The Next Generation of Pop-up Artists Shawn Sheehy Kyle Olmon New York, New York I have noticed lately that many young paper engineers and book artists are developing sophisticated and exciting movable and pop-up books and projects. It is my hope to bring some awareness to this group of next generation Rex Roach pop-up artists in a series of interviews and articles. My first artist selection seems appropriate, as he was one of the first designers I met while making my way into this tight-knit community of movable book engineers and enthusiasts. His name will be familiar to readers who have attended previous Movable Book Society conferences, but his interesting backstory may not be. Snapdragon Shawn Sheehy creates artists' books that reflect on themes of sustainability, balance, and biological and cultural Volume 15 evolution. With degrees in elementary education and graphic design, he completed the MFA program in Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago where he is now an adjunct faculty member. In 2005 Shawn went to Ghana to help develop a locally-run paper mill that would generate income for the local community. His artists' books have become part of the John Wing Collection at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Special Collections at UCLA, and the Robert C. Williams American Museum of Papermaking in Atlanta. I spoke with Shawn in October as he was frantically preparing for the release of his latest work. Kyle Olmon: We first met in 2000 at the MBS conference in Milwaukee, WI. You were sharing an amazing prototype of your Animal Architecture book that was constructed primarily from cereal boxes. Can you tell me how you got your start with movable books? Shawn Sheehy: In 1997, I created a primitive pop-up book for the Madison Area Technical College out of rubber cement and scrap paper. I am an autodidact, but looked to the bookshelves for titles like [Robert Sabuda's] The Christmas Alphabet for inspiration. My book received a lot of good feedback, so I decided to remake it right. It was that book that got me a fellowship at Columbia College in Chicago and started me on my way. KO: That is where you are currently working, correct? SS: Yes. After finishing my MFA program in Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago I became the studio manager at the Center for Book & Paper Arts and adjunct instructor teaching book arts and papermaking. I have just begun my fifth year with the program. In addition, I give five or six workshops a year where I focus on the basics of paper engineering in bookmaking. KO: So it is safe to say that you identify yourself as a book artist. Do you see Book Arts gaining more credit and exposure in the world of art? ifc. T ■ > I .... r >T\ _ Shawn Sheehv Continued on page 1 1 The Movable Book Society ISSN: 1097-1270 Movable Stationery is the quarterly publication of The Movable Book Society. Letters and articles from members on relevant subjects are welcome. The index to past issues o/"Movable Stationery is available at: http://www. rci.rutgers. edu/~montanar/mbs.html The annual membership fee for the society is $25. 00 in the U.S. and $30.00 outside of the U.S. For more information contact: Ann Montanaro, The Movable Book Society, P. O. Box 1 1 654, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08906 USA. Daytime telephone: 732-445-5896 Evening telephone: 732-247-6071 e-mail: montanar@rci. rutgers. edu Fax: 732-445-5888 The deadline for the February issue is January 15. Musings of a Movable Book Collector: The Mechanism behind the Madness Larry Seidman Drlar7@aol.com Springfield, Virginia Collectors pass through three phases in their careers. The first is the honeymoon phase, when we are unsophisticated, and purchase quickly, we "have to have it," view others in competition. Dealers love this phase. We buy a lot, question little, get burned sometimes, and amass a lot of "junk." We are eager to learn and have not fully developed our vision. We are generalists, and like many things. We can appreciate the rare and unusual, but are scared by the price, and afraid to make a mistake. We pass up a lot of opportunities. We love the new, appreciate the old, and wonder if others think we are crazy for collecting "children's books." We may have one or two prized possessions. We buy the reproductions of Nister and Meggendorfer and think one day we may own an original. We love flea markets, garage and estate sales, ebay, and the remainder shelves in bookstores. We love the hunt, the find, the chase. We dream about the day we appear on Antiques Roadshow with the dusty Meggendorfer that came out of the attic at a yard sale for $6.00. We gobble up any knowledge from dealers and collectors. We love these movable books. The second or intermediate phase is the mature, seasoned collector. I consider myself and Ellen Rubin to be in this phase. We scrutinize, look over our collections, and realize the mistakes we made. We remember the one that got away. We may start to deal, trade, exchange, sell off, and downsize. Some of us may try our hand at shows. I have found pleasure in consignment with book dealers. Others will use auctions or donate to libraries. Impatience increases as the availability of "good" material decreases. When this happens, I have found that two choices exist. One choice is to move laterally to another area of collecting ( I have started collecting miniature books and puzzles). The second choice is to step up to the next psychological level of purchasing. There is more risk and reward in the higher priced material, and the competition is fierce. However, I still get as much joy from the mechanism of a modern pop up as I do from looking at a 200 year old Biedermeier movable card. Moving up to the next dollar level is a psychological hurdle. There are barriers at breaking through the S10-S50- $100-5500-$ 1000 levels, each to be met with a bit of trepidation. I remember my first purchase of a $100 book very clearly. I had been buying at flea markets and antique shops and would pay $20-50 at most for a book, postcard, toy, or game. There was little risk if I made a mistake. I was making very little on a resident's salary and was recently married. Lost and Found was a shop where I had frequently bought items during my residency 20 years ago. The Lady of Shallot was a beautiful color plate book by Pyle and his first full chromolithography printed in the US in 1881 (not a movable). I paid $100 after much agonizing. I later realized it was missing the front endpaper. I don't regret owning it and admiring it for the last 20 years. The first pop-up I bought was Robot by Jan Pierikowski around 23 years ago when I was 23 at a store called Mythology in Manhattan. Two years later, the Cooper- Hewitt museum had an exhibit on Meggendorfer with a six- minute video showing the mechanisms working and the Genius ofLothar Meggendorfer for sale. I was hooked. Ten years ago I was sitting at a children's book conference in New York City, listening to a dealer named Antonio Raimo talk about Meggendorfers from his collection. There was a young man sitting next to me who went up afterward to ask questions. We became friends. He is Robert Sabuda. We love these movable books. The third phase is the expert. This person has been a collector or dealer for at least 25 years. I consider the triumvirate of children's book dealers: Ann Bromer, Jo Ann Reisler, and Helen Younger to be experts in the field. The expert has seen everything and is selective in purchasing. He may be one who is downsizing, retiring, nearing the end of his collecting career, and deciding the best way to dispose of the collection. How is it best to pass on the legacy to future generations? This person, like Wally Hunt, may give the collection to a museum. Others may auction off their collection. Still others may have a dealer put out a special catalog, like the Bromer' s did for Blair Whitton. Who has the greatest collection of movable books today? One collector I truly admire is Werner Nekes, a German film maker, who has put out six unbelievable videos on his collection of pre- cinema toys, optical illusions, and movable books that is quite comprehensive. Continued on page 9 Frankfurt Book Fair 2007 - Part 1 Theo Gielen The Netherlands Each year at the end of August, when I have returned from summer holidays and I am back at work preparing for the new book season, the mysterious fair-fever sneaks into my blood and mind again. On one hand, it means a lot of work studying the pile of publisher's fall catalogs and the book trade professional magazines, making appointments with the representatives to discuss sales, orders, and marketing conditions for the shop's assortment, preparing deliberation with the publishers about old (financial) problems and new plans, and making appointments with international friends in the field to meet them again. On the other hand, there grows also this tickling feeling of being plunged into the yearly warm bath of thousands of new books, books, books. Day-by-day the adrenalin in my blood increases and I can only impatiently wait to see - like the child in the twelve days of Christmas - what surprising presents the writers, illustrators and, especially, the paper engineers have prepared and will show me this year. Shortly thereafter, the Frankfurt Book Fair of early October comes into sight. This is a delightful, five-day feast for a book-man like me, where about 7,500 publishers from all over the world display their cultural commodities for me and the almost 300,000 other visitors. What's more, there is an array of other book-related events - both in the Fair and in the city of Frankfurt. They range from professional conferences, gatherings, lectures, press conferences and presentations, through special activities organized by the Guest of Honor of the fair (this year it was the Catalan culture from Spain), to signing sessions by well-known authors, artists roA tjtf ifHiyfcu anc* celebrities, public PIT-' IMFCCpMa^ discussions with them, and : ' ; parties, parties, parties! Since I don't teach anymore - 1, too, am growing older — I am in the luxurious position of traveling a whole day to get to Frankfurt. So, it is no longer a last-minute flight or a late evening high-speed train ride, but, instead, I take the opportunity to have an easy ride along the borders of the Rhine enjoying the fall changing colors of the trees on the hills, spotting some last vintners gathering their ripe grapes, and wondering how another ruin of an old castle on the top of the hills that border the river has been rebuilt in the last year. For a break I had planned a visit of the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz where I hoped to purchase a copy of the publication that accompanied last year's exhibition of paper toys from the Jos. Scholz publishing house. Based in Mainz from the early 19,h century, they were also known for some interesting novelty books. ' From home I had made an appointment with one of the curators of the museum to show me their copy of the 1540 edition of Apian's Cosmographia, without doubt the most beautiful folio volume that ever has been made. The large volvelles, have up to seven hand-colored circling wheels on a page, one upon another, all are magnificent. It was quite an experience to be on the grounds where Gutenberg, in the 1 5th century, started printing for the very first time in history, and to be able to see some of his own printed books, including no less than three copies of his renowned 42-line Bible that generally marks the start of the art of printing. The museum has a large and outstanding collection of printed books documenting the complete history of printing from the very beginning in the mid-15lh century up to our days. As an extra, the museum has a copy of the first printing press as used by Gutenberg, that is demonstrated by a guide. Interesting also for me was the new section that shows both the way wood engravings came into existence, and the complete step-by-step process of (color) lithography. The museum's shop had another movable-related surprise, about which I will tell later in this contribution. Catalan Culture - Guest of Honor Before starting a survey of the new and future movable and pop-up books as seen at the fair, short attention has to be given to the guest of honor of this year's Frankfurt Book Fair, the Catalan Culture - of course restricted to the perspective of movable and pop-up books. Catalonia is, roughly said, the prosperous region in north-east Spain with Barcelona as its capital, and including the Balearic Islands. It has its own culture and language that was suppressed for centuries by the central government in Madrid. But, in recent years, the region has received a special status within the kingdom, and several political groups in the region even aspire to complete independence. The cultural Institut Ramon LIull, that was responsible for the organization of the activities on the fair, presented as Cultura Catalana Singular I Universal, borrows its name from the Mallorcan writer, scholar, and mystic Ramon LIull (1232-1315). With his romantic novel Blanquerna (1283), LIull wrote the first major work of Catalan language literature. For the readership of Movable Stationery1, however, aware of the history of movable books, Ramon LIull will be known as the first one to use movable elements in his books. His Ars Magna, published as early as the year 1315, is the first book with volvelles, hence also known by book historians as "Llullian circles." Unfortunately no copy of the book was shown in the special hall that featured the book history of the Catalan culture at the fair, but, virtually, the book was shown there with movements. Many more three-dimensional and novelty elements in books were seen at the related exhibition "visualKultur.cat" of artists' books and graphic design from Catalonia in the Frankfurt Museum fur angewandte Kunst (Museum of applied Arts). In the magnificent museum building, itself a work of art, designed in 1985 by the New York architect Richard Meier, a wealth of artist's paper designs and graphics were on display. Not only works by the most famous of modern Catalan artists like Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro, but also, for example, by our fellow Movable Book Society member, the artist Quim Corominas. He showed some of his artistic peepshows, and the two great novelty books published by the "Comediants" in the 1980s: Sol Solet and La Nit directed technically and artistically by Salvador Saura and Ramon Torrente, and both sought after by collectors. He also showed the wonderful leporello of El Deacdlogo (2001) byMariscal2 The exhibition can be seen until January 27, 2008. In the same museum, there happened to be another exhibition of interest to the readers of Movable Stationery, a small but exquisite presentation of recent paintings, graphics, 3-D objects, and artists' books by the Czech artist and (children's book) illustrator Kveta Pacovska. Included in the show were all her colorful pop-up and novelty books, here labeled as the first "children's artists' books." It was quite a treat to see these gems of any collection of movable books presented within the context of her other works of art. Pacovska's newest book was on sale: A I'infini. Paris, Editions du Panama, 2007 (ISBN 978-2-7557-0266-8). This exhibit, too, can still be seen until early January 2008. 3 Accidentally, I came across another cute paper novelty offered by the Catalans. The pictural logo of the manifestation Cultura Catalana Singular I Universal was a dancer balancing a stick with a balloon at each end above her head (like a weight-lifter), a design by the Catalan artist Miquel Barcelo. At the reception in the Catalan hall I was presented with a writing pad having this logo on the front and as a small figure on each of its blank pages. When I, in an unthinking moment, played with the block and, in fun, flip-flapped the pages, I suddenly saw the dancer make a double pirouette on the pages! The writing block appeared to double as a flip book. I really wonder how many people who got a copy will discover that this gimmick is included, what makes this pad an unnoticed, and hence, a rare collector's item for sure. Obvious collectibles by the old names and a new one Looking over the new releases in the few days that the new Movable Stationery deadline policy allows me, I think the output as seen at this year's fair was not as spectacular as last year's. However, there were a lot of very nice new pop-up and movable books on display that lodged an appeal to the greed of your reporter. Let us start in this part of my contribution with an inventory of the new titles of the well-known paper engineers of experience and their plans for next year - as far as was seen in Frankfurt. Next, I would like to add the name of a new man to this list, one who popped up with two first gems and showed plans for two other great book to come. And, finally, I will list here some Christmas specials which will be in time for Santa's annual gift season. All contemporary paper engineers of fame have collectible pop-up books this fall, and most of them also showed dummies of their new projects for the coming years. To avoid any private preferences they will be listed here in alphabetical order. At Macmi Han's stand was the new pop-up book by Maggie Bateson: My Fairy Bridesmaid Castle (9781405090315), the "somethinghth" fairy carousel book for little girls, again illustrated in sweet pink, yellow, and blue by Louise Comfort, but with rather complex paper engineering. The series has not yet reached an end since the dummy of next year's sequel was already on display as My Fairy Funfair. The couple will pop-up next spring at Macmillan with the first two titles of what seems to have grown into a new series of "Pop-up and Play Books," offering three pop-up play-scenes and a pull- out drawer with press-out characters and accessories: My Pirate Adventure (for boys) and My Fairy Fashion Show (for girls). The winner of the 2006 Meggendorfer Award, David Carter, appears to be the most prolific paper engineer of the fair, offering no less than six new titles in which he is involved. The man who brought the pop-up book to a new artistic level not seen before, continues his excellent series of artists' books-for-a-general-public with 600 Black Spots: A Pop-up Book for Children of All Ages from Little Simon (9781416940920). My copy already lays open on the third level of what proves to be the most admired showcase of my study. It accompanies his earlier One Red Dot and Blue 2. I eagerly await the two other announced parts of the series, also based on the primary colors, to fill up the still empty levels of my showcase. The dummy of the fourth volume was seen at White Heat and will be published next year as The Yellow Square; a final volume was said to feature the color white in 2009. Early 2008 Robin Corey Books, a Random House imprint, will publish Dr. Seuss 's Horton Hears a Who Pop-up! with pop-ups by Carter. Later that year Intervisual Books, now an imprint of the Dalmatian Publishing Group from Atlanta, Georgia, will issue The Glittery Crittery Pop-up Counting Book, a sequel to his earlier Glitter Critters. Harcourt Children's Books brings out this fall Sarah Week's Peek in My Pocket: A Lift-the- flap Pop-up Book, engineered by David Carter, like her earlier Ruff. Ruff! Wliere 's Scruff? and Who 's Under that Hat? Those who thought - or even hoped - that Carter would eventually overcome his bug-obsession, will be surprised to see a new title next summer, Beach Bugs from Little Simon. Since several of the titles of his Bugs series have for years been in the top-ten list of Simon & Schuster's bestselling children's books, you can guess why he continues to pursue his bug-o-mania. Honi soil qui ma! y pense — as even the British King's weapon says. 0 [K Q ' ' "*"'r-- t ) if Back at the stand of Macmillan, we found the new pop- up books by their second in-house paper engineer, Nick Denchfield. He again made some very complex paper artwork for a new Commander Nova's Pop-up Alien Space Station, illustrated by Steve Cox and mirroring the format of their earlier The Pirate Ship. To come next year is the simple but cute Penelope the Piglet: A Pop-up floo/c (978023001 6 156) illustrated by Ant Parker and a clear sequel to their highly successful, and often reprinted, Charlie the Chick of many years ago. Alison Green Books, an imprint of Scholastic (the big publishing houses know how to honor their editors), brings the sweet and girlish My Mermaid Princess Palace: A Magical Pop-up World (9780439950275) illustrated by Dawn Apperley and paper engineered by Denchfield. No longer attending the Book Fair, and leaving the commercial handwork of | negotiating and selling the rights of the books packaged by his company White Heat to his capable and very friendly lady assistants, James Diaz apparently has found the time to again make a pop-up book himself. Restricting himself in recent years to supporting the paper engineers whose works he packaged, and doing just a series of sturdy early- learning "My First Jumbo Books" with simple paper artwork (that, however, internationally sold very well), he now surprises with a great and innovative novelty. Piggy Toes Press will publish next year his Popigami (9781581176414), whose double subtitles characterize very well the innovation and techniques used: When Everyday Paper Pops! and Where Pop-up Meets Origami. Offering a very complex mixture of origami folded figures (beautiful birds) and more traditional pop-up elements, the result is a highly collectible book that shows all the skills of the master engineer. For decades Diaz has been acclaimed by both collectors and paper engineers. Popigami is surely one of my favorites of the fair, with the potential of growing into a classic in the field. Though his well-known, large fold-out pop-ups of the human body, dinosaurs, etc. were seen on the fair at several international stands, the only new book we found paper engineered by David § Hawcock was 77ie Pompeii Pop- I up (9780789315694), written by Peter Riley with Dr. Thorston Opper, a curator of Greek and Roman antiquities at the British Museum. Published by Universe, the llxl 1-inch, six spread pack, builds a 3-D picture of Pompeian life before the disaster of the year AD 79. It examines the events of the fateful day that Mount Vesuvius erupted, and shows how the archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli recently unveiled the hidden city. It is well done, though we think the kind of paper used for the pop-ups is too weak. Ron van der Meer returns to his core business, the making of great pop-up books, after a six year sabbatical and an adventure as a glamorous business man. His How Many? A Pop-up (9780375842269) is a counting book for adults in which each spread features a different shape -square, circle, star, triangle, rectangle - that pops up in a wonder of inventive and intricate paper artwork showing the maestro at his best. No wonder we saw the book also in a British edition at Doubleday, an Australian edition at Five Mile Press, and planned editions in German at Coppenrath, and in French at Hachette. There is also a limited edition with an extra string-activated pop-up embedded in the front cover. His packager, Graham Brown, who proudly showed me the framed award he received from the fair authorities for having a stand at the fair for 25 years, told me that Ron is already working on a sequel that will be humorously entitled How Many More? to come next year. From the other Dutch paper engineer, Kees Moerbeek, comes another adult pop-up book, Even More Outrageous Pop-up Celebrity Meltdowns (978 159591 0349) published by Dorling Kindersley, but not available to view at their stand. Keith Moseley is by far the longest active paper engineer, and still a leader, and for that reason alone deserves to be included in the Guinness book of records. Despite his age. he has two new pop-up books this fall and brings an innovative novelty as well. Abrams publishes his Dragon World: A Pop-up Guide to These Scaled Beasts. (9780810994560), A *% kind of a reference book on his beloved dragons, answering such questions as what dragons like, what they eat, and how they behaved across the centuries. It is a counterpart to last year's Dragons: A Pop-up Book of Fantastic Adventures that told about the role dragons played in various legends. And, again, his magnificently engineered dragons fly out as you turn the pages. Dorling Kindersley brings his second new title, Dream House (9780756630904), using the other format in which Mr. Moseley excels, the carousel book. From one side there is the front of a Georgian doll's house, from the other side there are open rooms over the house and the garden. In all there are eight rooms to play in, a diary-style booklet of a Georgian girl, and push-out card templates to add furniture and accessories for the house. Innovative, however, this time (Moseley, earlier in his career, refined the floors of the carousel format to flatten better than they did before) is the addition of glowing lights in the rooms that can be turned on and off! Six years after his first dummy was seen at White Heat in 2001, Chuck Murphy will now finally have the pleasure of seeing published his Animal Babies A to Z: A Pop-up Book (9781581 176520) from Piggy Toes Press. Previously, it was thought of as a double-sized sequel to the wonderful black and white books Murphy did in the 1990s {Colors, One to Ten, Black Cat and White Cat, etc.). Each double spread of this nice oblong book has a series of four flaps with letters from the alphabet - the whole executed in black and white only. When a flap is opened there pops up a full color animal (whose name starts with that letter) with her young. A nice and surprising design, it surely deserves to be published after all these years. Robin Corey Books will bring out a Murphy book before Easter 2008: The Great Bunnyville Easter Egg Hunt, for which the blurb promises "fun, intricate paper engineering with lots of glitter." But I didn't see it, since Robin Corey Books attended the fair for only a short time. An absolute gem of design and paper engineering and a pop-up highlight of this year's fair indeed, is David Pelham's Trail: Paper Poetry (9781416948940) published as a "Classic Collectible" by Little Simon. The reader follows the silvery trail of a snail through an all- white, enchanting maze of stunning pop-up landscapes "that range from tranquil to mysterious to magical" as the catalog says. Very complex, well-executed paper artwork ends up with a brilliant last spread as a poetic paper sculpture that no longer flattens down, but three-dimensionally embeds in the deepened back cover of the book. It is my personal favorite and my choice for the next Meggendorfer Award! A must- have for any collector for sure. Another dummy that was first seen in 2001 - with the working title The Cat with Nine Lives - will finally be published next year. Jan Pienkowski will see his colorful book appear as 77ze Ninja Cat from Matthew Price. One of its spreads reproduces the well-known whale pop-up from the Harold Lentz Pinocchio book from the 1930s, now engineered by Steve Augarde and Helen Balmer. The just released, wonderful 77ie Wild West Pop-up Book (9781402746284) by master engineer Anton Radevsky dominated the entrance of its publisher Sterling. Above their reception desk, the entire old west town that folds out from the center spread of the book with gatefolds on both sides, made a show. It was completed by the freestanding stagecoach, the covered wagon drawn by oxen, the steam engine with passenger and coal cars, and the great paper- sculptured cowboy in full regalia on his horse. Not only an informative nostalgic book, it is also a wonder of paper engineering. In this book the Bulgarian master got the opportunity to enclose many exciting bonuses which are stored in the deepened front and back covers. His packaging publisher from Kibea Publishing, Sofia, also showed me the dummy of Radevsky' s future project. By special request he has designed and constructed a book for Rizzoli, a sequel to his bestselling Architecture Pop-up Book (2004), that continues where that book stopped. The book will be published in 2008 by Universe as Modern Architecture Pop-up Book. It will start with a model of the Crystal Palace, as built for the Great Exhibition in London 1851, and will feature further icons of modern architecture including, most likely, the Barcelona Pavillion of Le Corbusier, the Rietveld-Schroder House by Rietveld, and a skyscraper in Dubai. The dummy looked very promising, indeed, even though the exact contents were not yet set. The new book by Matthew Reinhart was on display at the stand of Scholastic only as a dummy since the printed copies were not yet available. Star Wars: A Pop-up Guide to the Galaxy (9780439882828) will be on sale in November and celebrates the 30111 anniversary of the well-known space fantasy saga. It is another voluminous paper-extravaganza from the Reinhart-Sabuda studio and has an intriguing use of lights as an extra. It is a must both for fans of the Star Wars fantasy universe as well as for the lovers of spectacular paper engineering. The completed trilogy of the Encyclopedia Prehistorica that Reinhart did with Robert Sabuda, was seen at the stand of Walker Books, to come next year as a boxed set. There will be additional, freestanding paper-engineered beasts stored in a drawer built in the slipcase. Walker Books also showed the first part of a new trilogy of a same format by the star-couple: Encyclopedia Mythological Fairies and Magical Creatures, now in oblong (19x24 cm), with glittering special effects and announced for summer 2008. Robert has at Little Simon a new, small format Winter in White: A Mini Pop-up Treat (9781847381798) with white pop-ups on a colored background, a sequel to last year's Christmas: A Mini Pop- up Treat. The booklet recycles winter images, many of which were featured on pop-up cards and ornaments for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It is meant for gift giving, and will be published in time for the coming Christmas season. Robert Sabuda at his very best can be seen once more in another "pop-upification" of a children's book classic. After his magnificent Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, the books by C. S. Lewis are next. In December HarperCollins will bring out the spectacular Sabuda version of The Chronicles of Narnia: Based on the Books by C. S. Lewis: Pop-ups by Robert Sabuda (9780061176128). Again, a very voluminous, half-cloth book packed with spectacular pop- up effects in full color on its seven double spreads, one for each of the seven books in the original The Chronicles of Narnia. (Don't forget to read the original, since one spread per volume doesn't leave much room for the original text.) For the bibliophiles amongst the readers, both from Reinhart's Star Wars and from Sabuda's The Chronicles of Narnia were seen one-spread promotionals marked "Not for sale." The real collector's items! A new name: Sam Ita To my knowledge, it has never happened in the history of pop-up books, that out of nowhere came an all-in-one designer/scenarist/illustrator/paper engineer who emerged with a spectacular and innovative pop-up book, with complexity that most paper engineers would be glad to do after years of experience in the profession. However, this year's Frankfurt Book Fair had the privilege to reveal such a multi-talent who takes his place in the market of pop-up and novelty books with the creation of no less than two remarkable publications at once. And, what's more, he proves to be not a "mayfly," since he also showed the pop-up books he will bring out in 2008 and 2009! The name of this young man, still in his twenties, is Sam Ita. For me, he is already now one of the "names" in the field of quality pop-up books. Information from Sterling, his publisher, states that he studied graphic design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and currently lives in Los Angeles. At Pratt he was an apprentice to . . . Robert Sabuda, which explains why his work, at least his first book, clearly shows the influence of this master engineer. What a satisfaction for a teacher to have such a talented apprentice! He apprenticed for five years with Robert and Matthew on their pop-up books, including America the Beautiful. Encyclopedia Prehistorica, and Mommy? Sam went on to work at Americhip, where he created paper-engineered products for such companies as Discovery Channel. His first book - it must be his first since there is a sentimental dedication "For my parents" that authors only use in their "firstlings" - is Moby Dick: A Pop-up Book (9781402745287) to be published in November by Sterling. It will be published a month earlier by Mango Jeunesse in France. It is a magnificent, half cloth book executed almost exclusively in greyish sea blue, ship brown, and black, with very complex paper artwork on each spread and added small(er) pop-ups under some flaps and fold-outs, pull-tabs, and a revolving picture. There is some glitter on one of the spreads to accent the rough sea of that episode. Of course, there is a great Pequod, Captain Ahab's boat, which rises impressively from the page, complete with rigging. And look how ingeniously the sides of the boat fold away asymmetrically when the spread is closed! Captain Ahab himself erects impressively far outside the page of the third spread - and see how ingeniously the small boats under the right hand flap of that spread unfold. In the last spread, readers actually look through a 3-D periscope and see Ishmael through the "lens," drifting in the ocean. And, sure, there are some clumsy beginner faults, too; the white whale, for instance, on the fifth spread, looks too rectangular, more like a sea container than like a streamlined deep sea inhabitant. The text, after the famous novel by Herman Melville, starting with the famous first words "Call me Ishmael," has been printed in colorful, comic book-style panels that convey the story's drama. It makes the book look like a graphic novel - an innovation in pop-up books for sure. Really a great book to treasure as the first of what, I hope, will grow an elaborate oeuvre. The dummy of next year's pop-up book by Sam Ita was seen at Sterling too: a completed and equally impressive pop-up version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues under the Sea: A Pop-up Book. For 2009 another pop-up edition of a classic novel was announced: Bram Stoker's Frankenstein. With Ita's second paper-engineered publication for this fall, we come to the last section of this part of my contribution on the new titles of the Frankfurt Book Fair. Seasonal novelties for Christmas Every year the commercial impact of Christmastime on the book and toy trade generates a certain number of Christmas and Santa novelty books. They usually don't show much originality, but do find a lot of collectors. Let's see what the publishers are offering this year. Sam Ita made a Christmas Tree In-a-box (9781402745294), a green flocked box with an 80-page booklet containing Christmas carols, recipes, directions for folding origami ornaments, and instructions for assembling the kit's centerpiece: an almost two foot tall Christmas tree with such things as foil boughs, glittery ornaments, and a star tree topper. The box doubles as a tree stand. It is more a novelty 3-D paper toy than a pop-up. Little, Brown publishes Chuck Fischer's Christmas Around the World: A Pop-up Book (9780316117951) about which more was discussed in the interview published in the February 2007 issue of Movable Stationery. While not on display in Frankfurt, it seems to be the most elaborate Christmas pop-up book of the season. Well done, but with just one laser-cut pop-up of Santa in his sleigh drawn by the reindeers for a finale, is The Night Before Christmas: A Magical Cut-paper Edition (9780763634698), from Candlewick/Walker Books, illustrated with silhouettes by Niroot Puttapipat. Five Mile Press from Australia lists a Silent Night & Other Christmas Carols (9781741785845) that copies the format of their book from last year, The Night Before Christmas. The book, illustrated by Lee Krutop, features (simple) pop-ups and lift-fhe-flaps, and includes a CD of the carols especially recorded for this book. More innovative was the promising dummy at Walker Books of A Present for Father Christmas: A Magical 3-D Adventure, told by Dana Kubick and illustrated and paper engineered by David Wood. By looking through the 3-D lenses, as built in the windows of a pop-up house, the reader views Father Christmas' magical pop-up grotto. It will be published for the next Christmas season. Finally there were many Christmas books with novelty elements. Campbell Books has Poppy Cat 's Snowy Day (9781 40509307 1 ) featuring the Lara Jones character of Poppy Cat and with pull-tabs and (simple) pop-ups on every page. Robin Corey Books is publishing Christmas is Coming!, a shaped board book with a wheel by Lisa Ann Marsoli and illustrated by Lucy Barnard. Dorling Kindersley has The Christmas Story: A Pop- up Nativity Activity Book (978 140532 1 839) with a pull-out nativity play scene and pop-up angels. Little Tiger Press will issue a Santa story with simple pop-ups on every page in Shhh! (9781845062170) by Julie Sykes and Tim Warnes. Templar's Christmas is Coming: A Pop-up Christmas Celebration (9781840115819) is by Stella engineered by Jonathan Lambert. Wmf ®wf-- -$'*! i s '?S. ' ... " ; ir '&* t „'Jt I llwjg . ; j* ■'- \ i ,. i * . 1* Gurney and is paper Endnotes 1 Spiel Mill Papierspiele aus dem VerlagJos, Scholz Mainz. Mainz, Gutenberg-Museum, 2006. ISBN: 3-9805506-9-9. 84 pages. 12.00. 2 All published by Edicionsdel'Eixample, Barcelona. Some are picture in the well-known catalog of the collection of movable books of Quim Corominas, Pop-up: Llibres Movibles I Tridimensionals, pp. 116-117. 3 For address, opening times, etc. see the website of the museum: http://www.museumfurangewandtekunst.frankfurt.de/. For the site of the publisher of the new book by Pacovska see: http://www.editionspanam.com/ It can also be delivered by the Boutique du Livre Anime in Paris; contact boutiquedulivreanime@wanadoo. fr Musings, continued from page 2 His book, Eyes, Lies and Illusions, is available and is a wonderful reference. Our children may be more burdened than enamored by our collection. So we must either educate them on how best to dispose of the collection, or better yet, do it ourselves and give them the money. I struggle with this now that I have gone through the estate sale of my parents' house. I just experienced what it is like to sell off the contents of my parents' house after 35 years of collecting and the associated memories. The estate dealers brought in two different book dealers who both low-balled the entire collection of art books, reference and children's books. I refused. When sold individually at the house sale, the books brought in much more money, as well as making many collectors happy. Finding a good home for the items is my primary concern. We still love these movable books. I often regret the acts of omission more than acts of commission. By that, I mean I despair about the ones that got away more than the mistakes of overpaying and the mistakes of buying repaired, broken goods in the heat of the moment at auction or from a dealer. My mother says: "Act in haste, repent in leisure." I will impart the wisdom my father gave to me in collecting coins, which also applies to antiques, books and collectibles. In the past, we went to antique shows and coin shows together. I was his eyes. He was the banker and negotiator. We could always walk away. That was a tough lesson for a kid who had to have it. My father's father taught him: "If you want it and can afford it, buy it. If you don't have the money, you don't need it." Pappy's Principles for Collecting 1. Buy what you like. Buy what you love to own, display, admire, and are impassioned about. It is not an investment or business first and foremost. If you chase what is hot or what everyone else likes, you will never be happy. 2. Buy at the right price. If you buy right, you never have to worry about selling. It will sell itself. It is hard to be the under-bidder at an auction ( I know what it feels like to go "just one more bid"). It is hard to walk away from a dealer, to "think" about it, only to have the next person snatch up the find. It takes discipline and patience to think like a dealer. Every book you buy will eventually be sold. Unless you are one of the lucky ones to donate a collection to a library or even more lucky to have a museum buy your collection, everything will be sold. We just rent the books, we do not own them. It is our duty to take care of them. 3. Buy in the best condition you can afford in whatever price range. Buy only the best, pristine, mint in box, in dust jacket, etc. These appreciate the most over time. If you have five copies of a book in average/fair condition each worth $50, in 5-10 years they probably will still only be worth S250 together. Perhaps you can get your money back. However, if you agonized and overpaid for one pristine copy for S300 in 5-10 years you may double your money or more at auction. Some dealers will let you trade up and exchange a lesser quality book for a better one and pay the difference. Collectors are always looking for the best. Everyone loves books in fine condition. You never have to apologize for the book, or make excuses. It gets tougher to get good material, and competition is fierce. The dust jacket in the book world is the box in the toy world. A bad restoration is worse than no restoration. 4. Stick to what you know. Be an expert. Know more than everyone else in a particular area. You can't be a jack-of-all- trades. Read everything. Talk to everyone. Be aware. Listen. Good reference books, auction catalogs and dealers catalogs are the best investments. Educate yourself. Like Sy Sims says: "An educated consumer is our best customer." 5. Rarity may change over time. Ebay is the great equalizer. The market is now worldwide, not just in the USA. I have seen Nister's in dust jackets and Meggendorfer's that I have never seen offered by dealers, on ebay. Books that were thought to be rare now turn up frequently. Have patience. Oftentimes a high price at auction will bring out another copy from someone's attic, which, when offered, is much less in price. It is risky to be the first to buy something when you have to have it. I have succumbed to this myself at auction. 6. Trust your instincts. If it is very unusual, go for it. Always think the other person knows more than you do. Be humble. Assume that they have done their homework. Rarely can we pull the wool over a seller's eyes and steal a book. If it is too good to be true, there is probably something wrong with it. The first impressions you get, that this is the "real deal," or the funny feelings you get that something is not right, are probably correct. Read the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell to see how the Getty Museum was fooled. 7. Have patience. The contest is won more often by the marathon runner than the sprinter. Be both the tortoise and hare. If you are in for the long haul, eventually everything comes up over time. The most unusual pieces in my collection I have not seen for 10 years. If you can wait 20 years, you will probably have seen everything at least twice. However, I am continually surprised by what turns up at auction from an estate or lifelong collection. 8. Cross over to other related areas. I call this lateral movement. Optical toys, games, puzzles, miniature books, postcards, ephemera, and advertising are some of the related areas that I have found rewarding. Good finds of movable ephemera can be found at postcard shows, and paper shows could have movable books. Cross over to other countries, like Europe and Canada for material, either by auction, or dealers. Material that has crossover potential has a great likelihood of being popular, pursued by collectors from different collecting fields and being easier to sell. A favorite piece from my collection is a miniature harlequinade that I have never seen offered again. I purchased it from Bromer Booksellers, who specialize in miniatures. It has the appeal for movable book collectors and also has a magic lantern on the front, which appeals to optical toy collectors. Some of my favorite pieces have this appeal to various crossover collections. 9. Know the intrinsic worth, or value of an item. Have the guts to be able to walk away and know the consequences of your actions. No one can say what the piece means to you, if you "have to have it." Realize the connection to an object is more than just the material value. There are the memories, the chase, the negotiation, the display, and the thrill of discovery at finding your missing piece. There is a mystical story that says that when a person is born, he is given the most of the pieces to his puzzle but also a few pieces to someone else's puzzle that are of no value to him. Our lives consist of putting our puzzle together and helping another person find their missing pieces. Finding my purpose in life and piecing together the puzzle of my existence is one of the gratifying ways that collecting has helped shape me. 10. Know your dealer. A good and experienced dealer is the best friend, colleague and investment a collector can make. Ironically, a dealer like Joann Reisler, who knows her material well, may price a book more fairly than an inexperienced dealer who thinks he has a great rarity, and overprices the book. The naive dealer also may have paid too much and has not scrutinized the condition as much as Joann. So you are paying for her experience. On the other hand, do not exclude buying from non-children's, non pop-up dealers. A general dealer who buys an estate collection oftentimes wholesales the books because that is not his field of expertise. Some of the finest collections in this country have been built by dealers supplying antiquities to a collector over a lifetime. They help you hone your vision. Have fun collecting. It is a most rewarding experience. As I said at the MBS conference, there are three things necessary to build a fine collection: time, money and vision. I hope the above 10 principles help you to achieve your own personal vision. Jack-in-the-books (2) Theo Gielen In my contribution "Jack-in-the-books: A Provisional Survey," published in the August, 2007 issue of Movable Stationery, I requested additional titles from readers. I received both positive reactions and additions. Since two brought to my attention variations to the format, including an edition by an illustrator who is beloved by many of us, I would like to share this information with the readers. In my study of these books, in which a fully shaped head swivels up around a grommet above the text to extend beyond the cover, and a pair of shaped legs swivels below, I found that the European editions always had the paper doll coming out from the inside of the back cover. As a result, the clothes that dress the figure appear on the right hand (recto) pages. However, the American editions, as published in the Bonnie Books series by the Samuel Lowe Company from Kenosha, Wisconsin, had the paper doll on the inside of the front cover and the clothes on the left hand side (verso) of the pages. What would have been more obvious than to combine both and do two paper dolls in one book? But I had never see that variation of the format, until after the publication of my article. In the collection of one of the members of the Movable Book Society a copy of another Bonnie Book popped up, entitled Little Boy Meets Little Girl: Story: Jack- in-book with Twin Figures with a paper doll boy pasted on the inside of the front cover and a paper doll girl on the inside of the back cover. It was published as Bonnie Book #407 1 by Samuel Lowe Company in 1957, and copyrighted like the others in the series by James & Jonathan, both based in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Neither the author nor the illustrator is named. Unlike the other parts of the Bonnie Books Jack- in-the-books series, here the images of the boy and girl twins have been pasted into the insides of the covers; there are no grommets, and the heads just fold up to show above the book block. Additionally, the legs of the figures are not movable, but simply a part of the illustration within the pages. The instruction at the boy Tommy's feet says: 'Tor More Fun, To meet Tommy, | Lift Tommy's head. You will Mala Eva - from the back be told when t0 meet the little cover girl." Tommy loses his ball into Mala Eva 10 the girl's yard (her name is never given) and the reader is instructed to then meet her by lifting her head. m w \ «^. •r^ffi Mala Eva - from the front cover An other member of the Society recently acquired a Jack-in-the-book from the 1950s that was illustrated by Vojtech Kubasta. Although the works of this Czech illustrator and paper engineer have been researched and extensively inventoried in recent years, and several attempts have been made to catalog and describe his complete works, this title appears to have escaped attention until now. Published in 1954, Mala Eva (Little Eva) must be one of the earliest movable books done by Kubasta. It was written by Frantisek Kozik, printed in Moravia, and published by Osveta Martin in Prague. There is another novelty of the usual format that I thought was first done by Keith Faulkner in the 1990s: this heavy cardboard Kubasta book contains three swiveling heads, two of a little girl and one of an infant, as well as one pair of rotating legs. There are only a few pages that form the activities and the dresses. The provisional survey of these movable books that I gave in my earlier r| contribution, has been Ep&Ufe^ffiff/ ' ] j I augmented by these wonderful additions. I want to thank Bettyrae Eisenstein and Ellen Rubin, the Pop-up Lady (who truly is that young), for their information. Mala Eva - swiveling heads Shawn Sheehy , Continued from page 1 SS: I still think that it is the redheaded stepchild to painting, sculpture and the more established arts. You know, it is slow going. I think the Chicago book arts community has a reputation for being more craft orientated. Being identified as craft can be a sort of stigma in the art world, and other Chicago schools like the University of Illinois in Chicago and the School of the Art Institute are much, much more theory based. We make things, and they talk about making things. I like that Book Arts are still considered a little outsider-y; it almost gives book artists carte blanche to define their ideas. I love to make things. I don't have a great brain for theory. KO: I find that hard to believe when I look at your recent work. Your last book dealt with big theories of evolutionary biology and symbiotic relationships found in nature. Before that, you expressed a study of a marsh ecosystem in pop-up form, and now you have announced your third book in the series. Can you tell me a bit about the themes you explore in this new work? SS: Richard Leakey, in his book The Sixth Extinction, describes five major catastrophes in Earth's history that led to significant extinctions. He theorizes that the sixth big extinction is close at hand, and that it will be authored by humans. Be it through global warming, habitat destruction, or environmental pollution, humans have the power to destroy species at alarming rates. I am fascinated by evolutionary theory and speciation. If humans (or something else) are successful in instigating a profound die-off, I wonder which species might survive and flourish in a new environment, and what new species might then branch off from those survivors. I wonder what anatomical adaptations they might acquire in their proliferation. My pop-up book, Beyond the 6th Extinction: A Fifth Millennium Bestiary, includes eight creatures featured in their post-apocalyptic environments. Thus they are armored for protection against extreme temperatures and toxic surroundings, or of extraordinary color due to lack of predators and high reproductive competition. Each animal is accompanied by supporting text that is meant to read like a field guide sharing information about the species, diet, and habitat. And because I am a cautious optimist, I have given each of these creatures a recycling job; for example, the rex roach (a massive edition of today's well-known pest) is fundamental in the clean up of radioactive waste, the petey bug (evolved from today's pill bug) digests plastics, and the dandy worm (the unintentional bioengineered cross between a cabbage grub and a dandelion) reduces concrete to its constituent parts. KO: Mutant radioactive cockroaches; sounds like the making of a good villain for a Godzilla movie. How has the book been received so far? SS: I have just begun production on the edition of 15 books and have displayed the proof copy at our neighborhood art festival a few weeks ago. The kids really loved it, but it was equally interesting to see their parents get into some of the underlying elements of the book. I mean it's much darker and more adult than my other work, but you still can't avoid the cuddly aspect when you have a turtle rise ten inches off the page. But beware, this book has sharp teeth to it! KO: Speaking of production, I was green with envy when I learned that you have just purchased a laser cutter. Now that you don't have to cut out the hundreds of pieces by hand, did you just throw away your scissors? How has this new tool changed your working method? II SS: Actually it is a plotter/cutter that uses a pivoting blade instead of a laser. And it is amazing! Eight hours of work has been compressed into twenty minutes. The plotter is so precise it has forced me to create better technical drawings, so that is a bonus. But there are caveats. I create handmade papers for all of my books, and the sheets have a different texture and thickness than conventional paper, so I have almost dulled my first blade that was meant to last one year. There are little things like that. KO: Well once you get the kinks out and finish production, what are you setting your sights on for future goals or projects? SS: Besides my teaching post at Columbia, I have been doing some commercial work for a few clients. In one project with the American Girl Co. I am trying to convey the major events of the Depression Era to nine-year-old girls through pop-up. In another collaboration, I am creating pop-up designs to illustrate the formal elements of sculpture. The American Girl work is coming along more quickly and easily. And in January of next year I will take an artist residency in Costa Rica to develop my next book project. KO: Let's hope you come back with another interesting pop-up book, or at the very least a good tan. Beyond the 6th Extinction: A Fifth Millennium Bestiary by Shawn Sheehy. This limited edition pop-up book is created from handmade paper and is letterpress printed. It contains eight pop-ups over 1 1 spreads including title, introduction and colophon pages. Book trim size is 7" x 10" x 2'/2". Pre-publication sale price: $5,000.00. To obtain more information about this title and other projects by Shawn, please contact the following address: Shawn Sheehy, 1907 S Halsted St, Ste.l, Chicago, IL 60608. Or swsheehy@earthlink.net Pop-up: A Sculptured Book Gaelle Pelachaud Paris, France For my thesis in arts at the Sorbonne Animated Books, Moving Images, I spent a week in New York in August meeting pop-up artists and collectors. They all expressed their thrill of working with paper, a thrill I had already felt and experienced in France. Sculptured paper Paper is manipulated, worked, it becomes magical, its flat nature begins to move. How do you create and bring out life and movement from a closed book? This is a recurring question for every pop-up artist. The problems are the same whether one is making a pop-up book for major public sales or a small-run. At first one has to create "volume" or a structure with the paper and then it has to be flattened, scanned, and reworked on the computer. The form of the book cannot be designed in advance. It can only progress in an empiric way. As in sculpture, paper is a material. It is torn and then cut with care. One has to take away material, one has to put it back. The idea is for a volume to appear out of the sheet of paper, and most of all that it folds down without difficulty. To fold it, of course, is the hardest part. To open it out is simple but to reclose it is more complicated, as there always seems to be a small piece of unfoldable paper that sticks out of the page. Third dimension How and why is there such an enthusiasm for the third dimension? Why do we need to build up form out of a book or a postcard? Nowadays, we can see that the pop-up has passed out of the world of children's art to become the artists' book, or an object of theater decor and even an integral part of wall-painting (murals). French pop-up Even though most pop-up artists today are Anglo-Saxons, a great interest in the art form is beginning to build in Europe, particularly in France. Didier Boursin is a paper designer who works in origami. He is not, technically speaking, a pop-up book artist, he has never practiced it, but he speaks about paper in the same way as do the artists acclaimed in the world of book art, Hosftra Sjoerd, Robert Sabuda, Debra Weier, Maria Pisano, Maddy Rosenberg, and Marion Bataille, who made an alphabetical Up-Op, distributed Les Trois Ours (The three bears). The postcards of Julie Morel are not yet books, but are trying to become books. Is not a book just a succession of folded sheets acting under the same conditions as postcards? Philippe Ug breaks depth; he doesn't research perspective. What he does not do in image he finds in volume. But how to fold back a structure? For some, it's playing with shadows using white paper; for others, the opposite works, getting rid of all the tricks, and keeping just the paper's basic structure by using a colored paper, black, for example. Art work above all Through my travels and my meetings, I have realized that, for the creation of artists' books, the collaboration with a poet is not a priority in the USA as it is in France. For those artists I met, the book is (above all) a "sculpture." The conceptualization and the making of it are the artist's first priorities. For them, the importance is the "book" itself, without discussion about its nature. Each artist takes on this art form primarily to expand their knowledge, and even Robert Sabuda, who is most often faced with "made-to- orders," the practical discoveries are the priority; the dialogue comes later. 12 Movable Reviews Marilyn Olin Livingston, New Jersey 1 = AWFUL 2 = POOR 3 = O.K. 4 = GOOD 5 = SUPERB A quick summary of some great pop-ups. 5+ Rating 600 BLACK SPOTS by David A. Carter. Part of his five book project which so far has included One Red Dot and Blue 2 and this current one. It is full of kinetic pop-ups (or sculptures) and they are fabulous. Each one is wonderful and whimsical and will be enjoyed by children and adults 600 Black Spots < € Rating: 4+ TITANIC by David Hawcock. This contains one two-and- a-half-foot long 3-D model of the ship and six small pop- up scenes. It also has many reproductions of Titanic trivia (menus, newspapers, etc.) and a 32-page book tracing the Titanic's history. Rating: «5' RICHARD SCARRY'S BUSIEST POP-UP EVER! This is the best of all the Richard Scarry pop-up books and would make a wonderful gift for a young boy. All kinds of movable machines pop-up ending with a wonderful pile- up of about 23 vehicles. Rating: JT PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN-THE BLACK PEARL. Pop-ups by Wayne Kalama. This is a Disney Press book and has one huge 3-D pop-up of the pirate ship and many punch-out figures. Rating: 4 POPPED ART by Elizabeth Murray. Pop-ups by Bruce Foster. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. This is an adult pop-up book in which Foster takes Murray's 3-D art work and creates pop-up variants of them. There are only four pop-ups but this is interesting for what the artist and Foster try to do. HA 1 Y ifMWMwfyf l MM I ADR nit Rating: 5 HOW MANY by Ron van der Meer. Each pop-up page features a different shape and a spectacular paper sculpture and questions pertaining to that pop-up. It's a fascinating book by a master. Rating: J~T" HINDU ALTARS by Robert Beer and the paper engineering is by Bruce Foster. Four, three-dimensional altars in this nicely done "package" open down, one following the other. Each pop-up is beautifully illustrated and a brief description of that deity is given. Rating: 4 THE POMPEII POP-UP. Published by Universe Publishing, an imprint of Rizzoli New York. Author: Peter Riley. Paper Engineer: David Hawcock. Many well done realistic pop-ups with an excellently written history about its subject. A dynamic way to learn about Pompeii for children and adults. Rating: 5 1. THE AMAZING SPIDER- MAN POP-UP. 2. X-MEN POP-UP. Marvel True Believers Retro Character Collection. Published by Candlewick Press. These are both great pop-up books. Part of a series on Marvel Comics characters, they are colorful, entertaining and fun. The paper engineering by Andy Mansfield is special. A must-have for collectors. Rating: 4 HOORAH FOR THE BRA. Published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang. Pop-ups by Bruce Foster. Cheree Berry has devised a provocative idea for a pop-up book. The pop-ups are not difficult but really fun to look at. As the copy says, "An uplifting story" about the history of the bra. Rating: 4+ GRACELAND: AN INTERACTIVE POP-UP TOUR. Paper engineering: Chuck Murphy. Published by Quirk Books Inc. Each page has pop-ups featuring replicas of Graceland 's famous sites and/or other things pertaining to Elvis. A book for any collector or Elvis fan. A super-duper production. 13 5+ Rating: THE JUNGLE BOOK. Paper engineering: Matthew Reinhart. Published by Little Simon, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Another fabulous book in the tradition of Reinhart-Sabuda. Each page has more colorful and exciting pop-ups than the one before it. Matthew, how can you top this one?! Rating: 4 NOVA THE ROBOT-SUPER GALACTIC POP-UP. Paper engineering: David Kirk. Published by Callaway Arts & Entertainment. This is an imaginative pop-up from the author of the Miss Spider series. Multiple pop-ups about Nova the Robot and his friends, and their quest to explore galaxies. Illustrations pop-ups are exciting. Children will love this one. Rating: 4 LIGHTHOUSES: A POP- UP GALLERY OF AMERICA'S MOST BELOVED BEACONS Paper engineering by Linda Costello and Bruce Foster. There are five large double- page pop-ups of lighthouses, plus the history of each one in this book. It is also an elegant example of book-making. Everything has been done with an eye for beauty. As a person who usually makes one-of-a-kind artists' books, Linda has made this a lovely commercial one. Pop-up Christmas Windows in Paris Like any metropolis of the world, the Christmas windows of the big department stores in Paris are spectacular and attract millions of tourists each year. For the lovers of pop- up books there is a special attraction this year. The well- known Galeries Lafayette, with a budget of one million Euros to spend on their holiday displays, invited the French book artist UG (Philippe Huger) to design some of their windows. UG will fill three windows with giant pop-up paper artworks done in his characteristic graphic style and in the bright colors, known from his artists' books with pop- ups, published in the last 20 or more years. The windows can be seen from mid-October until mid-January. An exhibition has been planned for the same period that will be a survey of UG's pop-up artists' books in the new premises of the Boutique du Livre Anime, the Paris pop-up bookshop. La Boutique du Livre Anime on the Move At the end of September, the Paris pop-up bookshop La Boutique du Livre Anime, owned by Jacques Desse and Thibaut Brunessaux, closed their stand at the Marche Dauphine, part of the Paris flea market at Porte Glignancourt. The shop re-opened in October in the tastefully restyled ground floor of a stately and typical Paris "Hotel" at the more centrally situated Rue Pierre l'Ermite. The new, large, 100-square meter premises offers more opportunities to display the movable and pop-up treasures and paper toys they always have in stock - both ancient and modern collectibles. Additionally, there will be space for special exhibitions related to their speciality. To celebrate their new opening, an exhibition has been planned that will show a survey of the pop-up artists' books of the French graphic designer and artist Philippe Huger, better known as UG. It will be available from early November till early January 2008. Rating: 5 NEIMAN MARCUS POP UP BOOK (No hyphen). This large, beautiful pop-up book was published by Neiman Marcus and the fabulous huge pop-ups were paper engineered by Kees Moerbeek. This is a limited edition and a "must" for any collector. The book measures 14" x 12" and comes with a slip case. Available from Neiman Marcus. Boutique du Livre Anime 3, Rue Pierre l'Ermite 75018 Paris telephone: 01-42572024 e-mail : boutiqueduli vreanime@wanadoo. fr Auction Bloomsbury Auctions will be having a children's book auction on Wednesday, December 1 2. About 40 lots of books are from Larry Siedmans' collection. They include early pop-ups, movables, and panoramas from Nister, Dean, Meggendorfer, Tuck, Capendu, Bookano, Blue Ribbon, McLoughlin, and foreign language editions. Bloomsbury Auctions is new to New York City, and the catalog can be ordered free of charge, http://www.bloomsburyauctions.com 14 Questions and Answers Exhibits Q. A recent purchase of the relicts of a movable book from the 19lh century puzzles me greatly. Unfortunately, there are only two pages (below) of a movable with pull- tabs featuring circus acts. There is neither a cover nor a title page. The text is in Dutch, but since most of the movables books of the time were international co- productions, I hope that somebody will recognize these pages from a book in any language. Reactions are gratefully received. Theo Gielen. , — _ j \ Is ;'■ f%±i^ "f'^-v- f jflflgR *^2fc\. ^f\v^ ^$& ~^' ^ « : m ' ST r-v H HP \ Li The Movable Book Society Conference Washington, D.C. September 18 - 20, 2008 Celebrate Old and New Movable Books Meet Collectors, Paper Engineers, and Book Artists Share your Enthusiasm! More information will soon be available at: http://movablebooksociety.org Pop-up Books: An Interactive Exhibition Bevier Gallery, Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, New York 14623 October 19 - November 14, 2007 The show, curated by Bill Finewood, features works from top artists in the pop- up field including David A. Carter (Bugs in Space), Chuck Fischer (The White House) and Kyle Olmon (Castle). Oversized pop-ups and interactive components, as well as mock-ups and preparatory work will be displayed alongside finished pop-up creations. For gallery hours and more information, call the Bevier Gallery at (585) 475-2646 or http://www.rit.edu/news/7rM5822. Suellen Glashausser and Her Circles Gallery '50 and Special Collection and University Archives Gallery, Rutgers University Libraries New Brunswick, New Jersey October 17, 2007 - January 10, 2008 Artists' books by Suellen Glashausser and 19 artists who worked beside her and shared her vision. For more information see: http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/ news/ events 07/07. shtml#3. Catalogs Received Aleph-Bet Books. Catalogue 86. 85 Old Mill River Rd. Pound Ridge, NY 10576. Phone: 914-764-7410. Fax: 914- 764-1356. Email: helen@alephbet.com. http://www.alephbet.com Cattermole 20'h Century Children's Books. Toy Books. Catalog 44. 9880 Fairmount Road, Newbury, Ohio 44065. 440-338-3253. Email: books@cattermole.com. http://www.cattermole.com. La Boutique du Livre Anime. September, 2007. http://livresanimes.com/actualites/actu0709.html Jo Ann Reisler, Ltd. Catalogue 79. 360 Glyndon St., NE, Vienna VA. Phone:703-938-2967. Fax: 703-938-9057. email@joannereisler.com. www.joannreisler.com 15 New Publications The following titles have been identified from pre- publication catalogs, Internet sources, bookstore hunting, and advertising. All titles include pop-ups unless otherwise noted and are listed for information only - not necessarily as recommendations for purchase. Afraid of the Dark! Back Pack Books. S7.98. 9780760792537 Alive: the Living, Breathing Human Body Book. DK Publishing. $24.99. 9780756632113. Also: Dorling Kindersley. £17.99.9781405326414. Chewy, Gooey, Rumble, Plop: A Deliciously Disgusting Plop-up IMP^ Guide to the Digestive System. . v. Dial $17.99. 978-0803732261. Christmas Tree In-a-box. Sterling. $14.95. 978-1402745294. The Chronicles ofNarnia Pop-up: Based on the Books by C. S. Lewis. Robert Sabuda. HarperCollins. $29.99. 978-0061176128. Crawly Creatures. Intervisual Books. $16.99. 978-1581 176230. Animal Babies A to Z. By Chuck Murphy. Intervisual Books. $14.95. 978-1581176520. Animals in Danger! A Search-and- find Pop-up Book with Animal Cards. Tango Press. $9.98. 9781857077032. Animated Origami Faces. [origami folding] By Joel Stern. Dover Publications. $5.95. 978-0-486-46174-8. ? vJ'EHHi Architectural Wonders: A Pop-up Gallery. Thunder Bay Press. $24.95. 978-1-59223-819-4. Dance! Dora's Pop-up Dancing Adventure. Simon Spotlight/Nickelodeon. $12.99. 978-1416947172. »iim Pop-up Faces I y Dino Pop-up Faces. Intervisual Books. $14.95. '-^ ^ 9781581175967. Dinosaurs. Intervisual Books. $19.95.1581175809. 16 Even More Outrageous Celebrity Meltdowns: Pop-Up Parodies of Your Favorite Stars. DK Adult. $29.95. 978-1595910349. Explorer: A Daring Guide for Young Adventurers . Candlewick Press. $15.00. 978-0-7636-3648-7. 77ie First Christmas: A Pop-up Nativity Book. DK. $19.99. 780756631475. Flight: A Pop-up Book of Aircraft. By Robert Crowther. Candlewick. SI 7.99. 978-0763634599 The Glittery Crittery Counting Book. By David Carter. Piggy Toes. $18.95. 978-1581176513. Hair 'Em Scare 'Em. Little Simon. $15.99. 9781416954736. How Machines Work: Gears, Levers, Pulleys, Axles, Wheels and More. Tango.£ 12.99 9781857076691. If You See a Fairy Ring. [Tranformational plates] Barrons $16.99. 9780764160288. \ va^Etei Vm not Scared. Little Simon Inspiration. $7.99. 9781416938859. A%>