Listen on
Apple Podcasts | Spotify
First Draft Episode #314: Ben Zhu
July 15, 2021
Ben Zhu, author, illustrator, and founder of Gallery Nucleus, talks about his debut picture book, Dessert Island.
Welcome to First Draft with me, Sarah Enni. This week, I'm talking to Ben Zhu, author, illustrator and founder of Gallery Nucleus to talk about his debut picture book, Dessert Island. I so loved what Ben had to say about appreciating picture books much more as an adult, juggling his role as community builder with the gallery and his own creative work, believing enough in himself as a storyteller to start Dessert Island again, and again, and again. And the power of blind optimism.
If you'd like to support First Draft, a quick and easy way to do that is by subscribing to the podcast wherever you're listening now, and by leaving a rating or review on Apple podcasts. A rating is amazing, but reviews get read in the credits. So if you have a couple of minutes, head on over to Apple podcasts, leave us a note, and I'll read that at the end of the show.
You can also go to the website, @FirstDraftPod.com, to check out the show notes for this episode and every episode, which has links to everything the guest and I talk about. First Draft is an affiliate of bookshop.org. So if you buy books through the links on the website, it helps to support the show and independent bookstores at no additional cost to you.
You can also sign up for the First Draft newsletter @FirstDraftPod.com to make sure you never miss an episode and to hear about news and upcoming events. I'm also excited to announce that First Draft merch is now available on the website. Go to FirstDraftPod.com and click on Store to see t-shirts, sweatshirts, dad hats, notebooks, stickers, mugs. I'm gonna be adding things over the next couple of months, so just keep an eye out. Every purchase of First Draft swag helps to keep the show independent and free.
Okay, now please sit back, relax and enjoy my conversation with Ben Zhu.
Sarah Enni: Hi Ben, how are you doing this morning?
Ben Zhu: I'm doing great. How are you?
Sarah Enni: I'm doing well. I'm so excited to chat. This is really fun. I have had so much fun talking to picture book illustrators, and you are the center of the hub of so many illustrators. So I'm really excited to talk about how you got to that place. But first I want to start way back at the very beginning, and I'd love to hear about where you were born and raised.
Ben Zhu: I was born in Beijing, China, and I came to the United States at the age of seven. My parents came to the United States first; first my dad, and then my mom. I was around five when they left. So there was a period of time where I just stayed with my grandparents. They moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and they went to college there and when I came to the U.S. that's where I moved. We spent a couple of years there and eventually they decided to move to LA because a bigger city, more opportunities, that type of thing.
Sarah Enni: I want to hear about how reading and writing was part of growing up for you, especially around that time. That's a lot of upheaval and moving and things changing around. I'm curious about how reading and writing was maybe a centering force through all that.
Ben Zhu: Definitely. Essentially it took me about three years to get a grasp of the English language, but luckily I had really good teachers at the school that I went to in St. Louis. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was apparently a very good school. They had a teacher dedicated to just me, cause I think it was just me and one other kid were the only Asian kids. So they had a very specialized ESL program just for me. So that was really helpful.
Sarah Enni: Was your native language Cantonese or Mandarin?
Ben Zhu: Mandarin.
Sarah Enni: Had you already learned to read in that and write in that?
Ben Zhu: I did, I basically had one year. I graduated first grade and then pretty much came to the U.S. So I started U.S. in the second grade. My parents definitely stressed reading. They knew that reading was very important for just mental growth as well as just learning the new language. Even when we moved to LA, they put me in like summer library reading programs and things like that. Where if you read a certain number of books and do book reports, you get to win little prizes. I still have, I don't know, a ruler that I won from somewhere.
But yeah, those programs were great. A lot of times throughout my elementary school life, there was a lot of times it was just after school where you would just go to the library and just spend time there until you're picked up. Or, you just do your homework there. So it's always been part of my life.
Sarah Enni: Just because we're here to talk about your debut picture book, I'm interested what relationship you had with picture books? Or is there any that really stood out to you as something you read over and over? Or what was your experience with them?
Ben Zhu: As a kid, I read a lot of the ones at the library. It's interesting, cause when you read them as a kid, you're such a different experience with them. I'm trying to think which ones really stood out to me as a kid. I remember being around like Where the Wild Things Are and all that stuff. But that was too sophisticated for me as a kid. I appreciate picture books so much more now as an adult. Honestly, how I really came to get the idea, or to want to even do picture books, was through a lot of the artists, a lot of friends, and through the gallery as well.
I was always interested in it, but I never really gave it much thought until when I started exhibiting more and more artists who were going into children's books. Guys, like Dan Krall, Chris Applehans (writer and director of Netflix animated movie Wish Dragon, and illustrator of picture books Sparky! (written by Jenny Offill) and A Greyhound, a Groundhog (written by Emily Jenkins), Dan Santat (Caldecott Award-winning author and illustrator of The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend, as well as After the Fall, Are We There Yet?, and The Guild of Geniuses, among many more).
And then having my daughter, that was another big push towards that. Cause then when you're starting to read and really picking picture books for them, you start to take another look.
Sarah Enni: I want to just ask about illustration and how artwork was a part of being a kid for you.
Ben Zhu: Definitely. So I've always liked drawing. I was never good as a kid and I think there was this part of me that, I think it was because it was the one thing that I wasn't really good at, but somehow I just developed a desire to be good at it. I think around the age of like four or five, I just remember thinking, "Why am I so bad at drawing? And I want to be better at this thing." And so I just kept going and I admired other kids in my class who drew better than me. It was just something that I really thought was amazing that you can represent something, just lines and colors.
So I've always liked drawing, I guess. And then when I came to the U.S., people would always ask like, "Oh, what do you like to do?" Or, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" And it just kind of became my default answer, like, "Um, I'm gonna be an artist." Especially early on when you can't communicate as easily. I'm an only child, so I had a lot of time to myself, so I did a lot of just doodling.
And then, I think it was like the first year, I think it was around like seven, eight years old, someone gave me a comic book. And they're like, "Oh, I don't want this anymore. You can have it." It was an older kid, and it was Spider-Man vs Punisher. I still remember the cover very vividly. And I was like, "Somebody made this!" At that point I was like, "Oh, I think I definitely want to be an artist," after that first comic book. And at some point I had gotten How to Draw the Marvel Way and I consumed that book, I think I did so many copies from that book. And at that point it was like, "I definitely want to do this. I definitely want to be an artist."
And watching cartoons as a kid growing up. In China, I watched like Astro Boy and a few others. I saw anime in China, and I saw Disney cartoons in China, but when I came to the U.S., that's when it was like stimulation overload. There's Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers and all this stuff going on, on TV. And all these cartoons, I was like, "Wow, this is amazing. There's so much stuff to see and consume." It's just a much richer world than my childhood in Beijing.
Sarah Enni: I love that kind of a world opening up. I'm sure that you were naturally gifted at drawing, probably more than you're giving yourself credit for, but I love that you're saying that you saw people with this natural talent and you were like, "I'm gonna work hard to do that, to get there." The entrepreneurial spirit and the hard-working-ness is kind of baked in there.
Ben Zhu: It's weird, some kids are just drawn towards certain things. I guess for me, it was just like, "Wow, I really admired that." And I just wanted to try. It just kind of came naturally. I just wanted to be better at it.
Sarah Enni: That's why I like talking to people about their childhoods because we really tell ourselves what we want to do so early and there's so much that's baked in. I did similar things where it's like, "Why was I spending hours as a kid, coming up with languages and writing sci-fi?" There were other ways to spend time, but we just know what we want to do.
Ben Zhu: Yeah, definitely. I think there's an immediacy to it too. Like with science, you can say that you want to be a scientist as a kid, and unless you have a miniature lab at your disposal... And I guess, with your household products, you kind of can to some degree. But it's just, there's an immediacy to putting pencil to paper, whether it's writing or drawing.
Sarah Enni: I understand you had kind of a unique high school experience related to learning animation and studying. Which is really cool, I want to hear about how that came about.
Ben Zhu: Yeah, honestly, it was just blind luck, I fell into that. The suburbs that my parents finally settled on was in Rowland Heights and the high school just happened to have an animation program headed by this teacher, his name was Dave Masters (who taught animation at Rowland High School before leaving to become head animation trainer at Warner Bros.)
t was this program that I started hearing about, even in junior high, that there was this art teachers. It was like, "Oh, if you go to the high school, there's this really great program there that you should definitely check out," cause they know that I'm into art. And that program was amazing. It definitely had a profound effect on my life.
I went in as a freshman. Everyone in the class has to make a 15 to 30 second film. So each second of animation is 24 drawings, you know, do the math. It's quite a bit of drawings. You have a whole year to do it. So the whole school year you're making one film. And that was just part of it. I got to really look up to a lot of people, seniors and older classmen, that were making three minute films, or five minute films, fully edited with sound. And it was just amazing.
And they would do these open houses every year where people from the actual animation industry would go and recruit, essentially, straight from high school, which was incredible. At that young age, it just blows your mind. You're like, "What? I can get a job from this?" I mean, that was a very good program.
And I don't know if too many other high schools, public high schools especially, that has their own avid editing machine. And I remember they were testing out for the first time, video conferencing. This was long before Zoom, even the internet wasn't really that much of a thing yet. But it was like video conferencing and we had a video conference with Chuck Jones. I still remember that. It was amazing. He held up a pencil, he was like, "This is all you need!"
Sarah Enni: That's remarkable. Wow. That's so cool. So that was animation. And then when you went on to Art Center, you studied illustration. I have no background in art, or how you learn about these things at all. So I'm just interested in, what does it mean that you started in animation? What drew you to focus on illustration when you got further in your artistic career? I'd love to just have you tell me what that evolution was like.
Ben Zhu: Going back a little bit, that class really helped me. One of the things we had to do was pitch our idea.
Sarah Enni: That's huge. That's a big skill.
Ben Zhu: Yeah, that is huge. So, every student, for their 30 second film, had to pitch it to all the other students in the class. And then the other students would give them criticism. Thumbs up, thumbs down. All that type of stuff. That process really taught me a lot. I remember one of the things the teacher said was like, "You have to be honest with your fellow students. You think you're being a friend by just giving them a pass and telling them, 'Oh yeah, your idea is good.' but you're actually hurting them." That really stuck with me for a long time.
So that one piece of advice allowed me to take criticism a lot easier and then to give criticism, maybe a little too harshly sometimes [chuckles]. That kind of really baked into me at an early age. And just having to make films every year in that program, pretty much from freshmen to senior year. So it was through that program I made a lot of friends, upperclassmen, that eventually went to either Cal Arts or Art Center. And to me it was like, "Okay, well, that's my path. One or the other."
I was seriously considering both, I didn't know which one for a while. Then one of my friends, Kevin Chen, who started Concept Design Academy, CDA, he went to Art Center. And I started going to Art Center for a high school weekend program. It was also the closer school. And plus it taught me other things aside from just animation. So I wanted to learn all those skills, like painting and editorial illustration. Just everything ancillary to animation.
Sarah Enni: And what was the pull to that? It's obviously just your inclination to want to try other things, but that's so interesting to me that animation was such a focus, but you were like, "Oh, I want to have more of a breadth of understanding about visual representation."
Ben Zhu: It could be a combination of things. I already had four years of animation. I did really love animation, but I just wanted to learn some more raw skills. I felt like I needed to really learn how to draw the form or express an idea with a single image. For me, the ideal job graduating Art Center was concept artist; whether in video games, or for films, or animation.
So luckily after I graduated, I was able to get a job working in video games as an illustrator concept thing, like backgrounds. And as a background artist in video games, you're doing more 3D modeling and lighting and all that stuff. You're essentially building the level that the player walks around in.
So there is a good chunk of it where you're just kind of coming up with ideas and drawing. Essentially what I was trained for in Art Center, but a lot of it was stuff that I wasn't trained for. Which was working with the game engine, modeling in 3D, but in very specific ways that is optimal for the game.
Sarah Enni: You're being very humble, but you worked on Call of Duty 1, which is this wildly huge deal.
Ben Zhu: I was very lucky.
Sarah Enni: I have a couple questions about that, but I do want to ask about finding your voice as an artist. Do you feel like you did that at Art Center? As you're saying, I know that it's a school that's very focused on practical skills, but I'm curious about what your development as an artist was during that time.
Ben Zhu: I mean, Art Center is very much a trade school. I think it's still very much that. I think in art school, unintentionally, you're sort of developing your own tastes and your own sort of voice. Right? So I was still very much, like I said, trained to be immersionary, to have different styles. Or to be able to be flexible and able to cater to whatever the project needed.
But I think, at that time, honestly, when I graduated, I don't want to say I didn't have a visual voice cause we all had it, by intention or not. But I don't think I had as much to say when I graduated. You're just so eager to get on the job, get in the workforce and get a job. So it wasn't until years later that I really felt like, "Oh, okay, I have something I want to say." Or, "I have stories to tell."
Sarah Enni: Well, we're gonna get to that, for sure, because I do want to talk about evolution as you were writing Dessert Island. But let's talk about Call of Duty for a second, just cause that's so specific and interesting. You already led us through what you were able to do during that job, but I want to ask about, it might sound strange, but I want to ask about deciding not to stay in video games. I listened to an interview with you where you said, "After working on Call of Duty for about three years..." That the idea of moving on and doing Call of Duty 2 was too much world War II for you.
[Both laughing]
Ben Zhu: Yeah, to sum it up. To give you a little more meat on the Call of Duty experience, I keep saying that I was very fortunate because a friend recommended me to apply for the job, and it was like one week out of college. And so I basically scrambled and put a portfolio together. I hadn't done that much environments in my portfolio. So I literally bought books on World War II. As soon as I knew that this was the job that I was applying for, I started trying to focus my portfolio toward that and started doing more pieces, and started drawing World War II stuff and trying to cram it in there with all this other stuff.
I'm lucky because this team was a brand new team. So this was also an entrepreneurial thing. Like these guys all left EA Games a year prior because they had worked on Medal of Honor, which was also a World War II game. And half of that team split off and then Activision, which is a huge video game company now, and really big at the time as well, they basically said, "All right, we're gonna take all you guys and we're gonna start a brand new World War II franchise." And so I got to be at the very beginning, almost. And to witness all of this from the inception of this video game company, to putting out their first title, that was a very invaluable experience.
Sarah Enni: It's fascinating that you have a visual hand in this, now, billion dollar franchise is so interesting. You were there when they were really building it. And I think that's a perfect pivot cause what comes to mind for me when you're saying that you got to see this company go from a group of people working like crazy to build something, and then seeing it have this enormous success. I think that having something like that early in your life helps you imagine bigger things for yourself. Or I would think so.
Ben Zhu: Definitely, That entrepreneurial spirit definitely was not lost on me, I could see it. It was interesting from a corporate standpoint because we were the company hired by Activision. So we had a bigger boss, but we were also our own company. And then being in the meetings with the CEO. Cause I think like we had shares, we were kind of like employee-owned in a way.
I don't remember all the details, but just seeing the corporate side of it, you know? And then later on when I left, my friends who stayed were telling me how there was all this legal stuff. I mean, the company is not around anymore, the company that made the game. But even just seeing that side of it and learning that side of it was like, "Oh, this is not super clean."
Sarah Enni: Right. Right. Well, the entrepreneurial spirit makes me think of deciding to go do your own thing and start Gallery Nucleus. So I'm gonna ask about that process, but first, just in case listeners aren't familiar, I'd love for you to give us an encapsulation of what Gallery Nucleus is.
Ben Zhu: Gallery Nucleus is a boutique bookstore, gift shop, slash art gallery that focuses on entertainment art, animation, and illustration.
Sarah Enni: What made you think about a gallery? What was in your head that eventually led to thinking about creating this actual physical space for people to gather?
Ben Zhu: My parents. They were very entrepreneurial. That's the other part of it, they were always encouraging me and wanting me to do something of my own. My dad was like, "All right, great. You graduated art school. So are you gonna go to business school now?" I was like, "What are you talking about?"
It was kind of by chance. I was living in Alhambra where Nucleus is now. And I was commuting to my video game job. And on the weekends I would see a lot of people on the main street just out and about eating at restaurants and things like that. And I kind of just thought, "Oh, why is there no spaces, or places, for artists to gather and meet?"
I guess there was conventions and things like that, but on a regular basis, there's no hangout place for industry people, right? Whether it's video games, animation or whatever. I didn't know where someone could go to see artwork from movies and games. Museums weren't really showing this stuff at the time. So I thought, "Maybe there's something there."
The game was winding down, Call of Duty 1 was winding down. I was pretty much done, they were just in the last testing phases. So I thought, "Okay, well, my next step could be, I either go into animation and do visual development there, which would mean that I get to draw and paint a lot more than I do now. Or I could just try something completely different. And if it failed utterly, I can maybe still get back up and get a job."
Sarah Enni: Right. You have a plan B.
Ben Zhu: Yeah, I have a plan B. So I thought, "Okay, well, if I don't try it now, I'm never gonna do it. So, what the heck? Let's just see." It's like taking that pressure from my parents of starting a business, or whatever, but doing it on my own terms, instead of taking over their craft business. I just went for it. I think I was like 24 at the time, 23, 24. I think I might've been even 23, just young and naive [laughs]. That's honestly what it takes to start a business.
You know, "What do people need to start a business?" You just need a dream and a lot of blind optimism.
Sarah Enni: [Laughs] Yeah.
Ben Zhu: That's true of any endeavor. I think even with the children's book, I was like, "Let's just do it."
Sarah Enni: I mean, and this'll become obvious throughout, but in thinking about yourself as a creative, who also has this business, I relate to it a lot myself, from someone who is writing books and also has this podcast. It's not the same type of business at all, but I can relate to it. I was just thinking about what you must have gone through to get that gallery up and running, you have to learn like 75 different jobs to then get to the end result of celebrating art. What was that experience like?
Ben Zhu: Oh man. It's such a steep learning curve. So many late nights in that first year, that first year was brutal. I'd say the Arts Center was pretty tough, but I think that first year was probably almost equivalent. Because at Art Center you're spending a lot of late nights pulling a lot all-nighters just trying to increase your abilities and be better at your craft within like four years. It's a very short amount of time to be really amazing artists.
But learning everything from basic accounting to inventory control, to a point-of-sale system.
Sarah Enni: You had to get into real estate, you had to get permits.
Ben Zhu: Yeah, dealing with the city, creating a business license, construction. And I was doing both at the same time for a while, cause I hadn't quit just yet. Like I would get calls about Nucleus throughout the day from the construction guy who was renovating the building. And I'd have to just step out for like a long time. I felt really bad towards the end there.
But putting an art show together was the least of it. Even getting the art show together was not too bad, but later on it was like, "Okay. Oh great, now I have all this art." You realize like, "Okay, I gotta put it in the system a certain way in order to sell it." And just learning that process, you know? And at that point there was no Shopify, there was nothing right out of the box. I had to find this like point-of-sale system that doesn't even exist in anymore. And that was primarily made for shoes and warehousing, it's just something that my parents happened to use for their business.
Sarah Enni: And then hiring employees and being a manager and a boss.
Ben Zhu: Yeah. I'm still learning that. I don't think you ever stop learning that one.
Sarah Enni: I wonder how you feel about this, but the thing to me was always like, I feel so personal about the business. It's a reflection of me. It is me in some really real ways. So talking to employees, I had to get my mind right. To be like, "This job is not an identity for this person. So I have to like respect that the stakes are not as high for them. So I just need to communicate appropriately about what my expectations are, because otherwise we're just gonna be in this cycle of frustration."
Ben Zhu: I mean, the first lesson anyone learns about management, it's like, "Okay, how nice you should or shouldn't be, or at all." It took me a long time to really come into the role of being a boss.
Sarah Enni: But I heard in another interview you did, you said that failure was not an option.
Ben Zhu: Yeah. I mean, my parents warned me. They were like, "Yeah, you're about to board a train that you're not gonna get off of." I'm like, "What?" I had no idea what that meant. I thought they were just trying to scare me. I was like, "Oh, if I fail, I fail." I didn't want to fail, but that's the thing that you don't realize. It's like, you would rather lose sleep than have the business go down, you know?
Sarah Enni: Well, and not only you onboard people and other people are relying on you, and this kind of leads to the next question I wanted to ask about it, was it seems like you have an inner drive of desire to improve and refine. And running a small business is nothing but a wonderful opportunity to constantly be learning and changing and adjusting and improving.
Ben Zhu: I think that's part of the addiction of it, you know? You have these little achievements here and there, and you feel like you're improving. You feel like you're at these small milestones. And in a way we were improving. By our third year we were actually profitable, we weren't immensely profitable, but we had gotten out of the red and fairly consistently.
Sarah Enni: And for a gallery, that's no small thing. Well, the other frame of that question that I want to ask is about developing the identity of Nucleus. We kind of talked about your development, or we're gonna get back to it, including your ongoing development as an artist, but you do have to develop an identity as a business. So I'd love to hear about what that process was like.
Ben Zhu: I think the primary identity I did kind of accidentally, if anything. Especially in the beginning, I wasn't that aware of it. I knew it was about the artists. I knew I wanted to focus on the artists. And I think that's been the ongoing differentiator between us and other galleries that do show work with pop culture related things.
We do want to connect fans with specific IP's (Intellectual Properties), but we try to champion the specific artists behind those films, and those books, or games, or whatever. We try to make those artists shine a little more. Because I think for me, that's what I was always impressed by. I was nerding out over like, "Oh my gosh, it's that guy who designed that one character in that one game." It just goes back to why I started it, I guess.
Sarah Enni: I'm interested in how you think about your role as a community builder. Have you positioned or integrated your role as a community builder, with your own creative life and your own development as a creative person?
Ben Zhu: Being around so many amazing artists has both influenced me and kind of stifled me. The influence is obvious. I was just like, "Wow, look at this!" I truly love Jon Klassan's books (Caldecott Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of the I Want My Hat Back series, who is back with a book he wrote and illustrated: The Rock From the Sky. Hear his First Draft interviews here and here).
Sarah Enni: Same!
Ben Zhu: And he introduced me to a lot of really great children's book artists, and just a lot of children's books as well. And we would have workshops with Dan Santat on just the craft of picture books.And that workshop, I just sat in, because I was kind of moderating or whatever. That workshop influenced me a lot. And at that point, this was many years ago, I wasn't thinking that seriously about doing a children's book.
But just being around it has definitely inspired me. I like to say, "The more I wasn't doing artwork, the more I had a bit of imposter syndrome." Even though I was trained to become an artist and I went to school and all that stuff. As far as my own work, once my daughter was born, I finally felt like I had enough to say, or I felt the urge to say something. I wanted to pass on something to her.
That kind of got me out of just that fear of whether it's, not necessarily comparing myself to these other artists, it was just through the fear of wanting to do something again, you know? Wanting to do something creative again for myself.
Sarah Enni: Had you been able to draw, or had you been able to do much in your free time as a small business owner? It almost doesn't exist, but had you been keeping up with it at all before your daughter was born?
Ben Zhu: I think in the early days of Nucleus, I did some flyer designs, a lot more graphic design and marketing related stuff. This is a bit of a tangent, but a couple of years back, I got to work on Wish Dragon with Chris (written and directed by Chris Appelhans (hear his First Draft interview here). And that actually helped me out a lot too, and build my confidence in just doing art again. I was on that project as a visual development artist and a little bit as a storyboard artist. And when you're doing that, I was doing that three days a week, just tons of drawing, tons of painting. And that was great. And being around other creative people in that space.
Sarah Enni: I love that. And it's a hard question. And I relate to what you're saying a lot. You spend a lot of time being almost a curator [pauses]. It's kind of tough to talk about. In some ways you're promoting people that you admire, but you also want to be doing that thing. And that creates an odd tension.
Ben Zhu: Definitely. I'm glad you mentioned it cause there was definitely a point where I was talking to my wife and I'm like, "Is it weird that I'm doing this? Does it feel like a conflict of interest?" You know what I mean? And then the more people I talk to about it, even the artists that I talked to who I was showing, they were like, "It's not. You should do it. You were an artist and you're still an artist. You should just go for it."
And a lot of my friends were like, "No, you're still helping people. You're still providing this platform, Nucleus is still a platform for other people. You should actually take advantage of it." And I think it took a certain amount of permission for me to finally be okay with it. And that was part of the imposter syndrome. I didn't want people to think that like, "Oh, because I have this platform that I'm sort of giving myself an easier time or whatever." Do you know what I mean?
Sarah Enni: I hear you and I understand that, but also from the outside, it's like ridiculous.
Ben Zhu: It's not easy.
Sarah Enni: Oh, of course you're within your rights to do that. Of course you should. You know what I mean? But it is hard to give yourself that permission.
Ben Zhu: And even with this platform, you're still starting from square one.
Sarah Enni: Right. I would love to kind of talk about the genesis of deciding to do picture books. You mentioned a Dan Santat class. I'd love to just hear about what made you want to do this. And then how did you come up with the concept that eventually became Dessert Island?
Ben Zhu: I knew I wanted to do something related to sustainability cause that was very much on my mind. And I read a lot of children's books. I borrowed a bunch from the library, and bought a couple for my daughter as well, that were all about sustainability and danger to animals, and things like that.
And there were some pretty good ones, but I felt like there wasn't any with this balance of like fun, but also topical. They were either too serious or somber, or they didn't quite feel right to me. So I kind of was motivated in that respect. But even since I was a kid, we've been hearing about ozone layers and things like that. And now it's plastics and recycling and it just becomes a bit much.
And you do want the next generation to be aware of it, to start to think about it. But introduce it in a way where it's not too overwhelming. I felt there was something there. I knew I definitely wanted to talk about that. How the book came about? The title kind of came about first. I think I must've misspelled dessert' at some point. And I caught myself and was like, 'Huh." I forget how exactly, but like the word dessert island kind of popped in my head.
And I was like, "That's a really fun pun." You know? And I didn't think about it for a while, but then it just, over time, it just kept staying with me. And I kept thinking about dessert islands. Every time I think about it, some interesting visuals would pop up. I was like, "Oh, what does that look like? What is a dessert island?" Like, "Is it an island of desserts? Or is it one giant desert that's an island?" I started imagining animals eating this thing so it just became really fun. I thought, "Oh, there's a lot to explore here."
Sarah Enni: Nice. Can you give us the formal pitch? I know pitching picture books is strange, but can you give us a formal kind of overview of what happens in the story, just for the listeners who might not be familiar?
Ben Zhu: So Dessert Island features Monkey who is stuck on a dessert island and Fox who is stuck on a desert island. Monkey feels very lucky in the beginning. And Fox is looking for food. Monkey starts to get a little overconfident with his situation and something happens where Fox falls into a bit of luck himself because of Monkey's actions. And, over time, there are consequences and situations sort of change.
Sarah Enni: So I want to ask about the evolution of the story and also the visual representation of the story. On your Instagram, you actually had posted old thumbnails that had a polar bear and then they were on ice, and then they were on a donut. And it looked almost like more Eric Carle-y. It was just really different. So I would just love to hear about how that evolved.
Ben Zhu: How it evolved sort of ties in very closely with my journey of getting it published. Finding an agent and eventually finding an editor and then eventually getting the book actually approved and stuff. It started out over six years ago now, pretty much right around the time my daughter was born. I can't really remember if it was before she was born or after, but I knew it was around that time is when I started getting the anxiety to want to do this thing.
So I had made a really crude book dummy and I had basically no experience doing children's books. And I was like, "Well, I gotta start somewhere." So I just did a thing in Photoshop of just line art, but I knew it was gonna be Dessert Island.
At that point, the idea had stuck with me long enough. So I made a really crude book dummy, showed it to an agent, who was like an agent to a couple of my friends who were artists and have published works. So I showed it to her and she basically was like, "This is not good." And I knew it wasn't great, but she gave me some feedback and I kind of went back and I started retooling it.
And from that first book dummy, even though it was really bad, it helped me sort of get going. And I think that's really important. If I had any advice for anybody trying to get into children's books, just start writing, start drawing, whether it's on post-it notes, Photoshop, whatever, just get something out there. Because then you can start iterating.
I had no idea that was gonna be the beginning of such a long journey. Then I started writing and I started submitting the writing. And from that, once the agent was like, "Okay, you kind of have something, go ahead and try drawing it." So I kept doing more and more versions. I started doing some book dummies, but primarily just in PDF format, it wasn't like physical format anymore.
And, at the same time, I was talking to some other friends, I could talk to Dan Santat. And learned that I need to have some kind of a cover. Basically an illustration sample of what the book could look like. And I was kind of exploring it myself. I knew there were certain styles I was comfortable with. So that paper cutout style I really liked. And I was also exploring this other silk screen wash style, that's kind of vintage looking, I really liked that as well. So I was just kind of exploring, while I was still writing the story.
I don't want to bore you.
Sarah Enni: No, I love this!
Ben Zhu: But there were so many versions. I did a talk about this and showed some slides at my opening. So looking back at my old files, there was, I want to say, four main book dummies before I got to the final version that we have now. And within those four, there were countless little iterations. But once that first one didn't work out, I totally retooled my [unintelligible].
When you're writing a children's book, you have to start over again. When you have those characters in that situation and it's not working, you kind of just have to start over and do something very different.
You have to change the premise, you have to change something so that your brain can be like, "All right, this is a different thing." Even though you're dealing with the same themes or whatever. It's like when in animation they keep hiring new directors, or something. You kind of have to throw your old self away, you know?
So the first dummy was two kids on an island, they were on a cake. And they would just go from layer to layer eating away. And then they think they basically have enough. And they're sharing it with whales and seagulls and things like that. And essentially, they get to a point where they eat themselves out of a home. And then the two kids, ultimately, the other island just disappeared and they kind of start fresh on a new island.
It kind of implied that something happened to them. You're not sure what, cause they basically get caught up in a storm and they end up in a new island. Whether or not they passed away? We don't know. It basically got kind of dark, but the story just ended with them having a second chance, and making amends. But that one didn't work. So I had to start over. And I thought, "Okay, well let's use animals instead." I thought it was a little more interesting. I just liked the idea of animals eating desserts, I guess.
Sarah Enni: You're talking about not wanting it to be too bleak. It does seem like it's a little bit easier to take.
Ben Zhu: Yeah, it was a little more removed, but also primarily, I feel like people can identify with animals, anamorphic animals. There's like a different language there, you know? So yeah, I chose animals because I wanted more kids to be able to identify. So I came up with three animals that were endangered.
Essentially I think there was a version where they were island hopping, They started off in a boat and they were trying to find a home and then they would find one dessert and they liked it. I think there was a version where they either stayed or they decided to find another island. Basically, they went from island to island and each island they went to, or they waited for, the island got bigger and bigger until they finally come across a giant chocolate cake.
And then at the end, I think the version I had was they ended up deciding not to go on that island because, essentially, they just got greedy and they think, "Oh, another bigger island is gonna come along." But it never does. And so I think either one version was like, they ended up with nothing. And then I had versions where they ended up on just like one tiny thing that they had started out with from the very beginning.
But it was okay. It just wasn't as powerful. I think it was still too complicated for my agent and the editors. I simplified it. And I went to a version where it was called dessert stack for a while. And it was basically still three animals. The theme is similar; they're in a boat and they come across these giant desserts. But instead of getting on top of them like giant islands, they're basically collecting them.
So they're like, "Oh look, there's some strawberries." I'm like, "No." They try to fit everything onto their boat. So by the end of the book, there's just this huge Tetris-like pile that they're all trying to balance and grab onto, but they haven't eaten anything because they're too busy just collecting.
And so finally, the monkey character says like, "Oh, I know how to lighten the load." And he takes a bite and basically the whole thing comes toppling down. And at that point they're left with just one piece of food. So that one actually worked well enough for my agent. My agent really liked that one.
So then that's the one where she officially became my agent. She's like, "All right, now I'm gonna show this to people." And at that point I had two or three different cover illustration samples. And at that point it was just in her hands, you know? And she was like, "Oh yeah, I found an editor." It was pretty quickly after that she found someone that was interested. I guess they liked the illustration samples and they liked the book enough.
And then I started talking to the editor and that became a whole other process. I think at this point I was maybe three years into the process. Three, maybe four. I started talking to the editor, the editor was like, "So what did you originally intend on doing?" Like, "This is nice, but we have something kind of similar." And so I basically went back to square one. I went back to that island hopping premise and figured out a different ending for that. And she was happy with it and I was happy with it.
But I think once she showed it to her cohorts.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, her other editors.
Ben Zhu: They gave us quite a few notes to the point where I'm like, "I can't address these notes without changing the story again." You know what I mean? So I just basically, from that point, started over... again.
And that's, I think, the hardest part about doing children's books. I mean, yes, granted, I was still learning the overall craft of children's books. But at that point I had done so many versions where I'm like, "All right, this is just an exercise in not falling in love with your..." Like 'kill your darlings' or whatever they say. I was like, "All right. I'm three or four years in now. I'm not gonna give up now."
Sarah Enni: So as opposed to being like, "This has taken up too much time, I'm done." Scrapping it. You're like digging in. You're like, "I'm gonna find a way to make this work."
Ben Zhu: Yeah. I had that confidence. I was like, "Okay, I've done this many versions, and I've come up with this many versions of the story with these elements of desserts, and islands and animals. I know there's more. I believe in myself enough as a storyteller to come up with something else that has this similar theme." And that was enough to push me forward. That confidence was enough.
Sarah Enni: That's a lot. I mean, that's a very important thing to have and somewhat rare, I would say.
Ben Zhu: I think through Nucleus, I've learned that there are artists who are gonna do this no matter what. It doesn't matter if they get a lot of money out of it. There's artists who are gonna just do that thing regardless. I feel like Jon Klassen is one of these guys. I think even if he didn't win all these awards or whatever, he would still be making children's books. I think he just really loves the medium.
Sarah Enni: He cares about it.
Ben Zhu: He's a true artist in that respect.
Sarah Enni: So is that the point where you came to the book we have today?
Ben Zhu: Yeah.
Sarah Enni: That's amazing.
Ben Zhu: I was pretty flustered. And then I had to take a break for like a couple of weeks. And then one day I was driving in my car and I just had this image of, I was like, "All right, why don't we just separate them? They're not on one giant island." I just imagined Monkey on an island and Fox on an island. I think the joke in my head was, "My island is made of chocolate frosting and berries." And then Fox was saying, "Oh, my island is made out of sand." And then Monkey would take a bite out of his island and Fox would try to make a sandwich.
[Both laughing]
Ben Zhu: That joke never made, it's a terrible joke. But I was like, "Oh no, that's kind of funny." The comparison between these two going back and forth, that became really interesting to me. And I really felt like, "Oh, the format is interesting. I haven't really seen this format done." And so that really excited me. I was like, "Oh, maybe I'm getting into some new territory here." I'm using children's books, the medium, in a slightly non-conventional way.
Now earlier, you were asking me about the children's books that impressed me, those are the ones that impress me. The ones like Du Iz Tak, that's a really great one (Du Iz Tak? a Caldecott Honor book written and illustrated by Carson Ellis, who also wrote and illustrated Home and In the Half Room. Hear her First Draft interview here). It's still linear storytelling, but it's done in a slightly different format than a traditional picture book. The ones where it's like, "Press here." Even, you know, Novak's book with no pictures. These I really like.
I'm a big promoter of the medium is the message. I think it's very much a design philosophy. And I think what you do with the medium is very much part of the storytelling. So that's what made me go like, "All right, I have to go down this path. I think this is the right way to do it."
Sarah Enni: I mean, after all that time, finding another way for it to be exciting for you again, that's huge. And I love where you ended up, I think it's such a fun story, and the contrast is sort of delivering on the premise of dessert and desert, right? Then you go back and forth and you see these two timelines. I do just really quick want to ask you, I believe it's pencil and acrylic. Is that what the final illustration was?
Ben Zhu: Yeah, colored pencil and acrylic.
Sarah Enni: What made you end up with that?
Ben Zhu: I think it was through my conversation with LeUyen Pham. I was originally gonna do it in digital and I showed her my illustration and she was like, "Oh, these are nice. But have you thought about doing it in traditional media?" And I was like, "I don't know if this can be that. It might take a lot of time."
Yeah, in talking to LeUyen Pham, she basically was telling me like, "You should consider doing it in a real media because, it's a picture book, and there's a lot of artists who do it in digital. And a lot of digital kind of starts to look all the same." I didn't want to be a hypocrite because I would always tell my artists who exhibit at Nucleus like, "You should do a traditional media cause then that way you have a bit of a keepsake. You have something to put on the walls."
So I knew going along with the idea of wanting to leave something behind, I was like, "Well, I haven't painted in a while, but I do wanna have something physical to remember this by and maybe eventually give to my daughter."
Sarah Enni: That's so special. That adds a whole other element, a really personal element, to it. And I think you can, you can tell, right? Of course illustrators can always tell, but I think there is something that's just so palpable and engaging. You can just tell that something is hand made.
Ben Zhu: I've looked at a lot children's books and I was talking about this with Josh Cochran as well with his Keith Haring book. He was thinking about doing it digitally as well. And then we both said like, "Yeah, there's just something more. There's a richness to the children's books that have been painted."
Sarah Enni: What's interesting to me about Fox and Monkey's journey is, over time, Monkey is on the dessert and he's eating and eating and having a great time. And then one of the berries from his island floats over to Fox's island. Fox buries it, and something begins to grow. So Fox is gonna be able to sustain himself and then Monkey comes on hard times and is afloat. And Fox has to decide to risk everything to save Monkey.
And I'm just thinking about, in some ways, when you're talking about this as kind of a climate change book, a sustainability book, that extension of sympathy and empathy and care from Fox to Monkey is [pauses], I'm just thinking about the climate activists and having to be like, "We can't assign blame as much as we just need to move forward together in solving this problem." That, to me, felt like this really bigger thing that was being talked about in this book.
Was that on purpose or were you thinking about that? Or how do you think about that?
Ben Zhu: I don't think I was thinking about that specific. I wanted Monkey to learn his lesson. And for a long time I did struggle with the ending. I was like, "How am I gonna resolve this for Monkey?" And if the book does well enough for me to make a second one, I may do some version of this, but I had envisioned one where the Monkey would float by Fox.
You think they were gonna get together, I really wanted a spread where they were both on the same page. But a wave essentially would cover Monkey, Fox wouldn't see Monkey, but they were in the same spread for a second and then Monkey would end up in his own island. And at that point, Fox now would be on the left and Monkey would be on the right.
And Fox would have more berries and his island would become very lush. And at some point he would purposely let a berry or two go. And the book would end with Monkey receiving a berry and letting the audience go like, "Okay, well, what's he gonna do with it?" So that was one version. I still like that a lot, but this one was ultimately just more satisfying, overall, for kids as well. But I did very much want them to work together. I think in the end it was like, "All right, we have to cooperate in order to sustain."
Sarah Enni: Well, I want to ask about specifically your daughter. As you mentioned, you started writing this when she was born. Now she's six or so. So you've kind of been working on this project as she has grown through, and now almost out of, the target audience for this book. How has watching her, and being her dad, been part of the evolution of knowing what kind of story you want to tell to children?
Ben Zhu: I think the evolution of what I want to tell children is more or less the same. I've shown her all the different versions as well. And luckily she really does enjoy this one. I don't think she's just buttering me up. She's incapable of that right now. Kids are brutally honest. So if she doesn't get it, she'll just tell me straight up. That's one of the things of working on a book for so long too, she's old enough to be like, "You're still working on that?"
Sarah Enni: [Laughing] Yeah, that's a read.
Ben Zhu: I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm still working on it." But she got to see the whole process. So I'm really glad I went through that with her. It kind of like dovetails with her interest in art and storytelling and things like that. But in terms of the stories I want to tell, it's very much the same as when I started. I still want to tell stories about the human condition, sustainability and things that we should be aware of, without being too didactic. That's always the challenge. I think there's different ways to tell the same story, whether it's through this epic novel, or through a children's book. I think the message is more or less the same.
Sarah Enni: I would love to ask about what you would like to do next. It sounds like picture books might still be the medium you're interested in.
Ben Zhu: Yeah, definitely. I really love the picture book medium. I realized that for a couple of different reasons. One is, having experienced animation and filmmaking and video games, for an animated film, or for a video game, it's like three to five, maybe - I know animated films that have taken 10 years to come out. Not that my six year children's book isn't that different. But it's just me, it's completely within my control. And I really do love that aspect of it.
Sarah Enni: I'd love to hear advice, both from someone who has now gone through the process and has a debut of your own, and also as someone who has seen so many friends and people you admire go through picture books. If people are coming up now, and this is of interest to them, this medium, what advice would you have for them?
Ben Zhu: Anyone who is trying to get into picture books I'd definitely recommend taking some classes first. There's a lot of good classes out there. I think Ari teaches one. There's some good books now on making picture books. Anytime any of the authors like Dan or Jon, if they ever teach anything, I'm sure there's like workshops or videos out there.
Basically, educate yourself first on the medium, that's what I recommend. As far as writing goes, just prepare yourself to do a lot of versions and iterations and not fall in love with any one of them. And honestly, the biggest advice I can give, is to just start. I think crit group (critique) is very important. Having a support group, talking to other artists.
Sarah Enni: Yes. Ben, this has been so fun. And I really appreciate you giving me so much time, especially when you're on vacation with your family. Please tell your wife and daughter I said thank you.
Ben Zhu: No, thank you for making the time.
Thank you so much to Ben. Follow him on Instagram @BenZhuBrush and follow me on both Twitter and Instagram @SarahEnni and the show @FirstDraftPod (Twitter and Instagram).
First Draft is produced by me, Sarah Enni. Today's episode was produced and sound designed by Callie Wright. The theme music is by Dan Bailey and the logo was designed by Collin Keith. Thanks to social media director, Jennifer Nkosi and transcriptionist-at-large Julie Anderson.
And as ever, thanks to you treat loving monkeys for listening.
[Child's voice in background].
Ben Zhu: Did you hear that?
Sarah Enni: I can hear a little bit of that. I'm not sure. I can't see what's behind you.
Ben Zhu: She's talking about her poop.
Sarah Enni:[Laughing] Oh my God. Amazing.
Support the Show
Join the First Draft Patreon, or make a monthly or one-time donation via PayPal or Venmo
Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Sign up for the First Draft Newsletter
Track Changes Learn how the traditional publishing industry works in the Track Changes podcast mini-series.
Rate, Review, and Recommend
Take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you!