Night's Nice

Little, Brown recently reissued a classic Barbara and Ed Emberley picture book from 1972 called Night's Nice. It's a great bedtime story in lovely blues and purples.


















I'd love to see more vintage Emberley books get a classy reprint like this one.

Emberley Tribute: Rina Ayuyang

Rina Ayuyang's comic is based on Ed Emberley's Thumbprint and Fingerprint drawing books.
This anthology was intended to be all black and white, but Rina's story will be in color because it has to be.

Emberley Tribute: Sam Henderson

See Sam Henderson's page at his blog:
http://themagicwhistle.blogspot.com/2009/05/blog-post.html

Sam's page is based on Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Weirdos.

Emberley Tribute: Stefan Gruber

I love the homage to the Wizard of Op in Stefan Gruber's comic strip.

Emberley Tribute: Joe Kuth

My story is based on 'Zort' from Ed Emberley's Big Green Drawing Book.

Emberley Tribute: Endpapers by Matt Kish

Matt Kish's endpapers are based on an idea of mine: a spiral galaxy composed of Ed Emberley's drawing symbols and shapes.
Matt did a much better job of it than I could have managed.

Ed Emberley Classics

Most likely if you're an Ed Emberley fan you've come to love his work through his drawing instruction books. Or maybe someone read Go Away, Big Green Monster! out loud to you, or you checked Drummer Hoff out of the library every other week.
But Emberley has been drawing books for decades and has dozens of titles to his name, drawn in an array of styles.
This cool but confounding site has beautiful illustrations from several out of print Ed Emberley picture books. (Scroll down and click on the red icon next to each title.)
The spread shown above is from Wing On A Flea.

Emberley Tribute: Chris Cornwell

In Chris Cornwell's story, the skeleton from Make A World has an enlightening vision.

Emberley Tribute: Joe Kuth and David Paleo

David Paleo finished these battle comics based on my doodles. These pages include monsters and creeps from several Ed Emberley books, plenty from Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Weirdos.

Emberley Tribute: Dan Zettwoch

Dan Zettwoch's story is based on Ed Emberley's Big Orange Drawing Book and Big Purple Drawing Book.

Emberley Galaxy

I hope to finally have Emberley Galaxy: A Tribute to Ed Emberley available in just a couple of weeks.
It will cost you $12, it's 60 pages, 8 1/2" X 11", mostly in black and white, and features interpretations of Emberley from 19 different artists. Here's the role call:

Rina Ayuyang
Jeffrey Brown
Chris Cornwell
Warren Craghead
Toby Craig
Cansafis Foote
Jack Fraley
Stefan Gruber
Sam Henderson
Alex Holden
Dave Kiersh
Matt Kish
Joe Kuth
Doug Meyer
Dan Moynihan
David Paleo
Dalton Webb
C. Spencer Yeh
Dan Zettwoch


Ed Emberley is the artist and author responsible for an amazing series of drawing instruction books for kids that first appeared in the 70's, and have been staples on the shelves of libraries and bookstores ever since.
You may remember, like me, finding the Drawing Book of Animals or the Big Green Drawing Book on the shelves of the public library, or using whatever was available from the bookmobile, and drawing from them feverishly. Like me, many artists I know have learned a lot from these books and still enjoy having them around both for reference and for fun.










Many people will recognize Emberley's books without necessarily knowing his name, so if you're still in the dark you may want to check out previews at http://www.amazon.com/ , or see http://www.edemberley.com/ . Or better yet, just find the books themselves. Get the old editions, I do not recommend the current editions in botched vertical format.