“Embryos are like photograph film,” said Mr Foster waggishly, as he pushed open the second door. “They can only stand red light.”

And in effect the sultry darkness into which the students now followed him was visible and crimson, like the darkness of closed eyes on a summer’s afternoon. The bulging flanks of row on receding row and tier above tier of bottles glinted with innumerable rubies, and among the rubies moved the dim spectres of men and women with purple eyes and all the symptoms of lupus. The hum and rattle of machinery faintly stirred the air.

First of all: hi again! I’m really excited about joining the blog here, and very much looking forward to contributing more of Brave New World. A big thank you to Meg for giving me the opportunity (& to the other artists as well, for sharing such lovely things to look at)!

With this picture I’m going back to Chapter 1, where the reader joins a group of students taking a tour of the Central London Hatchery & Conditioning Centre. In the reality of Brave New World, the cultivation of humans is an industry, and everything about an person’s future is pre-determined at conception. Embyros are bottled, labeled, and occasionally stunted in order to slot them into rigid social castes (which, of course, they will later be conditioned to accept quite happily!).

Being rather partial to red in general, I thought this was a good place to kick things off. Hope you enjoy!

Emily contributed to our Short Reports series with a lovely scene from Brave New World, and will be continuing that story with a post later today. If we run into snags where contributors are having trouble keeping to the schedule, I’d like to open this up to another additional contributor or two, so our roster may change over the coming weeks. And of course, more Short Reports are coming– if you are interested in being a contributor or adding to the Short Reports, please feel free to email me.

Thanks for sticking with us and please enjoy the work of our lovely new contributor!

“This is a revisionist portrait of the character Old Deuteronomy from T.S. Eliot’s book Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (popularized by the Broadway play Cats). I always wanted to rethink the imagery of this book (well, really the play) because when I was a kid I used to see the commercials for Broadway’s Cats on New York television and see the actor all dolled up as O.D., being presented as this triumphant Messianic figure akin to Moses and quite honestly, I hated it. When reading the text you understand that O.D. is very very old, almost ancient. He’s seen a lot of war and grief seen and outlived a lot of other cats including his loves. Now if I were an ancient cat I don’t think I would be standing around looking like Moses all the time. I would probably be beat up and sick, have liver spots (I anthropomorphousized him somewhat), weird hairs, and sad at having to carry the weight of seeing everyone around me die and outliving them. It would be a curse. Why couldn’t I have died with my friends in war or something? If O.D.’s a Messianic figure, I view him as a tortured Christ having to make difficult decisions and feeling that painful weight, literally on his head. Also, technically he’s a Pekinese, but hairless cats are much more human to me. Often times I look at a cat and can’t get an emotional hold on it, but not so with a hairless.

Rich Tu is an illustrator and designer based in NYC.  He received a Masters Degree in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts in 2009. His clients and collaborators include The New Yorker, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, The Institutional Investor, Tokion Magazine, Slam Magazine, Death + Taxes, SWINDLE Quarterly, The Believer, National Public Radio, Alfa Romeo, and Bombay Sapphire Gin.

He was nominated for the Swatch Young Illustrators Award in 2009 and has been included in the Society of Illustrators and American Illustration annuals. View more of his work at http://richtu.com and his blog http://richtu.blogspot.com.

Illustrated by: Lucy Knisley

This sixth chapter begins the two-day ceremony; an annual ritual that advances every age group within the community by presenting them with items that signify age status. Jonas, being twelve, will go last and receive his “assignment” that will be his job for the rest of his life.

The book doesn’t detail every year’s ceremonial gift, but goes into the psychology of it a little bit by explaining some of the reasoning behind the objects. The back-buttoned jacket is meant to teach interdependence, as you had to rely on your classmates and family to do up the buttons. The front-buttoned jacket begins to promote independence. It’s fascinating to imagine what the unmentioned years might receive.

I remember being especially disturbed by the finality of the “assignments” when I was twelve and read this for the first time, and thinking, “Twelve-years-old is nowhere near old enough to choose a profession.”

Now when I read it, I think, “These ceremonies must be so BORING for people my age– adults without children of their own to participate in the ceremonies!”

Sorry I was late this month!

Meg and Claire looked at each other. They could hear the clock over the stove, ticking. They could hear doves in the courtyard. They wanted this moment to last forever. The sunlight was orange. They had to remember that. Meg would make certain they did. She fetched a piece of paper and wrote down the word orange, then folded the paper in half. They could cut up pears and and write down all the colors of the light and listen to people laugh and smell the blooms on the chestnut tree and forget about the rest of the world. They wanted to stay in their grandmother’s apartment always, but instead they would have this memory of sitting in the kitchen, being happy.”

I chose to illustrate The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman. I love Alice Hoffman’s stories. They’re based in real life but the worlds she weaves are magical. She combines a lot of fantasy and drama elements. The imagery is so rich, dark, romantic, and poetic. While I’m reading her novels a lot of images take over my mind. It’s actually hard to read her books without constantly putting them down to sketch.

The scene I chose to illustrate is of the one of the Story sisters. There are three sisters: Elv is a rebel and the oldest, Meg is the middle child, and Claire is the most optimistic (and the youngest). I wanted to depict Meg in the scene where the sisters are in Paris. There’s a lot of tragedy in this book, but this moment was memorable. The one moment Meg was happy and hopeful. I took a bit of liberty in symbolizing this moment as a locket. A deep and personal treasure to remember and reflect upon this memory.

Sashiko Yuen just graduated with a BFA in Art + Design. In university she studied painting, illustration, bookmaking, and couldn’t stop reading graphic novels. She currently spends her days writing short stories and painting strange pictures. And you won’t stop her till she’s dead. She drinks lots of tea and smells old books while nobody is looking. You can find her work at http://wishcandy.net but she honestly updates her flickr more often: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wishcandy/. And her shop is here: http://wishcandy.etsy.com (which she is always working to improve).

“When he had finished the first hot dog, Ignatius prepared and consumed another, contemplating other kindnesses that might postpone his having to go to work again. Fifteen minutes later, noticing that the supply of hot dogs in the little well was visibly diminishing, he decided in favor of abstinence for the moment. He began to push slowly down the street, calling again, “Hot dogs!”

George, who was wandering up Carondelet with an armload of packages wrapped in plain brown paper, heard.the cry and went up to the gargantuan vendor. ”Hey, stop. Gimme one of these.”

Ignatius looked sternly at the young boy who had placed himself in the wagon’s path. His valve protested against the pimples, the surly face that seemed to hang from the long well lubricated hair, the cigarette behind the ear, the aquamarine jacket, the delicate boots, the tight trousers that bulged offensively in the crotch in violation of all rules of theology and geometry.

“I am sorry,” Ignatius snorted. “I have only a few frankfurters left, and I must save them. Please get out of my way.”

“Save them? Who for?”

“That is none of your business, you waif. Why aren’t you in school? Kindly stop molesting me. Anyway, I have no change.”

“I got a quarter,” the thin white lips sneered.

“I cannot sell you a frank, sir. Is that clear?”

“Whatsa matter with you, friend?”

“What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with you? Are you unnatural enough to want a hot dog this early in the afternoon? My conscience will not let me sell you one. Just look at your loathsome complexion. You are a growing boy whose system needs to be surfeited with vegetables and orange juice and whole wheat bread and spinach and such. I, for one, will not contribute to the debauchery of a minor.”

“Whadda you talking about? Sell me one of them hot dogs. I’m hungry. I ain’t had no lunch.”

“No!” Ignatius screamed so furiously that the passersby stared. ”Now get away from me before I run over you with this cart.”

George pulled open the lid of the bun compartment and said, ”Hey, you got plenty stuff in here. Fix me a weenie.”

“Help!” Ignatius screamed, suddenly remembering the old man’s warnings about robberies. “Someone is stealing my buns! Police!” Ignatius backed up the cart and rammed it into George’s crotch.

“Ouch! Watch out there, you nut.”

“Help! Thief!”

“Shut up, for Christ’s sake,” George said and slammed the door. “You oughta be locked up, you big fruit. You know that?”

“What?” Ignatius screamed. “What impertinence was that?”

“You big crazy fruit,” George snarled more loudly and slouched away, the taps on his heels scraping the sidewalk. ”Who wants to eat anything your fruity hands touched?”

“How dare you scream obscenities at me. Someone grab that boy,” Ignatius said wildly as George disappeared into the crowds of pedestrians farther down the street. “Someone with some decency grab that juvenile delinquent. That filthy little minor. Where is his respect? That little guttersnipe must be lashed until he collapses!”

I chose to illustrate a scene from A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I read the book sometime last year and it has stuck with me all this time. I’ve never read such a confidently belligerent character, so choosing just one scene to illustrate was challenging.

My name is Michelle Kondrich and I was born, raised, and educated in cow and corn country before I made my way to LA and on to New York City. Due to a recent move, I’ve been thrust into the life of a full-time illustrator and I’m loving every terrifying minute of it. My work has appeared in The Deli Magazine in NYC (www.thedelimagazine.com) and I have written and illustrated a short children’s story that will be appearing in an anthology later this year. Check out my website for updates or to view more of my work.

“I often crouched down and watched with bated breath as a scrap of paper or a leaf writhed and changed its shape within the flames. The bonfire reminded me of when I had seen my father’s bones at the crematorium, and as the sight had not alarmed me, I began to think about his bones every time we burned the leaves, rerunning the memory over and over again in my mine until my father’s bones gradually became divorced from other memories and simply remained a close and familiar thought.”

(click to enlarge!)

…So I went to the next neighbor’s house.
This neighbor was the First Little Pig’s brother.
He was a little smarter, but not much.
He had built his house of sticks.
I rang the bell on the stick house.
Nobody answered.
I called “Mr. Pig, Mr. Pig, are you in?”
He yelled back, “Go away wolf. You can’t come in. I’m shaving the hairs on my chinny chin chin.”
I had just grabbed the doorknob when I felt abother sneeze coming on.
I huffed. And I snuffed. And I tried to cover my mouth, but I sneezed a great sneeze…

I chose this scene because, well, who doesn’t want to draw a pig skin getting blown clean off its body? But really.. I have a bad habit of drawings things just sort of standing there, characters and objects and whatnot. I wanted to challenge myself by catching a dramatic scene in the middle of it’s climax, and I did just that, and boy oh boy, I’m pretty happy about it.

I was sort of dumb and didn’t take web format into consideration with this one and made it an extremely long landscape, but I feel like it really needed to be in order to capture the strong movement of the scene. With that, please feel free to click and enlarge, there’s a lot of fur and bone and pig bits to see!

This was my absolute favourite book as a kid. It was just the right amount of classic, a little bit of twisted, and super packed with sarcasm, so as anyone who knows me or my work just a little bit, you could imagine that I would have latched onto this book immediately. Actually, I had forgotten all about this book for years until I was moseying around at a book store and I saw it sitting on one of the display tables. I nearly pooped myself when I saw it again.

It was sort of tough choosing a book, because all of the ones I loved as a kid are all beautifully illustrated, and I sort of wanted to choose something that had a clean slate, something with next to nothing to pull from but the dialogue. Finally, after much consideration, I just said “EFF IT” and went with my absolute favourite book ever, which was illustrated by the stupendous Lane Smith. I think i did an okay job taking Lane’s influence, putting my own spin on it, and making it my own.

And I just like drawing pigs.

So there.

I grew up in Thunder Bay where I spent the first half of my life amongst trees and moose and bears and things, so I’ve seen my fair share of wildlife and poop. My dad used to wrestle me to the ground and fart on me and I would giggle. My uncle used to record Ren and Stimpy episodes onto a VHS tape, and whenever I would visit, he would sit me down in front of the TV and play that tape for hours on end. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but I loved it.

All of these things might give you an idea as to why I am the way I am, and why I love drawing terrible, stinky, inappropriate, ugly, wrinkled things so much.

(click to enlarge)

My illustration depicts a scene from Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. I chose a scene from the second chapter, entitled “The New Friend”. Here we see Nobody Owens, our young protagonist, leading his new friend Scarlett Amber Perkins through the old graveyard he calls home, and into a mausoleum. The illustration itself is 8×11″, painted with watercolor on 140lb cold press paper, with photoshop touch-ups.