^B00:00:01 >> Nora Krug: Good afternoon. My name is Nora Krug, and I am editor and writer at the Washington Post which is a charter sponsor of the National Book Festival. I hope everybody's having a good day. Does anybody here like knights or monsters or dinosaurs? Anyone? All right, good, you're at the right place. Because today we have Matt Phelan. He is the award winning creator of the graphic novels that beautifully spark the imagination. His Snow White opens with our heroine lying in the bed of a department store window. [Music]. He brings music live. The Storm in the Barn tells the story of a boy named Jack who makes a surprising discovery in his Kansas barn during the dust bowl. In Bluffton he takes us to Michigan in 1908 where you get to know Buster Keaton. In Around the World he takes us with three adventurers who go around the world. He's also the illustrator of many books for young readers including Flora's Very Windy Day, Marilyn's Monster, Xander's Panda Party, The Higher Power of Lucky which won the 2007 Newbery Medal. He's received many awards including the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and the Carolyn Field Award for Around the World and Snow White. He's been nominated for five Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards including Best Writer and Artist for the graphic album for Bluffton. His most recent books are the picture book Pignic and the adventure novel Knights vs. Dinosaurs and Knights vs. Monsters. He'll be signing books from 4:30 to 5:30, and without further ado I will -- there he is. Thank you for coming, Matt. >> Matt Phelan: Thank you, Nora, so much. Thank you. Hello, everybody, thank you for coming. Is everyone having a good day today? The festival, it's pretty amazing, right? So to see all your favorite authors and illustrators, yeah, it's pretty great. Plus bean bags so it's the best festival ever. My name is Matt Phelan. As you heard, there I am up on the screen. There's a clicker I should have. Here we go. I think this is the clicker. I'm going to push buttons to it. There we go. So I'm an author and an illustrator. I started out as an illustrator illustrating books by other people, mostly picture books. And I started illustrating picture books and then chapter books. And then I started writing and illustrating graphic novels, the fancy words for comics, where I started telling my own stories. And I chose graphic novels because graphic novels are told through pictures. And as an illustrator that was the way I would see stories. So I could tell the stories through the pictures which was great for me. And I made four graphic novels, and I loved making every graphic novel. But after my fourth graphic novel I decided to take a break from graphic novels. Because I feel if you're an author, an artist, musician, whatever you are, you should try different things, try something else. So after four graphic novels I decided I wanted to write a chapter book. I'm going to have a lot of illustrations in it, but I wanted to try writing a chapter book with paragraphs and dialog and all that stuff. So my first chapter book is not this one, Knights vs. Monsters and what we're here taking about. The first one was this one, Knights vs. Dinosaurs. This is where this all started with this book Knights vs. Dinosaurs. Now, a lot of people ask authors, you probably heard this question all day today, where do you get your ideas? Sometimes you are inspired by something that happened in your childhood. Sometimes you're walking down the street and you see the most amazing thing. Sometimes you're reading a history book and a story comes out, and you say this is an amazing idea for a book. Sometimes you steal the idea from a five year old. That's what I did with this book Knights vs. Dinosaurs. I stole the idea from a five year old. It wasn't just any old five year old. He lives in my house, he's a really cool kid. And one day I was in his room, and we were playing with these knights that he has, really cool, perfectly sculpted little plastic knights and horses and jousting lances. And we were playing knights. And I was setting up the knights perfectly straight so they could joust at each other. And I was making sure it's perfectly straight because I'm a grownup and I think about things like that, getting it perfectly straight. And he was watching me do this, and I think he got a little tired of me getting everything perfectly straight. So he took this T. Rex he had and went, argh, and knocked down all the knights. And I thought, hey, that's a good idea for a book, knights fighting dinosaurs. Knights have armor and sharp swords. Dinosaurs have pretty thick skin and teeth that are big like swords. How about an idea about knights fighting dinosaurs? And from that little idea that I stole, he's okay with it by the way, he's fine with it, he's okay, right? He's actually here in this -- he's probably signing later today if you can find him. He'll have along lineup. That's where the idea for Knights vs. Dinosaurs became an idea for a book. It started with playing. And if you can have an idea that starts with fun, then making the rest of the story is also a form of play. And a lot of the best writing and drawing and art comes from a sense of play, enjoying what you're doing. If you're enjoying the story you're telling it's fun, and your imagination starts popping. It starts with one little idea, and then you add another character, and ideas start to pop. Now, that's where I stole the idea, but there are a few books I want to show you before we get to Knights vs. Dinosaurs, too. There's this one, the story of King Arthur and his knights illustrated by Howard Pyle. Has anyone heard of the artist and author Howard Pyle before? You have? Awesome. I'm not surprised if other people have not because he made books sort of in the 1890s. Howard Pyle made some of the best books about King Arthur and his knights and these beautiful black and white ink illustrations. These two books were books that I had when I was a kid, and I still have them. These are the books that initially got me interested in King Arthur. Howard Pyle was an artist who lived not far from where I was growing up outside of Philadelphia. He was an amazing artist, also an amazing teacher. One of his pupils grew up -- became another amazing illustrator, a guy named N.C. Wyeth who illustrated some of the best, most beautifully illustrated versions of some of the classic stories of all time like Treasure Island and, you know, Robin Hood and his own King Arthur. He taught N.C. Wyeth. N.C. Wyeth then later had a bunch of kids including a little one named Andrew who turned out to be pretty good at drawing. So Howard Pyle started this whole dynasty. These two books were very important to me as a kid. There's also this one, Gawain and the Green Knight. I got this when I was about 12. Oh, yeah, there's this one, there's that N.C. Wyeth, that guy I told you about who learned from Howard Pyle, he went on and made a great book about King Arthur and his knights, too. It's full of these beautiful, beautiful paintings. N.C. Wyeth is a really great illustrator for you guys to check out because nobody drew pirates and adventure better than N.C. Wyeth. N.C. Wyeth would paint a scene of knights fighting, sword fighting, probably like that one right there on the cover. And when he got home at night from his studio his arms would ache as if he'd been lifting a sword all day. Because when he was painting knights fighting he was putting his imagination so much into it that later that night he felt achy as if he had been sort of fighting himself. So, of course, that was in my bookshelf if King Arthur books. This books, Knights by Joe Keller, this one the Tales of King Arthur by another one of my favorite illustrators Victor Ambrus. I looked at these books, all of these books, I would look at them when I was nine, ten, eleven, twelve, over and over again. And all of these books are now in my studio in the back of my house near Philadelphia. I still have these same books that I had when I was a kid. The books inspired me to want to draw in the first place and to be interested in King Arthur they still inspire me. I still pick up these same books and look through them and get inspired all over again. Which brings me to Knights vs. Dinosaurs. Knights vs. Dinosaurs was my chance to play in the playground that is King Arthur. Now, you guys have heard of King Arthur, right? King Arthur and Lancelot, Sir Gawain, Sir Galahad, these stories have been around for many, many, many, many, many, many years. And there are many versions of the story. The great thing about the King Arthur story is the stories are so good that you can take them and play with them. You can reimagine them. You can tell the story in different ways. You can tell a very straightforward story about adventure and betrayal. You can make a funny story with the same characters. You can tell the story, the King Arthur tales from the point of view of a dog that's there in King Arthur's court. Everyone is allowed to play with the King Arthur stories. ^M00:09:59 But it's good to know the originals, too, to know where the stories come from. Now for my series, Knights vs. Dinosaurs and now Knights vs. Monsters, I wanted to focus on Knights from the Roundtable that are maybe not the ones that get all the attention. I didn't really want to write about Lancelot and Gawain and Galahad. They've been written about a lot. There was a lot of knights around that roundtable, it's pretty big and round. So who are these other knights? Who are these other guys? And my story starts with Sir Eric and Sir Boris and Sir Hector. And then a mysterious knight, the Black Knight who only always wears black armor and a helmet. And nobody really knows much about the Black Knight because the Black Knight doesn't say much. And I started thinking about these other knights, and what would they say when they got to King Arthur's Court? Well, it turns out in my version of events when all the knights would come after a day of adventuring, they come to the King Arthur's Court, they come to the roundtable and King Arthur would say, okay, what have you guys been doing? You've been out adventuring, what have you been doing? And they would start saying, well, there was a dragon I fought or I fought a troll or a giant. However, most of the knights in my book and my story they know that dragons and trolls and giants are not as common as maybe the knights would like you to think. They don't often run into dragons really or trolls or giants. And if they were feeling particularly honest they might tell you that they've seen a dragon in their lives. So sometimes they embellish the story. Because maybe they've just been in a field somewhere fighting each other because it's fun. So we're at King Arthur's Court, and all the knight are telling about their amazing stories. And Sir Eric is a little tired, he wants to go home, his tunic is a little scratchy. And he says, oh, I slayed 40 dragons. And as soon as he says it he knows it's a mistake. Because one person in the court knows that's not true for sure and that's Merlin the Magician. So Merlin sends Sir Eric and all these other knights on an adventure to a land of dinosaurs to see what they do when they're fighting actual creatures that can chomp and crush them. While they fight these creatures they learn to fight well together as a team. They become friends. They become something of a family. And in Knights vs. Dinosaurs this little family of four knights and a squire become a little team. In the second book, Knights vs. Monsters, it continues their story. This time they are off to the Orkney Islands off Scotland because they've heard in this island the mist has been coming at night, and when the mist comes monsters come as well. And they find themselves in this lonely Scottish village trying to protect people from the monsters that come in the mist. Now, the villagers are not exactly thrilled with these knights protecting them because they wonder if the monsters are maybe coming for the knights and not for the villagers. So they have a lot to work out. When I worked on these books what became fun for me is less the monsters and dinosaurs, although that's a lot of fun to write and draw, but I became really interested in the characters. Which I think if you write any kind of story, no matter how silly the story might be, fighting a giant hand, for example, or the eel of misery, that's this eel, the stories always come down to me for characters. Who are the characters? Who are the relationships? And as silly as these stories are I really deeply care about these characters. And I love what they can do and how good they are at what they do, but also what they're like together. Some of the monsters in this book, by the way, I decided that maybe they're the first time these monsters ever came anywhere. So when a vampire pops up, Sir Eric is not even sure what he is. You can imagine it's the first time anyone's ever seen a vampire. And he's this skinny little guy with pointy ears and pointy teeth, and when you're not looking he bites you on the neck. How irritating would that be? It would be super annoying. So I had a lot of fun bringing in different monsters to the story. Here's a sketch from two of my characters. The one on the right is named Mel. Mel is the squire from Knights vs. Dinosaurs. By Knights vs. Monsters Mel is a full fledged member of the company. And the little kid across from her staring intently is a boy name Mordred. Now, if you know anything about King Arthur's story you know this character or Mordred. Like I said I like to go back and find things from the actual King Arthur stories. Mordred ultimately is the ultimate villain of King Arthur. Mordred is the ultimate bad guy. In my story, though, he starts out as a very strange, creepy little kid who takes Mel to weird places like his play room where he has a lot of skulls and weird things like that. But this Mel character, although not a knight, is the heart of these books. Melancolie Hosselweight [phonetic] is her name, and she starts out as a squire. And in the second book she's a full archer. And it's her journey through these stories that's really interesting me the most. The stories are going to be a trilogy. It's going to be three books. First one was Knights vs. Dinosaurs, second was Knights vs. Monsters which is out now. And I'm just finishing up the third book which is Knights vs. I can't tell you the title because the publisher won't let me tell you. But it comes out next year. But for all the fun, all the dinosaurs and the monsters and the bashing and all that kind of stuff, for me these books are about the people, those characters and especially Mel and what Mel's story is going to be all about. So that's what Knights vs. Dinosaurs is all about. Don't be scared of the monsters. Now, I thought I would do a little drawing to kind of show you an example of how these things get together. I'm going to need somebody to help me, though. Who wants to be a helper? Who want to be a helper? Who really wants to be a helper? Who will not sleep tonight if they don't get to be the helper? Two, three, four, five, six, seven, the one that just fell, okay. Come here. Yeah, come right up here to the front here. Okay. We are going to have a knight versus a monster right here. We're going to create a knight -- we're not going to create a knight, we're going to create a monster. I'm going to start with one of the knights from my book, Sir Boris because he's a lot of fun to draw. So we're going to start with Boris over here. If you want to draw Boris on your own he's fairly simple because he's fairly round. Let's get a big chin, squinty little eyes. While I'm doing this I want you to be thinking about the most monstrous monster that you could possibly imagine. And then after you're thinking of the most monstrous monster you can possibly imagine, make sure he fits on this piece of paper. All right. Here's Boris, he's got a big mustache. ^M00:17:29 ^M00:17:35 He's got, let's see, I might have made Boris a little too big, we'll see. Boris likes the mace, he likes this thing. All right, so tell me, is your monster big or small? >> Small. >> Matt Phelan: Good, good answer, okay. Let's see, is your monster hairy or is he scaly or is he what? What do you think your monster is? >> Hairy. >> Matt Phelan: Hairy monster, that's good, that's good. Teeth, how big are the teeth? Little teeth, little nippity teeth or big teeth? >> Big teeth. >> Matt Phelan: Big teeth, okay. Does he have a nose? >> No nose. >> Matt Phelan: No nose, that's very creepy. Okay. So he's small, he's hairy, he's got a lot of teeth. Anything else you want to add to that? >> Three wings. >> Matt Phelan: Three wings, wow, all right, good. Anything else? >> A horn. >> Matt Phelan: One horn? >> Unicorn, yeah. >> Matt Phelan: He said unicorn, all right. He's a unicorn. So we got hairy, small, long teeth, bit teeth, small teeth? >> Big. >> Matt Phelan: Big teeth and no nose. And three wings and one horn. All right. I'm going to start with that because that's a lot. And if you think of anything else you just shout it out for me when I think about it. Okay, so we got Boris here. Again, he's got squinty little eyes. ^M00:18:55 ^M00:18:58 The thing about these knights which I liked when I was working on this story is it's a silly book and they're kind of funny, and this guy is kind of a -- he's a little bit of a clown this guy. But I thought it was very important to make them actually very good at their jobs. So when it comes to fighting dinosaurs and monsters they're actually not bad at it which I think was a nice contrast. Because sometimes when you make a goofy character and he fights the monster, it's all goofy and the monster chases him. I like the idea that they're actually very good knights. So kept that into the story. Now, all right. Monster time. ^M00:19:36 ^M00:19:43 I'm already liking this monster. So you said no nose, big teeth -- ^M00:19:53 ^M00:19:58 A unicorn. How many wings? >> Three. >> Matt Phelan: Three wings. All right. ^M00:20:09 ^M00:20:14 All right, I'm going to do one little wing there, one little wing there. Where would be put the third wing? Who has some ideas about this third wing? The third wing is like an interesting thing. Would it be an extra wing? What do you've got an idea, where is his third wing? >> On the tip of the horn. >> Matt Phelan: On the tip of the horn. How do you feel about that? This, my friends, is collaboration. This is good. You had a good idea, you had a good idea. Tip of the horn actually makes a lot of sense because otherwise that horn looks like it might tip him over, right? Even if you're making up an incredibly nonexistent monster try to think about actual physics. So these little wings are keeping him going. This little wing is keeping that horn airborne. So I have a knight, a scaly -- a monster who is scaly and hairy. Who do you think is going to win? They look pretty well matched. Who thinks the knight is going to win? >> The monster is too cute? >> Matt Phelan: The monster is too what? >> Too cute. >> Matt Phelan: He's too cute. Do you think because a monster is cute the monster will not win a fight with a knight? The monster can use cuteness to his advantage. >> That's what I'm trying to say. >> Matt Phelan: That's what you're trying to say. So you think the monster is going to win because it's cute. He can fly away if things go wrong. I like the idea that he's so cute the monster probably says -- the knight says, oh well, I don't have to worry about this guy, he's kind of cute, and then the real attack happens. Good thinking, good thinking, excellent monster. All right. Monster, I'm going to sign this here. ^M00:21:59 ^M00:22:03 And I'm going to give it to you. Give me a second. While I'm peeling this very large post-it note out to you, there you go, it's sticky, you can keep that. Does anybody have any questions for me about knights, monsters, dinosaurs, drawing, comics, picture books? I should mention, too, I'm also a picture book illustrator. My most recent book came out a few weeks ago. It's called You Are My Friend: The Story of Mister Rogers and His Neighborhood by Aimee Reid. I as very honored to be able to illustrate. It's the first picture book biography of Fred Rogers who was an amazing person as you probably all know. So that's another book to think about. Does anyone have any questions for me? Who has a question? Anybody have a question? No questions? What's your question. >> What is your favorite book? >> Matt Phelan: What is my favorite book? That is a great question. My favorite book, my favorite kids book might be Ferdinand, the Bull. >> I love Ferdinand. >> Matt Phelan: Yes, right. It's a [inaudible] I love Ferdinand, I love the book. The drawings in Ferdinand are amazing. I've loved that book since I was a kid. Another book that I would point to as one of my favorites is, now that I say it, should have been one of my slides. When I was showing you all the books of King Arthur that I loved, one of my favorite books I didn't love as a kid, I didn't realize -- I didn't read it until I was an adult, but it's The Once and Future King by T.H. White. Which tells the King Arthur story. A lot of you guys might know the first book part of it, The Sword and the Stone which was made into a Disney cartoon. But that whole book is my favorite version of the King Arthur story. Okay, questions? ^M00:23:47 [ Inaudible Audience Question ] ^M00:23:52 Say it loud. ^M00:23:53 [ Inaudible Audience Question ] ^M00:24:02 What would I -- if that little five year old had not inspired me to make Knights vs. Dinosaurs what would I have made? That is a very good question. Well, this is the way I wold answer that. I don't know if I would have thought of Knights vs. Dinosaurs without that moment. Without that moment happening and me having my book maker brain on to recognize that that was a pretty good idea, something else would have come along. I also as an author, and I'm not the only one, you've talked to other authors around here, we usually have a few ideas on the back burner waiting to be made. When you want to write books or illustrate books, sometimes you get little snippet ideas, write them down. Keep a little notebook. Because you can go back and say, oh, that could be a story. My book Bluffton which was about Buster Keaton, I originally got the idea of doing that story of Buster Keaton, he was one of the first movie stars, but doing a book about him when he was a kid in vaudeville. I got that idea but it took 15 years until I wrote it, 15 years because I couldn't figure out exactly how to do it. But I never gave up on the idea because I thought it was a good idea for a book. So something would have come around. But I'm very grateful that that five year old who is now seven, almost eight, did give me the idea for Knights vs. Dinosaurs. Great question. Okay, we have time for one or two more question. >> How do you draw so good? >> Matt Phelan: How do you draw so good? Well, thank you very much for saying that I draw, even though I'm just using a little marker and that's usually how to draw. How do you draw so good? Well, the key to drawing is just like anything else, the more you do it the better you'll get at it. I always loved drawing as a kid, but I never considered myself -- I wasn't, you know, I wasn't great at the beginning. So drawing and drawing the more you draw the better you get at it. And when you're a kid draw as much as you want as -- do anything you want to draw. If you want to copy characters like Spider-Man go ahead. If you want to make up your own stuff go ahead. Just have fun. And as you get older you'll get to a point where -- this is very important. I'm actually glad you asked this question. I'm in with this. All you guys are -- what grade you guys in, yell it all out at once. Exactly, that's what I thought you were. That's what I thought you were. All you guys like drawing, right? All your hands, you like drawing, everybody like drawing? Yes. You draw in your free time, excellent. I want to tell you this story. Hey, adults, all the grownups here, let me ask you a question, how many of you draw? A couple things. All the people here, all the adults that put your hands up, how many of you drew when you were a kid? All of them did. The ones that don't have your hand up I don't believe you. You did draw when you're a kid. Everybody draws when they're a kid. And here's what happens. Somewhere around seventh grade, I'm just going to use seventh grade as the bad guy, seventh grade, let's say seventh grade this is what happens. A kid draws something like a cat and looks at it and say, blah, my cat doesn't look like a cat, I can't draw. And they stop drawing. When I as in seventh grade and I drew a cat, I looked at my cat and said, blah, my cat doesn't look like a cat. And then I said I'm going to learn how to draw a cat. Because at a certain point it doesn't mean you can't draw, it just means it's time to learn more about drawing. So if you guys get to that stage a couple years from now and you draw something and you think it doesn't look right, and you're about to say I can't draw, stop and remember me here on the purple stage in Washington D.C. telling you you can draw, it's just time for you to learn a little bit about drawing. And that's how you get good at drawing. Thank you guys so much for coming here. I'll be signing at 4:30 in line two for Knights vs. Monsters. I hope you had a wonderful day, and I hope you got inspired and you want to go home and draw and read as much as possible. So thanks for coming. ^E00:28:04