How do you follow up a guide for those who wish to travel in time? For Katie Sekelsky, it's move backward in time to the imagination of a child. The primary author of the Time Traveler's Pocket Guide, which I enjoyed very much last year, has a new mini-comic debuting at SPX that is written by the four year old child of a friend, with Sekelsky providing the illustrations.
Katie describes it in the following way:
"Arubadingle is the story of a family of young robots who try to outsmart a monster and a wizard lawyer with the help of a good witch. Appropriate for all ages, as long as you're fine with the 'potty humor' of a 4 year-old. That is to say, there's a robot named Baby Bum."
It's interesting to me to see the increasing number of bridges between generations. Axe Cop is of course the most notable right now, but I've also seen other ideas and projects where a younger writer and/or artist is aided by an adult. Womanthology had an entire section devoted to young female creators. With the relative inexpense of a website these days, I can easily see more teens taking to the web to publisher earlier than they ever could before.
Sekelsky is a good artist for this idea, as her book was an illustrated mini-novel, joining concepts with amusing pictures that are drawn in a style that very much evokes older book illustrations. She's also been keeping a Pittsburgh Pirate sketchbook this year (good timing, as they are a lot better for a change), in which she was not afraid to draw the players in amusing ways. I'm sure her own vivid imagination will find ways to make her young co-creator's ideas really leap off the page.
Arubadingle will be available at SPX this year, along with more copies of Time Traveler's Pocket Guide, which is a must-read for anyone who likes the style of Michael Kupperman or John Hodgman.
Can't make SPX? Katie Sekelsky has a website that includes a store. Arubadingle isn't there yet, but she has her book and some really cool prints.
