We are excited to welcome Alison Brumwell, Chair of the Youth Libraries Group, to reflect on the work of illustrator Jon Agee, whose The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau publishes today (4 February 2021).  

One of my personal highlights of In the Frame: Putting Readers in the Picture, YLG’s virtual conference in November 2020, was the opportunity to host a live Q & A session with acclaimed U.S. author and illustrator Jon Agee from his home base in San Francisco. While I have admired Jon’s work for several years - and he has won several awards during his substantial career - he has been less well-known in the UK until recently, courtesy of independent publisher Scallywag Press.

Scallywag Press, founded in 2018 by Sarah Pakenham, has introduced five of Jon Agee’s works to UK readers, including the publication of The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau. This witty, inventive picture book was originally published in 1988 and was named a New York Times Book Review Notable Children’s Book of the Year. It features Jon’s trademark visual humour and word play, with the reader definitely privy to the joke and able to fully interact with the narrative. As Sarah says, “[Jon’s] is masterful storytelling with very simple words and pictures, full of the surreal, the hilarious and the poignant.”

I first encountered the magic and artistry of Jon Agee at Mabel’s Fables, an independent bookseller in Toronto, and was immediately hooked by his humour, sense of the absurd and impeccable visual timing. Art has always been a central part of Jon’s life; as a young student he loved drawing cartoons and comic strips and was heavily influenced by the English illustrator and poet Edward Lear. This passion is clearly evident in his books for children. He has an ability to convey emotion and cleverly pace his stories through drawing clear, bold lines. There’s also a very clever use of comic book layout (the panels, spotlight effect and speech bubbles in Lion Lessons are one example of this). 

Sarah’s own relationship with Jon’s books began when she met Charlene Lai, a Taiwanese bookseller and blogger, who had invited Jon to the Taipei BookFair. After investigating them all, Sarah says “each was more of a delight than the last!” As only two of Jon’s picture books had ever been published in the UK (coincidentally by Sarah’s editor, Janice Thompson, who was Children’s Book Editor at Faber in the 1980’s) she soon acquired the rights to Lion Lessons and made an offer on The Wall in the Middle of the Book on the basis of a half-finished book. In the latter, there is an inventive exploration of the fourth wall – the space which separates Jon’s characters from their reader – and a strong sense of the three-dimensional, which is what also makes Felix Clousseau such a timeless, remarkable picture book. The reader is in the front row of the audience, watching the narrative unfold and experiencing a thoroughly satisfying (if unexpected) ending. A twist to the tale is something at which Jon Agee excels!

Prior to interviewing Jon last year, I re-read American writer Paul Auster’s novel The Book of Illusions, in which he describes one of his character’s silent film performances: “It wasn’t slapstick and anarchy so much as character and pace, a smoothly orchestrated mixture of objects, bodies and minds.” The same could be said of Jon Agee, which is what makes him such a remarkable writer and illustrator. His illustrated narratives are entertaining, nuanced and perfectly balanced, with a visual challenge in every spread.

Thank you to Alison Brumwell for the blog.  Why not check out the YLG interview with Jon Agee here?