It's only a very small percentage of creative thinking that ends up connecting with a wider audience, and even then, any success is quite unpredictable. Shaun Tan More Quotes by Shaun Tan More Quotes From Shaun Tan I think 'The Road' is a good example of a book everyone should read, but I wouldn't recommend it to young kids. Shaun Tan road good think book The text illustrates the pictures - it provides a connective tissue for me. I usually refine the text last, partly because pictures are harder to do, so it's easier to edit words - I use text as grout in between the tiles of the pictures. Shaun Tan pictures words last me I always overwrite - really awful, long bits of script - and then I trim it down to the bare bones and then add a little bit to colour it in. At the end of all of my stories, I test for wordless comprehension. So I remove the text and see if it works by itself. And if it does, I feel that that's a successful story. Shaun Tan end down feel long I like the idea of contained emotion because I grew up most of my life feeling that way. As an adolescent, people would always say I was not expressive, and they always made the mistake of thinking that I didn't feel anything because I didn't react to things. Shaun Tan my-life mistake life people I get very creative when I'm trapped in a plane and I can't do anything else. Shaun Tan anything get trapped creative The audience for comics has shifted dramatically. And the boundaries between books and fine arts have blurred. Maybe it's the globalization of fine art through the Internet - it's easy for certain groups to coalesce around a certain kind of work or medium. Shaun Tan globalization internet work art When I was growing up, a lot of books affected me, but I never wrote letters to the author or anything like that. I'm always mindful that there are probably a whole bunch of people reading my books like that, too. Shaun Tan never me reading people Like all of my previous work - which I also hope is a bit hard to categorise - 'The Oopsatoreum' is an illustrated book, so a combination of words and pictures that tell a kind of story. Shaun Tan pictures words hope work The detail adds an element of unexpected something. All fiction is false; what makes it convincing is that it runs alongside the truth. The real world has lots of incidental details, so a painting also has to have that element of imperfection and irregularity, those incidental details. Shaun Tan painting unexpected truth world By itself, just to draw crazy creatures has limited appeal - if I had to give up one thing, it would be the wild imagination. When the work becomes too detached from ordinary life, it starts to fall apart. Fantasy needs to have some connection with reality, or it becomes of its own interest only, insular. Shaun Tan crazy imagination work life Seeing your work in print is exciting, especially when you're young. It's that feeling that you have some effect on the world outside of your immediate neighbourhood. Shaun Tan feeling you work world It was better to be known as the kid who could draw than as the short kid. Shaun Tan short better who kid Illustrating is more about communicating specific ideas to a reader. Painting is more like pure science, more about the act of painting. Shaun Tan like painting science ideas I became more interested in the idea of being an immigrant and particularly of being in a country you're not familiar with. And so I began reading migrants' stories. The fact that my father is Chinese - he emigrated from Malaysia when he was about 20 - may have had some bearing on my attraction to the subject. Shaun Tan you reading country father Whenever I start a project, I have a broad range of possibilities. Shaun Tan whenever possibilities project start Perhaps the writer I've read the most of is Haruki Murakami, the Japanese writer, but I wouldn't necessarily say he's a favourite. I read him because I find his work so intriguing, but I don't necessarily feel I would follow this writer to the ends of the earth. Shaun Tan say feel earth work
