Bill Peckmann &Books &Illustration &Rowland B. Wilson 17 Dec 2009 08:59 am
Bedtime for Robert – 3
- For the past two weeks I’ve been posting the dummy of a book written and prepared by Bill Peckmann and Rowland B. Wilson. It didn’t find a publisher back in the 1980s when they were seeking one, but the book survives. And it’s a gem.
The first couple of pages were done in a color, as a sample, and the remaining were left as line drawings. The beautiful artwork of Rowland Wilson reads as clean and sharp as ever. This wordless book rips at a breakneck speed and tells a real animated story that would have made for a wonderful children’s book. Imagine a child sitting on a parent’s lap and the dialogue they could have had in developing this graphic story. (It also would have made a great animated short!)
I’ve really enjoyed posting this, and I thank Bill Peckmann for allowing me the opportunity of doing so. You can see Part 1 here.
You can see Part 2 here.
As with the past post, we start with the last drawing of Part 2.
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And just to put everything in proper perspective, here’s a letter they received from Houghton Mifflin rejecting the book. He was Rowland B. Wilson, for god’s sake!
Bill Peckmann added this background info: “The rejection slip from
Houghton Mifflen really hurt the most because our thinking at the time
was that since they were publishing Bill Peet’s books (my all time
favorites), we thought they would understand the concept of “Robert”
better than anyone else. Go figure”
on 17 Dec 2009 at 10:44 am 1.Elliot Cowan said …
I used to think that children’s television production was a complex and tricky thing until I tried to make my way into children’s publishing.
Goodness me.
I don’t even know where to begin.
on 17 Dec 2009 at 11:04 am 2.Charles Brubaker said …
Like I said before, I can see this animated. I wish it got published.
on 17 Dec 2009 at 12:41 pm 3.Dave Levy said …
Elliot, how right you are. Just the fact that you pretty much need an agent to sell a children’s book speaks to that. When you have an animation pitch you can bring it to the networks yourself.
on 17 Dec 2009 at 1:06 pm 4.Stephen Macquignon said …
I think I received the same rejection letter from them.
To bad it is a fun story.
on 17 Dec 2009 at 6:24 pm 5.Mark Newgarden said …
David- You honestly don’t need an agent to sell a kids book.
on 17 Dec 2009 at 10:50 pm 6.RacattackForce said …
*sigh* Looked like such as fun little book too.
on 18 Dec 2009 at 7:26 am 7.Tom Hachtman said …
Thank you thank you for sharing ‘Rob’t’. What a beautiful book this might have been – it could still be published just that way it is – perhaps with a box of crayons thrown in.