When I started writing my own stories I decided to do self portraits in place of the usual author photo. The caption always read “William Joyce lives with his wife and family in Shreveport, Louisiana.” The illustration was usually a blast of surrealism that made some sly allusion to our current family dynamics and was also a deadpan reference to the books plot. This is the author ‘photo’ for “Buddy” my first chapter book and the only non fiction story I’ve written. It’s based on the stranger than fiction life of Gertrude Lintz. Mrs Lintz had the distinction of raising in her Brooklyn mansion 300 St Bernards, 7 chimpanzees, 2 Komodo dragons, an uncountable number of rabbits and birds, a leopard and most famously a gorilla named Buddy who’s clothes were tailor made at Bergdorf Goodman’s. A new movie called “King Kong” was a hit and Mrs Lintz took Buddy and her troupe of chimps to a showing at Radio City in Manhattan. Pictured here is my son Jack (at the time a rambunctious primate toddler) in a Kongish stance. The book evolved out my screenplay originally written for Frances Ford Coppola. By the time it made its way to the screen it was in other hands and much changed. Film critic Roger Ebert proclaimed it the worst film of the year. As production began I could tell Buddy was going to be a stinker so I convinced the producers that it would be good publicity if I released a book version. I wrote the book as a corrective to the smudge the movie was becoming. I put everything I’d loved about the story back in. They staged a big gala book signing in Los Angeles. It didn’t take me long to be certain that none of them had read the book. The head of the studio praised my fidelity to the movie. All he’d done was look at the pictures. The book is still in print and my son Jack is now an artist and lives in Brooklyn, not far from where Mrs Lintz’s estate had once been. And he can see the Empire State Building. . . .. ... #illustrationart #kidslit #kidsillustration #librariansofinstagram #kingkong @jackson.e.joyce #forrestjackerman https://www.instagram.com/p/BzN5_relIL8/?igshid=pkyaw55nctss
