Monday, May 25, 2009

Backpack Alarm book

Seth illustrated a kids' book that was part of a package that you could use to make your own backpack alarm. The book was a child's history of locks. I had forgotten that I never saw the originals of those illustrations until a friend of Seth's sent the above picture to us. It is one of the illustrations in the book.
He finished these pictures right after Big in Japan. In fact, I am pretty sure that finishing this set of illustrations was what he had gone out to celebrate the night he died. After working for so long on Spiderman Unlimited, Big in Japan, and then this, he had his own projects he wanted to do.
He used a simplified, boneless style for the people. He developed that rubberleg look for Vertigo Pop (as you can see in the upper black & white page), though it was subtle there. It became more overt in Big in Japan, when Reed lengthens his body (the lower page really shows it) in order to do some special moves as Mr Fantastic. Having developed that as a look, it became one of the tools in his arsenal that he could haul out when the subject called for something humorous and not realistic.

3 comments:

j_ay said...

Oh! So great to see that!!
(image now set as desktop wallpaper).

So was this officially released in any way?

Vicki said...

Jay, the book/packet is called BUILD YOUR OWN BACKPACK ALARM. It was released by Scholastic, Inc. The packet as a whole was put together for Scholastic, but evidently the booklet part of it was produced by Becker& Mayer!. Their website is www.beckermayer.com
There is a small circle on the information page that says, "Dedicated to the memory of Seth Fisher, artist and good guy."

j_ay said...

They’ve got a few of the Build Your Own books but sadly not that one.

Must…track….down…