Rien a été censuré et toutes les couleurs semblent bien présentes & présentées dans ces 48 pgs:-)

C’est toujours chouette de voir que l’humour se laisse traduire, surtout quand il s’agit de ma ‘deuxième langue’ (qui sonne si bien & qui se prête aussi bien aux jeux de mots).

Grand merci à la traductrice Noêlle Michel (pas la soeur de l’éditeur Albin, je suppose;-))

Je serai au Salon du Livre Jeunesse de Montreuil afin de me dédicacer entièrement à ce livre.

Ci-dessous un post-it avec quelques détails ‘français’ qui manquent sur mes pages jaunes:-)

Contrary to the thousands of tourists who invade the beautiful region of Puglia in summer, we paid it a visit in low season. If you’re not craving for very high temperatures but prefer milder temperatures then you shouldn’t hesitate to visit this region of Italy in low season.

Upon invitation of the owners of ‘Idrusa’, the Alessano local library and Andersen, Italy’s most prestigeous magazine of children’s litterature, we had the fortune to spend a mid-week visiting several beautiful communities in the heel of Italy, combining tourism and culture. ‘Salento family friendly’ is a cultural initiative inviting the community to participate to workshops and book presentations combined with visits of the beautiful region. We had the occasion to see Tricase, Alessano, Corsano, Cagliano del Capo, Ruffano and Lucugnano, to taste the most delicious dishes, pastries, ice creams, esspreso’s and capuccino’s and fill our lungs with the fresh air at the coast of Santa Maria di Leuca, the most Southers point of Italy’s heel.

Our Italian edition of “Show and tell me the world” with the longest title ever, being “Il più folle e divertente libro illustrato del mondo di Otto” won the Italian Andersen award 0-6 years this spring. Organised in Genua, the awards were picked up by library Idrusa in the far South of the country. In good company of a handful very interesting other authors with amongst others Marino Amodio and Vincenzo Del Vecchio, the authors of “Terraneo” (Gallucci) and winners of the Italian Andersen Award 2019 we had the occasion of having workshops at several primary schools and libraries and learn the very basics of ceramics with Giorgia Prontera.

Take a look at the pictures and you’ll see we had a lot of fun spending the past days in Puglia. If you have time to spend, want to avoid the crowds and take advantage of low season rates, then Puglia is definitively worth considering! #finestre #torrespecchia #cuoredulivo #ulivo #salento #vistsalento #viadelsale #weareinpuglia #wehostiinpuglia #cittadicorsano #salentofamilyfriendly #associazionenarrazioni

Best hosts ever!

Excellent Masseria in Alessano

No Airfix modelling but entirely hand made by an inhabitant from Tricase.

How to entertain 3 groups of 30 primary school children.

Ask for the lemon pastry at the pasticceria nearby Castello Ducale in Alessano.

There are worse places for a book signing session on Monday morning. In good company with Andrea Cacciatore from libraria Idrusa, Alessano.

And a last espresso for the road…

… to Rome.

Een lichtjes ontnuchterende poll over wat we werkelijk denken, doen en denken te doen ivm het belangrijkste punt op de politieke agenda dat nooit écht een punt op de agenda lijkt te zijn…

(deed m’n best om de 2 personages toch een beetje op de 2 betreffende meisjes te laten lijken:-))

Yet another book is recently translated into Spanish & Catalan, by Ediciones Flamboyant now.

They took very well care of my book of opposites, originally made 5 years ago, but based on last year’s restyled vinyl album size re-edition. It really looks yummy like a Flan Catalan Gigante:-)

Especially happy the sport games on pg 22 – inspired by mount Montjuic in Barcelona, but absolutely painted from memory – finally made it back home to the Olympic city of 1992…

… since I must admit that Otto, the main character of this series, was massively inspired by the legendary Cobi, Xavier Mariscal’s mascot of that year’s Summer Olympics (actually the only ‘graphically correct’ mascot ever in sport’s history, if you’d ask me for my humble opinion).

And yes, there still are exactly 101 opposites (have been counting them personally).

Started these ‘portraits’ on wooden panels of 4 kids growing into 4 young adults – slightly inspired by 4 Indonesian noblemen at the Rijksmuseum in A’dam and very much influenced by Bruegels 4 seasons from last year in Vienna – still at our giant-ex-Jet-studio, where I made these first 3 steps:

I probably didn’t take enough pictures of the work in progress and close ups of the finished details, but that’s exactly where the devil hided: each time I looked at something a little closer, I instantly saw tens of other unfinished loose ends that lead me elsewhere, what turned this project into a never ending saga (it didn’t help either we had other & stricter deadlines in the meantime;-))

Well, let’s take a quick looks at some parts in progress from each painting:

Looking at that last detail above I see there are still some letters missing on the camera. And the lens misses depth. And maybe I should have done something with the song ‘the eye of the tiger’? etc etc etc…

Our Encyclopedia Colorista is from now on also officially available in Spanish & Catalan. Muchas gracias / graciès to Combel Editorial for these 48 colorful pages in both super colorful languages.

Rojo / vermell is of course the color I associate Espana & Cataluna most with…

… but I had to make some minor corrections on page 23 to avoid any sensitive topic;-)

The book still has a happy ending though, on some costa, somewhere over the rainbow:-)

And this year we also took care of the communication for the night shift :-)

I’ve been painting & peeling lots of extra fresh fruit this Spring for a smooth fruit salad to share with everyone on the spot this Summer (and added a lot of fruit related western pop tunes & other nonsense;-))

Labour Day / Dag van de Arbeid / Fête du Travail on this side of the world, but in Japan they’re having an entire Golden Week! Apart from the brand new emperor, people in Kobe are also celebrating the 6th Anniversary of our favourite shopping mall east of Brussels. Adding 6 details as an imperial gift here:-) (lots of western popular music again in our nonsensical writings on the wall)

And even better news: our – youngest – Colour Encyclopaedia will also be taken care of in Italian, by the same editor, inventor of the longest running hype among kids since the invention of the hula hoop. I suppose our colour teams will instantly feel at home there (and legal troubles are avoided;-))

Publishing date of that last one foreseen somewhere on the other side of Summer. Avanti Italia!

A square version of our image (with a little help of intern Carolien;-)) for Winter Sales 2019 in Japan.