Friday, October 3, 2008

A Message from Chris

Hi, this is Chris Mori writing—illustrator and designer of BIG-BONED.

Let me start by saying I love Jim. He is my work wife. Our constant benign banter about beautiful women, horrible commutes, and cute stuff our kids do make the work week bearable. But a few years ago (pre-children) Jim mentioned he had written a book loosely based on his gluttonous youth. For some reason we decided to turn that book idea (originally called, “Fat”) into a graphic novel. I was eager to do something fun, creative, and collaborative. That eagerness quickly turned into dread.

It has been a tumultuous two years working on BIG-BONED with him. Visually creating Jim Hastings’s pseudo biography is like going to an off-off-off Broadway musical. It sounds like an okay idea but really isn’t. Jim is like the freelance client from hell. He is nice, funny, but EXTREMELY high maintenance.

Transcript October, 15th 2007:

Jim: Looks awesome man. I love it, but can you change the color of the background?

Me: Sure, no problem.

Jim: Cool. I am looking for a canary-yellow like this canary I once saw when I was six years old.

Me: Alright. Like this?

Jim: No, MORE canary.

Me: More canary?

Jim: Yeah. Like if the sun and a post-it had a baby together.

Me: What!!? This is the best I can do. THIS is canary yellow, you’re gonna have deal with it!!

Jim: Fine. God, I just have a vision. I can settle for that yellow, I guess. You don’t have to get so upset man. You’ll thank me when we’re famous and we sell the screenplay and it is optioned….

Me: Whatever.

Jim: Oh, also can you make this look glittery?

Me: No!

1 comment:

JIMBO said...

I concur. I'm Jim Hastings and I approve this blog entry.