barnyard musicians like Marvin Bray and Pjork, etc. I had no higher aspirations than getting a good grade in my MA course. Obviously, Mel Goaté had bigger plans.
So if you’re attending the fair this year and see a tall, lanky Yank with a perpetual look of shock on his face, stop and say hi! Hope to see you there!
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Remember, you can always find me on Etsy, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram!
December 3, 2012
Getting Creative
Some keen-eyed readers may have noticed a buried lead in the recent profile of me on the amazing Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog. Amidst the goat illustrations and Marmite gags was news that I’ve been working with the Creative Company to get my first picture book out the door. At the time, I had been collaborating with Creative’s editor and art director, pruning the superfluous elements and focusing some of the details of my proposal in an effort to tighten it up. I did not, however, have a contract for the book itself.
That all changed last week. After spending a lifetime drawing and dreaming of one day getting my own book into print, I’m inexpressibly happy to say I’m now officially under contract with Creative to have my first children’s picture book published in 2014!
Having a story I both wrote and illustrated living free range out in the world is going to be phenomenal enough. But it is an exceptional honor to have it published by the Creative Company. Few publishers in the world produce books as beautiful and poignant as those released by Creative. To give you a sense of what I mean, let me show you some of the other illustrators they’ve already worked with:
Breathtaking, no?
I’ll keep you updated to the progress of the book throughout the coming months. There’s still lots of work left to do, but knowing it’ll all add up to a finished book will spur me forward like a manic racehorse. Well, the congratulatory artisanal chocolate will help, too.
You have sent some congratulatory artisanal chocolate, haven’t you? HMMM?
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Remember, you can always find me on Etsy, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram!
November 20, 2012
One Christmas At A Time
As you may have gathered from my weekly podcast, “Feeding Ducks, with Zack & Quackers,” I maintain a pretty low-key lifestyle. Of the punk life trifecta—sex, drugs, rock and roll—only that last element sounds appealing, because it conjures up images of me enjoying a warm roll. Actually, our mutual fondness for bread is the only reason Quackers and I can still do the podcast, and if I were honest with myself there’s really nothing left for me in that relationship.
Hence, there was no small amount of shock and chamomile tea spilling when I received a call from the gem-encrusted cell phone of bona fide rock star John Roderick (of The Long Winters fame). Evidently, he and fellow guitargonaut Jonathan Coulton had grounded their golden pleasurecopters long enough to collaborate on an album of Christmas music, and wished to secure my services for the front and back covers. Having met the two under totally normal circumstances a month prior, I knew this was a great opportunity to work with a couple of swell guys who—if I played my cards right—might just share with me the secret of facial hair husbandry (Note: they did not).
Now, I realize for many of you, Christmas music is Proustian invitation to bask in the warm memories of yuletides past, to be quaffed with nogalcoholic abandon as soon as the last fiber of Thanksgiving turkey is pried from the bone. I understand. I have a similar reaction Marvin Hamlisch’s score for Seems Like Old Times. However, I nonetheless find 99.4% of all Christmas songs to be cloying miscarriages of sound, and spend most of December wishing my superpower was “retractable ears” instead of “parellel parking.”
Not so with Roderick and Coulton’s “One Christmas At A Time.” Whether it be the anthem to video game gifting, “2600,” or the universally-applicable “Christmas In Jail,” every song on the album gets me right in my two sizes too small heart. My only misgiving is that the meeting of Jonathan Coulton and The Long Winters wasn’t christened “The Jonathan Winters.” Missed opportunity, that.
To get your copy of “One Christmas At A Time,” sally forth to the order page. And while any edition of the record is a Christmas miracle, word on the sleet is the special edition box set is especially suffuse with holiday cheer.
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Remember, you can always find me on Etsy, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram!
October 17, 2012
Cultured Swine
You know those drizzly Autumn afternoons when all you want to do is cozy up among the volumes of a yellow-lighted bookshop, and also you’re a pig dressed like Jean-Pierre Léaud in Masculin, féminin? Sure, we all do.
Well, now you can experience that cerebral consumerist comfort every time you boot up your computer with my “Cultured Swine” desktop background. Just pick your screen size below and voilà!
1280 x 800 – 1440 x 900 – 1680 x 1050 – 1920 x 1200 – 2560 x 1440
For the record, this illustration is a recent commission for a friend. Would anyone else be interested in this little piggie going on their wall? Let me know! I’m considering making it available as a print.
Oh! And in case you missed it, I was featured last Sunday on the wonderful Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog. Very honored to be profiled by such a terrific resource for the picturebook universe.
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Remember, you can always find me on Etsy, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram!
