THE BUSHMILLER MUSEUM AND RESEARCH LIBRARY!

YAY!

Mo Willems 

is here in LA!

Yesterday

he visited

Vroman's Bookstore

to read his latest

Elephant and Piggie 

book:

Which,

by the way,

just won a

Geisel Award Honor

this week!

And speaking of awards,

and

this

is

BIG

...

...

Sooper pal 

Dan Santat

won this year's

prestigious

Caldecott Medal

for 

THIS:

But wait...

another friend,

Jon Klassen,

won a 

Caldecott Honor 

for 

illustrating

THIS!

That's a lot to celebrate!

So

ANOTHER 

good friend

had a party for them at the

BUSHMILLER MUSEUM 

AND 

RESEARCH LIBRARY

Which is really just a fancy name

for the home of

Tom Gammill.

Mr. Gammill

rocks beyond words.

He's been a producer on 

The Simpsons 

since 1999.

He's written many an episode of

Seinfeld and written for Saturday Night Live,

David Letterman and Steve Martin.

He's also very involved in

The National Cartoonist Society 

and has a comic strip called 

The Doozies.

So yeah.

He funny.

And yeah.

He's probably the biggest

Ernie Bushmiller

fan in existence.

He has an entire room

dedicated to the man and his work,

primarily Nancy

He even has the guy's

driver's license:

Mr. Gammill also has a 

tongue-in-cheek

museum tucked away 

in a corner:

He even made this handy video about it:

Anyway,

it was a great party for

the medal winners:

Also in attendance were

Lisa Yee,

animator/author

Bob Boyle, 

with Adventure Time artist 

Teri Shikasho,

cartoonist Matthew Diffee and his wife

and 

Mr. Gammill's writing partner

Max Pross and his wife.

And of course,

the fabulous and stylish

Mrs. Warburton!

Tom's unbelievable wife Sandy

made an unbelievable dinner

and then we

TOTALLY

drew all over the tables.

But we'll tell you about that next time!

GABRIEL PICOLO IS KINDA AWESOME

I really like

Brazillian artist

Gabriel Picolo's

sketchbooks.

I especially his

reimagining of animated characters.

He's done a 

LOT

from all different networks and studios,

both, film and TV.

I especially love the ones

from Cartoon Network,

like 

Fosters Hone For Imaginary Friends:

Courage The Cowardly Dog

Powerpuff Girls

Johnny Bravo

Dexter's Laboratory

Samurai Jack

Billy and Mandy

And

(YAY!)

Codename: Kids Next Door

Here some info about his wok process from

his DeviantArt page:

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you sketch first or do you draw entirely with pens?
I always make a pencil sketch first. Only then I add ink.
What are the sizes of your notebook?
I draw on a 9X14 cm Moleskine, acid-free paper
What tools do you draw with?
I draw with pencils for sketch and Staedtler ink pens. I often use a white paint as corrector for the lines inside black spaces.
How are your blacks so even?
Firstly, I ink everything traditionally. I've been doing the coloring part digitally. After everything is done I increase contrast levels at Photoshop CS3.

For more awesomeness from 

Mr. Picolo

check out his gallery over

HERE

MAGIC THE GATHERING PROOF CARDS

I totally forgot about these!

When I was on the road for the

DON'T LET THE PIGEON FINISH THIS ACTIVITY BOOK

mini-tour,

Mo had a party!

While there,

I noticed a

shady-looking mustachioed

character sneaking up behind me:

I nearly brained him with one of

the billions of award statues laying about the house

until I realized it was

the sooper powered 

SCOTT M. FISHER!

Besides having a truly epic sketchbook to show off,

he had brought me a couple 

Magic: The Gathering 

artist proof cards

from the latest set he worked on.

You can tell they're proofs
(or printing tests)

by the white back on them:

But it's the 

OTHER

side that's

worth the look:

Aaaaaaaawesome, 

right?

But how stoopid was I to forget

to have him sign the cards?

Well,

I didn't make that mistake 

when we visited

Tony DiTerlizzi 

the next day!

He was nice enough to 

deal me some 

old school MTG artist proofs

of cards he painted.

And I mos def got him to sign them:

Drool,

nerds,

DROOL!

DINING WITH DiTERLIZZI's

I'm fairly sure you know Tony DiTerlizzi.

He's this guy:

And this guy:

And he's married to this gal:

Angela wrote this:

So yeah. 

Them.

We were all hanging out during a party at Knuffle Manor

(Chateau du Willems)

and I used my Jedi powers to trick Tony and Angela into 

inviting us over to lunch the next day.

Or they used their powers to trick us into coming over

and eating delicious meatballs and sausage 

that Angela cooked up.

Either way...

It was 

DELICIOUS!

But what was even more delicious was 

getting to see Tony's studio:

He even let us rifle through his flat files

which were chock full of

ORIGINAL ART!

Pictures don't do the originals justice.

Seriously...

The detail.

The color.

The way he copies nature into his creatures.

And the clear-coat he uses on top make the paintings leap out at you.

I thought I liked the art in his books.

But the originals put 'em to shame.

Tony and Angela also have an unbelievable collection of original art.

Dr. Suess.

Mary Blair.

Brian Froud.

And a lot of props from the Spiderwick movie:

Tony was also kind enough to throw a couple books at me:

AND

I got a couple classic Magic The Gathering 

proof cards Tony painted.

But that's for another post.

Thanks for an unforgettable afternoon,

 Tony and Angela!