Twitter Interview with Stickfiguratively Speaking creator Jamison Odone

Your Far-Flung bloggers used Twitter to conduct an interview with Jamison Odone, who illustrated and retold Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with his stylish stick figure art. (Stickfiguratively Speaking is available for $14.95 from Publishing Works.) We reckoned that text messages to discuss Stick Figures vs. 3D was appropriately 2010. The full interview follows (I’ve tried to replicate the feel of Twitter for non-users: starting a tweet with an ampersand means its an open conversation to that person.)

AliceAmerica We’re about to have a Twitter conversation with@JamisonOdone, creator of Stickfiguratively Speaking.#AliceinWonderland #LewisCarroll
about 11 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica ahoy!
about 11 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica Hello @JamisonOdone This is the Lewis Carroll Society of North America’s first ever interview conducted in 140 characters.
about 11 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica This is The Jamison Odone Society’s first 140 character interview ever as well! Glad to take part:)
about 11 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone WHO ARE YOU?
about 11 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica HI! I’m jamison odone. author and illustrator of children’s books, raconteur and all around funny guy. Redsox fan, new dad…
about 11 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone It looks a bit to us like your Caterpillar resembles your own drawings of yourself. Is he a deliberate self-portrait?
about 11 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Yes he is. No reason exactly why I did that. Perhaps his glib wisdom is just something that I aspire to.
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone How old were you when you first found Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and what brought you to it as an adult?#LewisCarrollabout
10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Not exactly sure quite how old I first was..it’s always been around. As an adult, on the development of this series-it emerged
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone Also, Jeremy at @publishingworks was hot on the idea of this story to kick off my Stickfiguratively Speaking series.
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone Did you have Sir John Tenniel or any other illustrators’ art in the back of your brain while you were working?
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Always! Tenniel is a hero of mine! It was difficult for me to draw so simply when all I wanted to do was copy his perfection.
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone You chose to release your book the same day as the Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland opening. Did the huge shadow help or hurt?
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica The date was chosen by @publishingworksand it only helped. There was no shadow for me really–I’m an island without trees:)
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone And whereas Burton’s visions are dense, detailed, and 3D, yours are simple pen drawings on white paper, 1D.
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone How do you resist the temptation to fill in all that negative space?
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Well I really like the artistic notion of deconstruction. We are always trying to make things MORE MORE MORE. I’m like Thoreau
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone Simplify Simplify
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone Thoreau it away! There’s a moral in that. Our interviewing moral has always been that it’s done by minding your own business.
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica It is kind of tough to do. I kept telling myself that the next book I will illustrate will look like the sistine chapel!
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone Lewis Carroll himself had simple (even childish) drawings for his original Alice’s Adventure’s Under Ground.
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica I know–I’ve seen a scanned version of the entire book online. I wish I could hold it…but no luck with that I suppose.
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone My friend suggested that your drawings might inspire children that they could illustrate stories themselves.
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica I do lots of school visits with my books. I have been speaking to kids about that exact notion lately. Your friend is smart.
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone You & Mr Carroll have totally different senses of humor, side by side in the same book. Any favorite Carrollian shticks?
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Tough one…my real admiration for Carroll is how created such a brilliant world with so many different layers and meanings.
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone AND what the world demands to know: Do you intend a Stickfiguratively Speaking Through the Looking-Glass?
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica If people like this book then I’d think about Looking Glass. If people dislike what I’ve done, I would not want to go further.
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone Your public might demand it! Thanks you Mr Odone for charming conversation! Best of luck with the book, with fatherhood, &c.
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Thanks! Look out for Iparty’s Classes in Wonderland–featuring lil’ ol me
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica It was a true pleasure interviewing with you. I have a true respect for Carroll and for literary groups that keep it all going
about 10 hours ago from web