Real Press Interviews
David Boyle
What gave you the idea for the Wizard book?
Well, I've always been fascinated by the history of money radicalism, and especially those bitter debates in the 1890s about whether money should be based on gold or silver. I gave a lecture in America a few years ago when I talked about the Wizard of Oz – I had just discovered the original, hidden meaning of the story. Afterwards, I was taken aside by one of the audience and urged to write a modern version of the Wizard of Oz, which was also about money. I mulled it over for a few years – these things take a bit of mulling – and this was the result. I wrote it before the 2008 banking crisis, but when I came to re-read it, the story still seemed just as relevant as it was before – I hope it still is.
Is the story for children or adults?
Both I hope. I don't think that it mattered one way or the other if you understood the original meaning of the first Wizard of Oz. It still worked as a story, and children and adults both enjoyed it. I think these things have to work at both levels for them to work at either. Of, course it helps if someone writes a musical and gets Judy Garland to star in it.
Karin Dahlbacka
How did you go about illustrating The Wizard?
I try to do the drawings really quickly to keep them fresh. I really like lines, so I tend to focus on lines. I suppose it is a bit like writing. Sometimes you have a flow and it really works; other times you can draw for a day and nothing really looks good. I play around – I want to keep it fun and playful. If I start to think too much about how the author imagines it, I get lost. I just have to stick to what I see when I read the text. I try to keep my own visual language going because that is the truth for me. I never draw in a realistic way, like a photograph, because then I loose the fun and it becomes boring for me. If you want it to look realistic, you can use photographs or computers. I want to keep a hand-made feel to the illustrations.
You obviously have a special affinity with animals to make you draw them like that?
You get the feel for the character and build on that. But drawing animals is such fun, fun, fun –especially dogs and birds. I find that I need the words and text to keep me going. The story is the backbone and then also, as an illustrator, you can try to put your own little mark on the story, the way you imagined it.