Ramona Boxes

Have you been saying to yourself, "Gee I like Ramona Quimby books but I wish I could buy them with a little house to keep them in."

Well if by "house" you mean "box" then boy-howdy do I have a treat for you! 

The Ramona Quimby Collection:

And for our big spenders out there, the complete collection:

The Complete Collection

A little bit more about Ramona: This project was a beast! Look at all those lovely spines, all lined up in a pretty little row, no easy feat my friends. Anyway, eight books were commissioned, illustrated, typeset (which involved a rather painful Quark to Indesign conversion), copy edited, color corrected, and printed within six months. I'm pretty sure this is some sort of record; I'm currently on hold with the Guinness World Records people—yea that's totally still a thing—to find out. I couldn't have been more proud of my small involvement in these reprints. I couldn't be happier they're all done.

Many congrats to all the managing editors, production people, camera rooms, freelancers and color wheels for making our little Ramona that much more special for young readers. Up next? Ralph S. Mouse and my personal favorite Ribsy. Heck yea!

xx

How was your summer, fall, and erm, winter?

Oh my lord it's been forever since I did much else besides whine about work and run. Have I mentioned the running? Because I've been doing a lot of it. If you are interested about why I'm running then you're obviously not friends with me on Facebook because that's all I talk about. I can't help it—it makes me happy.

It makes me so happy that though I am running the Bermuda Triangle next weekend (one mile race Friday, 10K race Saturday, Half Marathon race Sunday) I just signed up for summer season. I've been lucky enough to be picked for mentor again, this time we're going to San Diego. Oh, and is that another fundraising bar off to the side of this blog? Yea it is. 

Anyhoot. This was supposed to be a design blog but then I fell off the face of the earth and well let's pretend I'll keep doing this for a while, shall we? Yes!

Back in July (SIX months have gone by?!) I was talking about the Ramona reprints. Guess what y'all. They. Are. Done. That was the fastest book reprint in all of human history. Google it, I'm sure it's true. Somehow the illustrator (an amazing lady by the name of Jackie Rogers) finished up 8 covers and interiors without our short deadline. Jackie did an excellent job with Ramona—still full of grit and cuteness. And while the cover design didn't go my way, I'm still proud to be a part of this project. Come February if you see this little lady anywhere on a shelf, pick it up and flip through. Oh, what lovely interior type design she has!

Stuff I helped make...

Some other stuff has been going on in the past few months too! Here's some fun covers:

As soon as it's allowed, I'll put my new passion up—Fortunately, The Milk by Mr. Neil Gaiman (ah! pinch me seriously!) To say I'm obsessed about this project is a vast understatement. Can you marry a work in progress? The illustrator on this book, Skottie Young, is a pure bonafide genius. Each day I get to work on that book is amazing, I'm in love! I'm in ridiculous kick me in the teeth love with that book. Hey weird kids, I got you guys this go around. And you're going to love it.

Promise.