Q & A with Kevin Sherry
By Libby Morse, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 5/15/2008
Signed to a three-book deal at the ripe age of 24, Baltimore-based artist Kevin Sherry made an impressive splash last May with his debut, I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean. Penguin reports the book found a particularly enthusiastic audience among independent booksellers—which seems fitting, given Sherry’s own entrepreneurial zeal. Sherry’s egotistical Squid appears in a follow-up due out in June.
Kevin Sherry.
Before I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean, you had started what became a very successful company, Squidfire, that sold apparel with your illustrations on it. How did you branch into children’s books?
When I was at MICA [Maryland Institute College of Art], I studied illustration—specifically, sequential art—and I was doing a lot of comics. I made a lot of hand-stapled ’zines to sell at underground festivals, and I would print some of the silkscreens on spare undershirts. Nobody would buy my books, but everybody would buy my T-shirts. So that’s how Squidfire started.
I was showing at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival in New York and Nancy Mercado [then senior editor at Dial Books] saw my designs and then checked out my Web site. She sent me an e-mail asking me if I had ever thought of doing a children’s book. And my reaction was “Oh my God.”
So I went up to New York and pitched three ideas. I talk really fast and they said, “Sloo-o-o-w down. You’re emerging talent and we’ll call you.” They didn’t call me. They didn’t answer my e-mails.
You weren’t discouraged?
I went to Barnes & Noble and read all the kids’ books that Dial published. On the way home, I came up with the idea of I’m The Biggest Thing in the Ocean. I pitched it and they called me the next day and gave me my contract.
The giant squid’s ego is a big part of his appeal.
Although I didn’t realize it at first, the squid was sort of a metaphor for me in art school. I was the fiercest critiquer—I figured I was paying so much for education I was going to have something to say about everything. Then you get out in the big world and it’s like being eaten by a whale.
Were you all set to write a sequel?
My second book went through 29 rewrites in nine months. It started out as The Perfect Dragon, and gradually it changed into I’m the Best Artist in the Ocean. Basically, my attitude is I know art and my publishers know how to sell books. Marketing demanded a sequel. I understand that. And I tell everyone that making a book is collaboration—big time.
At the end of I’m the Best Artist in the Ocean, you note that the final illustration, a double gatefold, is inspired by Picasso’s Guernica.
It was the denseness of Guernica that really appealed to me. And I wasn’t going to create the Sistine Chapel on a whale.
What’s up next for you?
I’m on the third revision of the third book. It’s a fall 2009 release and it’s about a manic squirrel hiding acorns. Keep in mind that when I was writing the last book, the character was still a dragon at the third revision stage. I have two more books on my contract after that. My goal is to publish a book a year for the rest of my life.
You’re a big advocate of Baltimore and its arts scene.
After I graduated from MICA, my friends and I thought, “We’re going to move to Brooklyn and make it.” But in Baltimore, I could still pay $280 for rent. We have an amazing house, with beautiful wood floors and a spiral staircase. So instead of wasting my life in New York living in a box and working in a burrito factory, I’m able to be a working artist and have my own business.
Your friend and fellow Baltimorean, the singer/songwriter Lizz King, did a great short video about your creative process. And you look incredibly youthful in it. What are you—17?
I get “17” a lot. I did a talk at the public library in Baltimore last year, and these two 11-year-old girls asked to see my ID. They didn’t believe I was a grown-up.
I’m the Best Artist in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry. Dial, $16.99, 978-0-8037-3255-1 ages 3-5
