James Foley makes children’s books for children who read books. If you’re a child and you’re eating his books, you’re doing it wrong. His books include the multi-award winning Stellarphant, Brobot, Chickensaurus, Bigfoot vs Yeti, Happy Barry Capybara and Oh No! James lives in Perth with his wife Renae Hayward (also an author), 2 kids (wannabe authors), and a labrador (not an author). He is a massive Marvel movie nerd and comes from a long line of queuing enthusiasts. Follow him on socials ( @jamesfoleybooks ) or at www.jamesfoley.com.au .
Thanks to Rebecca Newman of Alphabet Soup magazine for the following review of The Last Viking.
If you don’t know anything about Vikings yet, you’ll know heaps about them by the time you finish The Last Viking. The illustrations are fun and cartoon-like and if you’re a super sleuth, you’ll notice that on some of the pages there are messages written in code—rune carvings. At the back of the book (on the endpapers) you’ll find the key to crack the code.
Keep an eye out for the ravens in the book, too. In Norse mythology they are Odin’s messengers, and in The Last Viking, they keep the Viking gods updated on Josh/Knut’s progress.
The Last Viking is an exciting adventure about courage, imagination and dealing with bullies.
Last week I spoke about some of the other illustrators who influenced my approach to The Last Viking. I forgot a couple of important ones… so I’ve put them in this post.
First up is Jan Ormerod. Moonlight was one of my favourite books as a child (still is). The sister book, Sunshine, is amazing too.
'Moonlight' by Jan Ormerod, republished by Frances Lincoln (2005)
For those of you who’ve never seen these books (shame on you), the amazing thing is the lack of words. Everything is told in panels, using only body language and facial expressions. The figure drawing is so accurate and subtle, it makes me feel very jealous to look at it now. Jan also breaks the panel borders regularly, which stops the panels feeling stale or constrictive.
I hadn’t noticed that these books had an influence until I re-read them randomly last week… I then realised that the panel sequences in The Last Viking probably owe a lot to Jan’s work seeping into my brain at a young age. I can’t find any pics of the interior spreads on the web…
Another huge influence on me is The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base.
'The Eleventh Hour' by Graeme Base, Penguin
I was obsessed with it around age 10 or 11. I loved all the puzzles hidden in the images and borders. Unfortunately, I wasn’t patient enough at the time to figure them out… my parents sent for the hint sheet to be mailed out to me (this was back in the day before they started including the hint sheet with the book), and once I got it, I couldn’t resist reading through and checking every little clue. No will power at that age, obviously.
When Norm and I thought about incorporating runes into The Last Viking somehow, it seemed natural to use them as borders, and to have them spell out secret messages.
If you’d like to have a go at decoding some rune messages, check out the new ‘Resources‘ page and download the rune handouts. There’s more messages in the book too… on the front and back covers, for example 🙂
The Last Viking launch
Friday June 24
6pm for a 6:30pm start
Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre (Old Prison Hospital)
cnr Knutsford and Hampton Rd, Fremantle
Norm has spoken previously about some of his influences while writing The Last Viking. This week I thought I’d talk about the influences I had while doing the drawings.
I’ve been a huge fan of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes for many years. It was written and illustrated by the incredibly intelligent and talented Bill Watterson. The comic looked at the worries of childhood with humour and sensitivity. I was a teenager when I first start reading the comic, and I often didn’t understand the deeper philosophical side of each story, but the inventive and expressive artwork was more than enough to get me hooked. It’s easy to see the similarities between Calvin and Josh- both are young boys, both are loners, both have animal friends, and both get lost in their imaginations on a regular basis.
Calvin and Hobbes, created by Bill Watterson
Another major influence for me has been the Asterix comics, written by Rene Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo. I loved the historical references, the attention to detail in the costumes and backgrounds, and the ridiculous puns. That’s all come through in The Last Viking (except for the puns… though I feel that Norman’s gentle, daggy sense of humour is very much in the same vein as Goscinny’s, and also mine). And of course, there is an animal companion- a little white dog, called Dogmatix… very much like Wolverine in The Last Viking.
Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix, created by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo
Prince Knut and his trusty Wolfhound going a-Viking…
a proper Viking funeral…
and Odin, Thor and the Bezerkers preparing for battle.
My favourite part of this last image is the bottom right-hand corner. I put in a bird poo for a joke. At the time I didn’t realise that when people were going to turn this page, that’s exactly where they would have to put their thumb.
My first go wasn’t too bad- but the night-time panel wasn’t dark enough. It seemed like early morning, and Josh would (should) be asleep by then 🙂 I wasn’t sure about the colours in the day-time panel either. But I liked the blur of colour from the left-hand panel across the gutter.
The light is too bright, almost like a spotlight, or a UFO
When I had tried colours for a few pages, I started to see that sometimes it looked good if just a few things were coloured in, and other parts were left white. So I tried that. And I darkened up the night-time panel.
The first review appeared in the inboxes of Norman and I this morning…
The Last Viking scored 4 out of 5 stars and made the Top Picks list in the upcoming issue of Junior BOOKSELLER+PUBLISHER.
“Norman Jorgensen’s writing and James Foley’s illustrations complement each other perfectly in this charming story about courage and imagination. As in all the best picture books, the words allow room for the cartoonish, expressive art to expand and deepen the story.
Keen readers can even decipher the runic inscriptions adorning the illustrations with the help of the decoder in the endpapers.
This is recommended fun for primary school readers.”
Heath Graham, educator, State Library of Victoria- reviewing for Junior BOOKSELLER+PUBLISHER
This week I’ll show the final rough and pencil outlines, and how I got there.
I’d decided the scene would take place in Josh’s bedroom. He’d be in a cubby house with his dog at night, and there’d also be a panel on the right set in the morning.
Here’s the closest I’d got so far:
My next experiment would be trying a more dramatic birds-eye perspective. I did some smaller thumbnails:
a small note on the post-it wonders if Josh might yawn like a lion in the morning: to go with the phrase, "But other than those things, Josh was as brave as a lion".
Last week I wrote about how opening scenes work, and showed some early roughs of the opening scene for Last Viking.
I tried various options that didn’t quite work, which helped me become clearer about what I wanted the opening scene to achieve. It needed to do several things:
Introduce Josh and Wolverine, and show the closeness of their relationship (who)
Show that Josh is a creative, imaginative and resourceful kid (who)
Introduce Josh’s problem (fear) and have the reader empathise with his feelings (what)
probably show Josh in his room- night-time would be easiest to show fear, but daytime would be easiest to show Josh and Wolverine playing (where, when)
So with those things in mind, I kept sketching. I did a little set of thumbnails where the double page spread would have two panels. One would be big and dark, showing Josh’s room at night time. Josh and Wolverine are visible only as silhouettes, seen in a cubby made from a blanket. The bulk of the text would relate to this panel and go in a column at far left. The thinner panel on the right would show Josh and Wolverine poking their heads out from the cubby the next morning, with the line, “But other than those things, Josh is as brave as a lion” written close by.
Here’s a bigger version with some tone added. There is still a silhouette of a dinosaur on the far wall. Josh’s skateboard is on the floor next to Wolverine’s cushion.
James Foley 