Brian Selznick is the Bee's Knees

Writing and drawing are my loves.  For a long time now I've wanted both to be my career.  Writing and illustrating novels is something I dream about all the time, even though I don't think I could ever do it as seamlessly as Brian Selznick.  The first time I picked up The Invention of Hugo Cabret I was pretty speechless.  Here was a guy doing pretty much exactly what I wanted to do and totally winning.  I had one of those everything-is-totally-awesome-with-my-life-right-now kind of moments.

(I left the images their original size so you can appreciate the artwork.  Go ahead, appreciate away)



 

When I heard they were coming out with a movie, I was iffy, as I always am with book-based films.  Parts of it I hated, parts of it were okay, and parts of it I liked.  I would say it was down the middle road, nowhere near Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is burning in the hell of my mind as we speak.  It's safe to say that it, along with the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie, should never come up in conversation around me.

But anyways, last year, Brian Selznick came out with another one of his written/illustrated novels, Wonderstruck.  This time he took it to a new level by telling two stories at one time, with the illustrations following a deaf girl in the 20s and the writing following a boy in the 70s, and ending with their stories intertwined.  It was one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.





Selznick has honed in on the fabulous idea of combining writing and art and has taken it so much farther than the little story books you read to your pre-schoolers.  This is essentially what I dream of doing with my life.

Can you tell he's my favorite artist/author?

And if you've been thinking this whole time that these are kid's books, you're right.  Sometimes I'm a 22-year-old kid.  That's just the way it is.