CATCH TWENTY TWO: Children’s Book Illustration

I like children’s books more than adult’s books (no; not that kind of ADULT’s). Maybe it’s because first love never dies. Maybe it’s because the stories are always heartwarming. Or maybe it’s just because my ability to comprehend plots is on par with a child’s. Whatever.

Anyway; one of my most memorable childhood books is Matilda by Roald Dahl, and he is also my most favorite author. When it was the time to decide what to do for my (finally) Final Project, I suddenly thought: I want to do illustration for Roald Dahl’s book. So I chose one of his books that hadn’t been translated to Bahasa Indonesia: James and the Giant Peach. But soon it turned out to be a blunder:

1) Quentin Blake is invincible; his drawings are the trademark of Roald Dahl’s books, and anyone else’s will look pale in comparison (note: actually my copy of James and the Giant Peach Peach is the old version and isn’t illustrated by Quentin Blake; so in my opinion it isn’t as great. That’s why I decided to do it in the first place: because I had high hopes that I could make it better. Why would anyone want to do something worse than the predecessor??)

2) If there’s anyone who can do something no less great than Quentin Blake’s work, that person must be Tim Burton. And his stop-motion movie of James and the Giant Peach is great. Far, far too great.

So, please forget that these are illustrations of a Roald Dahl book (which has ever been done by Quentin Blake and made into a movie by Tim Burton). Okay??!