And the sketch:

What was the last part of this that I drew? It was, appropriately, the word "WOO" on top of the small water taxi.

Now, this isn't the end of Everything Goes. I still have one more board book to complete, and then there will be parties and fireworks when this book is published in September. But as I've been drawing cars, trucks, airplanes, and boats pretty solid since about 2007 as I conceived of, worked on, and completed this book series, I'm very excited to hit "save" and spend some time now making other things.*

In other Everything Goes news, I was surprised to find this big box of books in my mailbox this morning, full of several copies of the Complex Chinese version of Everything Goes: On Land. Two different publishers are making versions of Everything Goes in China. One is this one, published by Global Kids in Taiwan, and the second one is translated into Simplified Chinese, and published by Tianjin Maitian. Now, I don't really know the difference between complex and simplified Chinese, nor do I know how or whether they are different from Mandarin or other kinds of Chinese. If any readers know the answer to this, I'd very much love to know about it.

I was skeptical whether this book would be possible to translate, what with the gazillions of labels and signs and details all over the place. However, the publisher did a knock-out job with this, even using the textures and outlines and stuff that I did on the original. It must have been some really tedious work, even more since they had to translate what I made, where what I made was often kind of random. Again, I'd love to know how close they got, especially like on the food trucks and some of the other details. Let me know if you can read any of this and I might have a book to send you.

* In addition to the final Everything Goes board book, I'm illustrating a picture book written by Kelly DiPucchio and the sixth EllRay Jakes book by Sally Warner, both to be done by June; and I'm giddy to start a new series called Frank Einstein, Boy Scientist that is will be six books, written by Jon Scieszka. It has robots.

Okay so to the meat and potatoes. I visited the schools of Southampton Township, NJ, last Friday. I showed and talked about my drawings and Everything Goes to about 400 students over the course of the day. I might have written this here (or elsewhere) before, but visiting schools is one of those mental-health moments that is so good for people like me. Most people take mental-health days from work and stay home. Since I work alone in my studio 99% of the time, it's great to go somewhere and be adored. I hate the morning and afternoon rush-hour traffic (how do you commuters stand it? it's insane!) but it's worth it once I'm at the school.

So I'm just gonna post a bunch of pictures of the visit and the day, and let you see what the students and teachers made. Thanks to Jacquie Daddato for having me out to Southampton and thanks to all the teachers, staff and students for making it such a great day.

One of three full-house presentations.

That guy.

I signed more than 300 books!

And here are a bunch of drawings that they made inspired by Everything Goes.

Erik's interview was published this week, and here it is.

Go to the store here.

I've always always loved board books. Big thick cardboard books, ostensibly for little kids who like to chew on things. Since Everything Goes was first conceived back in 2008, I wanted there to be board books with my cars and trucks and stuff. And now, I'm vey happy to tell you, there are. In fact, there will be six before I'm done. Sadly, they're not "officially" released until the day after Christmas, but I hear that some stores and retailers have them on the shelves already, in time for the holiday.

The first is called 123 Beep Beep Beep: A Counting Book and it is what it says.

The second book is called STOP! GO!: A Book of Opposites. This one is similarly simply-plotted.

The next two board books, Blue Bus Red Balloon and Goodnight Trucks get more complicated, story-wise, and will be out next year sometime.

Amazon has Stop! Go! and 123 Beep Beep Beep available for preorder.

Or get it on Indiebound, which is better for the world. 123 Beep Beep Beep and Stop! Go!

Happy Holidays y'all.

Have a safe halloween.

First of all, there were cookies.

Since we had extra time, I got a chance to make a big drawing for the kids after my regular slide show. When I do these drawings, I like to have the students pick the subject, and it was decided that I needed to draw a dog riding a "weird motorcycle." The dog was carrying an ice cream cone, and the cherry of the ice cream cone was stuck to the dog's motorcycle helmet. Okay? Got it? This is an important detail.

So a half hour after I leave the school, my phone rings. I posted this on Facebook, so you may have seen it.

A boy's voice says, "is this Brian Biggs?"

I say, "Yes."

"Um, do you remember today at Prairie Point that you talked to us about your books?"

I say, now with a bit of trepidation, "…..Yes"

"I'm the one in the green shirt. Do you remember me?"

Now I'm lying, because I'm not really sure. "Yesssss…."

"I want to know when, um, Everything Goes in the Sea, or by Sea or whatever it is, is coming out."

I told him, in a year. September of next year.

And then he hung up.

So I got a lot of mileage out of this, telling this story. Little did I know that this wasn't the end of it.

Today I'm in Oxford, Mississippi visiting Square Books Jr. I was in the bookstore having a coffee and, again, my phone rings with that same Illinois phone number. I didn't answer it this time and instead let it go to voicemail. I figured if he didn't leave a message, all the better; and if he does leave a message it will probably be worth having. Boy was I right. I listened to it just before starting my signing event at the store and as I listened I nearly cried. Yes, out of wonder and joy but also because it's freaking hilarious. Listen up.

The audio is transcribed below in case there are parts that are hard to understand.

Hello Brian Biggs um

Remember when you came to Prairie Point you called on the guy with the shirt with the green shirt. I'm him and I really — when I read your book…

IT was AWESOME. I mean…

I like your writing and stuff and that um, that um, the um, that picture where you um, the picture where you were like sitting and saying, "I love to draw" something like that.
You gave me a little clue and that little clue gave me an idea and that clue told me that um, I saw, I saw your writing and I thought you, your, like, your writing is awesome and I like how you draw that mouth on the weird, the dog with the cherry thingy with the, the weird motorcycle you came to Prairie Point and Mrs. Patterson told, and (indecipherable), I love your books and the, the one that Everything Goes: In the Air, I LOVE that one because it shows different kinds of planes and facts about those planes..

I learned a LOT from your books.

Thanks.

Bye.

I don't think I suffer much in my work. I get to draw cool stuff and I work in a neat studio and I make a living and all that. It's all good. But when I spend weeks on end by myself in my little garage in Philadelphia, it's easy to sometimes forget that this Guy in Green Shirt is out there. So I'm glad I have it now to listen to when things aren't just perfect.

I'm humming the John Denver tune today, "I'm leaving on a jet plane… dum dee dah dah…"
At 4:30 today I depart Philadelphia to begin my six-days on the road (In the Air!) promoting Everything Goes. I'll be going to Naperville and Winnetka IL, Oxford MS, Chapel Hill NC, and Arlington VA.

Before you get all excited and go camp out at your bookstore to wait, I should mention that only two of these stops, Oxford and Chapel Hill, are going to be public bookstore events. The others are school appearances and a booksellers conference. But here are the details of the two bookstore events.

On Friday, September 28, I'll be at Square Books Jr. in Oxford, MS for a 4:00pm event. Square Books Jr. is at 111 Courthouse Square
Oxford, Mississippi 38655. I have a friend here in Philly that tells me that Oxford is a great little town and Square Books is a great shop, so I'm really looking forward to this.

On Saturday, September 29 I'll be at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC at 12:30pm. Flyleaf is at 752 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd 
(Historic Airport Rd), Chapel Hill, NC 27514

The other stops on the tour are going to be big school events hosted by Anderson's Books in Naperville, The Bookstall in Winnetka, and the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association conference in Arlington VA. I attended last year's conference in Atlantic City and it was terrific, so I'm pleased that they asked me back this year.

Stay tuned for some missives from the environs.

Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts and return your tray-tables to the upright position, for the second book in the Everything Goes series takes off today. It's scheduled for an arrival at a book store near you, and it's currently making its cross-country flight from online retailers as well. And if you haven't figured it out already, this one is called Everything Goes: In the Air, and it's all about stuff that flies. Jet-planes, helicopters, blimps, balloons, little funny airplanes with propellors, and other flying contraptions.

As in the first book, we're following Henry and his family (Mom's along for the ride this time) as they go about their travels. This time the action takes place at an airport, where Henry and Mom and Dad are making their way through the ticket lines, security area, and to their gate to catch their plane. When I started sketching and writing this book it became painfully obvious that I was going to have to work to make the setting as interesting as the city is in book one. A few reviewers of On Land noticed that the book was as much about the city as it was about the cars and trucks and trains, and I had to go back and dive deep into my younger psyche, back when I thought that airports were fascinating and air travel was so cool.

I had help with this when I got a chance to visit Philadelphia International Airport at the invitation of Chuck Telles, who runs the American Airlines operation at PHL. I don't get a chance to get out of the studio for research trips like this often, if at all, and it was pretty awesome to be able to get behind-the-scenes access to the airport. I was able to go down on the tarmac and walk around some of the jets, I got sit and watch people board and disembark in the international terminal, and I took about a million photographs. Here are three that, when you see the book, you'll recognize how they were used.

In order to make things interesting, I focused on the passengers in the airport, giving every spread a jam-packed crowd of travelers dragging suitcases and duffle bags to their destination. The airport itself is also something I had a good time with, basing it on the airport designs of Eeno Saarinen, especially Dulles International Airport in Washington DC. Take a look and see what I mean.

Now, a much easier task than making the airport fun and funny was designing and illustrating the cover for Everything Goes: In the Air. From the beginning, I've known that the covers of all three books would feature as many of the respective vehicles as I could squeeze into a 12×10-inch space. The decisions I have to make a mostly around how to fit in the subtitle of the book, and where to put my name.

This turns out to be pretty simple as well. The main vehicle "character" in this book is a jet airliner, and airliners also happen to be the planes that we typically think of that might have typography running along the side. (The second obvious choice here would be a blimp, which you can see above I used on the inside title-page.) Also from the inception of this project I knew that I wanted something to be on one of those banners pulled by biplanes over parks and beaches in the summer time. Running this guy along the bottom made a lot of sense and was fun to draw.

Below are several images showing the process of creating this cover.

First is the thumbnail sketch. Typically there are a dozen or so variations of this, dealing with the spatial issues and seeing what naturally falls into place, and what doesn't. I typically have an idea in my brain about how I expect an image like this to come out, but it's not until these early sketches get drawn that I know if it's going to work or not. I don't use picture reference at this stage. Instead I'm just looking to fill space and get the gist of it. Specifics can wait.

I usually take a couple of the better thumbnails and create some refined versions. In this case I decided I wanted to try coloring the sketches as well. These two sketches are what I sent to my editor at HarperCollins, Donna Bray, and sometimes color helps "sell" the idea.

The left-to-right rule of picture books comes into play here where the first image clearly works better than the second. We also all really liked the idea of having the city below, which sort of weights the image.

If there was any concern about this particular cover, it's that I needed to somehow avoid the notion that these airplanes were all on the verge of crashing into one another. With the previous cover, of On Land, this was not an issue as we dealt with lanes and bridges. I referred a lot to images from encyclopedias and airplane posters that I have loved since I was a kid, and felt that I'd be able to pull it off.

Once the color sketches were created, I felt that it didn't look dangerous. Rather, it just kind of looked funny.

The next step was to create a refined version of the sketch. Once this final sketch is approved, I use it to create the final inked line art, so it has to be pretty close to done at this point.

Are you interested in seeing this part of the process in more detail? I shot a timelapse movie while I was drawing the cover last year.

The inked version is then scanned and the color is created in Photoshop.

Here's a movie of this process as well.

Originally, as you see in the above image and movie, the airplane was red and white, but my editor believed that the color was too close to the red in the Everything Goes logo. So we tried a few other versions. This one didn't win.

In the end, we decided to go with a magenta color for the plane, and I changed some of the colors of the supporting aircraft as well. The final cover is… tadaa!

Lastly, here are a couple of trailers for the book. Please feel free — in fact I demand this of you — to repost these things all over your various social networks. Just follow the Vimeo links. If you prefer the YouTubes, you can use them as well.

Buy it on Indiebound!

Buy it on Amazon!