From the Sketchbook:
Joey Ellis
This CBC series features illustrators sharing their creative process and providing a gossamer of context for their art.
Our artist this week is Joey Ellis, who has his illustrations and character designs used by: Disney, PBS Kids, Highlights Magazine and many others. In this post, he discusses writing and illustrating the graphic novel Wolfie Monster and the Big Bad Pizza Battle.
In Wolfie Monster and the Big Bad Pizza Battle, monster brothers Wolfie, Jackson, and Roy are in for some serious competition when the gigantic corporation, Happy Leaf, moves into their hometown of Oak Hollow and wants to buy their pizza parlor. Can the boys set aside their squabbles long enough to thwart the villainous CEO’s nefarious plans?
“I have always loved making comics, and wanted to do a comic based on monsters that couldn’t afford to live on Sesame Street. . . In 2010 or so, I started designing some silly (and simple) monster characters that I could use to make that comic. This little sketch would eventually evolve into Wolfie Monster’s design.”
“I began to flesh out the world around this ‘Wolfie’ character. I wanted his world to be structured similarly to Spongebob, where we didn’t worry about his age or what his parents were up to. I also thought that, instead of friends, he would have two older brothers . . . one who would enable him and one who didn’t understand him at all.”
“Finally, you can see some early cover drawings. . . Trying to create one image that sums up the entire book (or what you can expect by reading the book) is quite a challenge!”
More of Joey Ellis’ artwork can be found in Wolfie Monster and the Big Bad Pizza Battle.
