Autograph Party Encore

A couple shots of the Autograph Party winding down.

Our own TEAM BLOGGER Suzanne Young sold out her new NAUGHTY LIST at the bookstore

Jim Benton signing it up sans platypus and blender family

Jacqueline Woodson talking to Florida RA Linda Rodgriguez Bernfeld and friend

Libba Bray signing for the peeps. Libba has on the cutest jacket which you can get here!

Our Dear Genius Jane Yolen and her fans

Jim Benton Keynote: Final Points He Was Told to Mention

Jim asked if there was anything he should be sure to tell the audience and this is it:

• Your editor makes you better and they are rooting for you. Don't pout.
• Books do not platform well into licensing, the money goes to already established media/TV characters
• Licensing only exists to engender covetousness in people
• If you want to do it well you need to be devoted to the discipline of licensing or try to gear your book work to entertainment first. But that has some bad news/hard lessons that accompany it
• This beats the hell out of real work

NOW Jim is doing a live drawing/story writing experiment on a big pad o' paper! So far its a cartoon/story about a platypus in love with a blender.... Wish you were here.



-- Posted by Jaime

Jim Benton more advice and some naughty bits

"Hi, my name is Jim and I have an ink dependency problem."

Jim says, if you are an illustrator you should be drawing for fun every day. If you aren't, start now. If you are a writer, you should be writing for fun every day.

Here's one of his cartoons. He also showed us a sketch of his 'Trailer Park Geishas' and a unicorn pooping cupcakes...

--Posted by Jaime

Jim Benton Keynote

Jim did the cartoons for Writer's Digest and has read every article for the last twelve years, so he's distilled all the major themes of the magazine down to two. He still recommends the magazine, but here you go:

• Re-writing. There are no first drafts on the best sellers list.
• You are not your work. Don't climb into the whisky bottle for two weeks if someone doesn't like your work.

Jim talks a bit about licensing, his cartoon series THE SECRET FILES OF THE SPY DOGS.

Jim talks about the rush of getting a new GREAT idea that you drop all other projects for to work on RIGHT NOW. And then... once you've worked on it a bit you realize it is AWFUL. Don't be paralyzed by your stupid ideas, you won't know they're stupid at first, just let all ideas in and eventually the good ones will make themselves known.

Jim wrote Franny K Stein for his daughter who liked pink and ponies, but also creepy stuff and he hadn't seen any books like that for girls. The National Enquirer named Franny one of their "Top 10 Hotties of the Year."



Compulsively creating: the whole time Jim is working on animation and books, he's still doing licensing for his Bunny character...

Jim was approached to do pieces for Partnership for a Drug Free America:


--Posted by Jaime

Next Keynote is Jim Benton!

Author/Illustrator Jim Benton is up next after our quick break of coffee and filling yogurt pretzels.

Lin says Jim is in the tradition of cartoonists like Jules Feiffer. Funny.

The DEAR DUMB DIARIES series creator will speak about creating compulsively.


He opened with:

"Hi, my name is Jim, and I'm a Compulsive Creator."

And we all replied, "Hi Jim!"