Posts Tagged adhouse
Enrico Casarosa on Venice Chronicles
Posted by admin in Animation, Literature, art, comics, sequential art on November 10, 2008
Enrico Casarosa and his new book, Venice Chronicles (“A love story/travelogue/graphic novel”), was just one of the great books I found out about at the Baltimore Comic-Con in September. Casarosa was not at the con, but AdHouse’s Chris Pitzer was telling folks about the book in advance of its release (given that AdHouse is serving as the book’s distributor). I have trusted Pitzer’s instincts on books for years, so while I was still at the con, I emailed Casarosa to line up an email interview.
Before jumping into the interview, here’s the official bio on the storyteller:
“Enrico Casarosa has been in the animation industry for more than ten years, drawing storyboards that fit into large animated feature films. Currently a story artist at Pixar Animation Studios Enrico continues his quest to create more hours in the day by drawing alternate realities. Sooner or later his experiments will break through and we’ll all have to buy new watches. Meantime he just published an art book “3 trees make a forest” with partners in crime Ronnie del Carmen and Tadahiro Uesugi. Other times he pursues his muse by traveling with his watercolors and sketchbooks. Enrico is the founder of ‘SketchCrawl’, a worldwide drawing marathon event that gathers artists from all around the globe.”
Once you finish reading the interview, be sure to go here to buy the book directly from Casarosa.
Tim O’Shea: In addition to this new book, the Venice Chronicles, you work at Pixar. I was struck by something you recently wrote in your blog: “It’s become tradition for us selfpublishing friends here at Pixar to take photos of the opening of the first box of books.” How many selfpublishing friends are at Pixar and can you name some of them (and their projects)?
Enrico Casarosa: Oh yes there’s quite a few of us. I’ve had the luck of sharing tables at more than a couple of conventions (and co-publish a book) with uber talented friend Ronnie del Carmen. Another long time friend here at Pixar is Bill Presing, artist of “Rex Steele Nazismasher”. We met a long time ago back in NewYork and both did stories for the anthology Monkeysuit. And the list of talented pixarian friends/co-workers goes on: Scott Morse (Tiger!Tiger!Tiger!, Magic Pickle), Ted Mathot (Rose and Isabel, Cora), Derek Thompson , Dice Tsutsumi (Out of Picture) and many more. There’s also been a couple of anthologies called Afterworks that gather comics for some of the folks here and they even a new volume in the making.
The Many Tales of Joey Weiser
A month or so ago, when I first contacted Joey Weiser, mainly it was to discuss his 2007 AdHouse book, The Ride Home. As with most good interviews, the email exchange took us in different interesting directions. Also as luck would have it, Weiser recently announced the release of his new collection, Tales of Unusual Circumstance, which is published by Author House and can be purchased here. Tales of Unusual Circumstance is a collection of work he’s done in mini-comics, anthologies or elsewhere over the past four years, as well as 48 pages of previously unreleased material. Here’s the core official line on the creator before we launch into the interview: “Joey Weiser was born on April 5, 1983, and has lived most of his life in Bloomington, Indiana. He is a graduate of the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). Weiser’s comics have appeared in several anthologies, and his first graphic novel, The Ride Home, was published in 2007 by AdHouse Books.”
Tim O’Shea: For your first major project after earning your degree from SCAD, I’m wondering what made you opt for an all ages project like The Ride Home?
Joey Weiser: There wasn’t really a decision to make an all ages story. The Ride Home is just the kind of story that I write naturally. My older work was a bit more all over the place, but once I recognized that the kind of story that I enjoy creating is typically categorized as “all ages” it’s pretty easy to omit an occasional “Oh crap!” or whatever that might come through in a first draft that might keep it from being okay for everyone. But, honestly, I didn’t give it much thought.