Don Wood
Q: You are best known for your award-winning picture books such as The Napping House and the Caldecott honor-winning King Bidgood's in the Bathtub. Your new book, Into the Volcano is a 176-page graphic novel. What made you want to create this new kind of book?
A: I have always been fascinated by what is now known as "narrative art," that is art that tells a story. I loved comic books as a child, but I had very specific tastes-Uncle Scrooge was my favorite, but only certain Uncle Scrooge comics truly captivated me. Later I learned that all of those I loved were the work of the ingenious Carl Barks. Even in college in the mid-sixties, when no one was painting figuratively, all of my paintings were figurative, and had literary, or story content.
In my experience as a reader, graphic novels are a unique and powerful medium. Words and pictures together are strong. When I read a good graphic novel, I experience it as an irresistible combination of a book and a mental movie. The whole thing seems to occur somewhere beyond reading.
All stories are didactic. They teach whether you want them to or not. The true lesson learned by reading a great story is not the obvious, or surface theme, but the empathy the story inspires. The reader loses him or herself and merges with the story's characters. Empathy, that is experiencing through your imagination exactly how someone else feels, is one of life's most important lessons. In my experience, graphic novels inspire empathy better than any other medium. That is why I have always wanted to create one.
Q: All the art for Into the Volcano was created on your computer. Can you explain the advantages and disadvantages of using this medium?
A: Into the Volcano was drawn by hand on a computer. If that sounds contradictory, you have never used a Wacom Graphic Art Tablet with Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. I don't even own a mouse.
Every stroke of my wireless pen on my huge 12" x 18" Wacom tablet creates a stroke on my screen that appears to be chalk, or brush, or oil pastel, or some blender tool not available in the real world. Each stroke is sensitive to speed and pressure. Press hard on your pen and go slow and you get a thick, opaque, grungy line. Press lightly and go fast and the line is transparent, thin, and skipping. So I drew every line and painted every color in this book, just as I would with traditional media.
With a complex project such as this, digital art may be somewhat faster due to the artist's ability to instantly correct errors, and the option of using layers. Layers allow me to draw final art directly over rough sketches, and then I can print text directly over the final art.
The disadvantages of digital include losing a lot of those happy accidents that occur with traditional media, plus there are no digital programs that can match the richness and complexity of a watercolor wash slopped onto rag paper, or oil paint scumbled across a rough canvas.
Q: The book is set on a volcanic island, in underground lava tubes, and in a wild jungle. How did you choose this setting, and how did this setting affect your basic story?
A: The setting for Into the Volcano is one of the most important characters in the book. It drives and colors everything. Once I saw the glow and felt the heat of flowing lava, I was hooked. Discovering the network of exotic lava tubes beneath the volcano made the decision to use this setting so obvious that I don't even remember making it.
Q: How long did you work on Into the Volcano, and what were the greatest challenges?
A: I worked five years on this book: two years part-time, two years full-time, and one year double-time.
The greatest challenge was number 1,362, the last drawing; by then I was losing momentum. I originally thought I would finish the book in three years.
Q: All of your picture books have been collaborations with your wife, acclaimed writer Audrey Wood. But you wrote this book yourself. What was that like?
A: I begged Audrey to cowrite Into the Volcano with me, but she decided to push me out of the nest. She did help tremendously with the dialogue. She has a background in drama and a natural talent for dialogue and mimicry.
Q: Are there any things in the art that you think most people might not notice?
A: In the top panel of page 29, Duffy is wearing what appears to be an unusual pair of high-top socks, a strange ensemble for wading in a tropical stream. The off-green with the broad yellow stripe is the color pattern of the tops of the remarkable footwear known as Tabies. Hawaiian Opihi pickers and net throwers gather food from the sea by scrambling over slippery rocks in dangerous surf. They always wear Tabies. Nearly unknown on the mainland, this footwear is very popular in Hawaii and is even sold in supermarkets. If you cross a wet hardwood floor in your Tabies, it is like walking on ice, but their felt soles grab like nothing else on slippery, moss-covered rocks.
My guess is that Come-and-Go keeps a supply of Tabies in the Valley of Ghosts Winnebago for guests, and loaned them to Sumo and Duffy for their hike up the stream to Pulina's Waterfall.
Q: People who have seen Into the Volcano say it is very cinematic. Can you speak to how you used lighting, setting, and other dramatic elements to give this book such a cinematic feeling?
A: All of my picture books are created to be cinematic. I suppose this book, being so much longer than our picture books, makes the effect more obvious. When designing a book, I always think in terms of point of view-sometimes it lingers, sometimes it jumps, just like a camera. There are close-ups, and establishing shots, and mood shifts created by light and color; page turns are edits. A picture book or a graphic novel is a movie between cardboard covers.
Q: What is your background as an artist?
A: I stubbornly decided to be an artist in the fourth grade. I was born on a farm in a small farming community. No serious art galleries for a hundred miles. No bookstores for forty miles. I didn't know a single artist or writer. I have no idea where the art urge originated. When I didn't outgrow my ambition, my parents became very worried. In those days becoming an artist was just a silly dream.
Although I have an undergraduate art degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the California College of Art, due to the art movements of the time, I nearly always found myself without art instructors who worked figuratively, so, much of the time, I taught myself.
After college I quit painting and drawing for five years, and then began working in art again as a freelance illustrator for six different magazines.
After Audrey sold a children's book, she asked me to illustrate it, so I rode her coattails into the publishing business. I strongly recommend the strategy of riding the coattails of a very talented person to any young artist trying to get established.
Q: What was the process of making this book? Did the story or the pictures come to you first? Did you write a manuscript and then draw the pictures?
A: I drew and wrote the book simultaneously because the visuals and the writing are equally important and inseparable.
The initial drawings were just circles for heads and blobs for bodies, and scrawled speech balloons. Then, using layers, I drew more finished roughs directly over the sketches, revised everything 100 times, and then, on another layer, I drew final art and printed final text right on top of the roughs.
This interview has been provided by Scholastic Inc.
Further information about Don Wood and his books is available on the Scholastic website.
Reviews
Into the Volcano
Don Wood
Brothers Duffy and Sumo Pugg didn’t know what to expect when their father pulls them out of school and sends them to the island of Kocalaha for a “vacation” with their mother’s foul-mouthed sister Aunt Lulu. At first things go great—for Duffy who loves island life, unlike mean-spirited Sumo who spends all of his time complaining. But events take a sinister turn when Aunt Lulu’s gang of mercenaries take the boys on an “expedition” into the island’s erupting volcano where they search a maze of underground lava tubes for a mysterious treasure. Frightened, Duffy and Sumo run away, but as they look for an exit, Duffy nearly kills himself in a nasty fall. To save his brother, Sumo must brave the dangers of the volcano before time runs out for both of them. Award-winning artist Don Wood spent five years researching and creating Into the Volcano and the result is nothing short of spectacular. While the plot moves at a breakneck speed, readers will spend hours lingering on every page just to enjoy the breathtaking scenes—from a harrowing ride through streams of burning lava (based on photographs Wood took during his own trip into a volcano), to an otherworldly trek through the lava tubes, to a surreal conversation Sumo has with Death himself. Story wise, the book leaves many questions unanswered, particularly those concerning the villains’ motives. Sumo himself is also initially presented as such an unlikable character that his shift from brat to hero comes as a jarring, if well motivated, change. But these are minor qualms that don’t detract from what the book really is—a non-stop thrill ride through one of Earth’s most exotic and terrifying natural wonders. 2008, The Blue Sky Press/Scholastic Inc, Ages 8 to 17, $18.99. Reviewer: Michael Jung (Children’s Literature).
ISBN: 0-439-72671-9
ISBN: 978-0-439-72671-9
Updated 02/26/09
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