I’m happy to announce that a kids’ book I illustrated, Hubert the Spider, is now available to the public! Hubert is a 20-page story about a young arachnid that has trouble finding his own talent and where that fits among his unique classmates. Fortunately, his friend, Hippo, helps him discover where he can shine. You can purchase a hardcover (recommended), paperback or e-book here.
Hubert started with a question posed about a year-and-a-half ago by a friend, Bob Mills, asking if I wanted to illustrate a story he had composed. I had previously worked quite a bit with Bob and his brother, Andy, on visuals for their band, The Riptides—a punk band from Ottawa, Canada. After reading the story I said yes, but it took me until the beginning of summer to start. Just like any project around OLG, producing a quality book from start to finish required a lot of preparation and planning, as well as a working collaboration between the author and me. The most memorable initial step, was the creation of Hubert himself. It was a challenge to develop a spider character that everyone could love and not associate with the hairy things in your basement, ha.
Each spread had a unique opportunity to express what’s happening to Hubert with lots of color and emotions shown by his friends. Luckily, working recently with the fictional band, The Final Hurrahs, I had some experience with developing character traits. Also, working with another dude familiar with awesome music, it was fun to add a couple of band-related references throughout (Screeching Weasel, anyone?).
Overall, I’m really pleased with the outcome and I hope that if you purchase a copy, it becomes a favorite story of a little one you know!
(Word has it, Hubert might be translated to Spanish too!)
