Words and Pictures — Casey Scieszka

I'm a sucker for the good old fashioned pairing of words and pictures, especially when done by hand in a beautiful inky line telling a slice-of-life story. So when my friend Kate sent me a link to Wendy MacNaughton's work, well, there went the evening. I'm especially fond of her collection titled Meanwhile: an illustrated documentary series. I love her piece on the SF Public Library as well as her piece on bartenders in The Mission (the hood where Steven and I lived back in San Francisco). Here are a few bits of each, but I HIGHLY recommend following the links above so you can read the entire stories:

Looking at MacNaughton's work I was reminded by how much I adored Maira Kalman's monthly word + art blog she ran with the NY Times about American history called And The Pursuit of Happiness which eventually became a beautiful book. I'm a big George Washington fan, and so I just love her piece on him that has bits like this:

Really, you've got to check out all these pieces out in their entirety because yes, the snippets are lovely, but it's the rhythm of the entire stories and the pacing with the pictures that makes them so interesting. It's not like reading a book, not like watching film. They are entirely their own art form.