I'm the Best Artist In the Ocean

by Kevin Sherry
Dial 2008

The follow-up to I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean turns out to be The Biggest Disappointment of the Year so far.

Giant Squid is back, and being a creature full of ink, he just has to draw. He's pretty goo at drawing all the other fish he sees -- he can draw this, he can draw that -- just as he was boastful of all the fish he used to be bigger than. Leave it to a couple of disgruntled clown fish and a shark to rain on Squid's creative spirit by pointing out that he's making a mess. Then, after a similar thoughtful moment Squid announces that he's making a "Mess-terpiece!" Fold open the the extended spread to reveal that Squid has tagged a whale with oceanic graffiti.

What was great in the previous book was that Squid was a boastful little boy. Like a boy first able to grasp the concepts of language and self, Squid defines himself according to his limited knowledge until he realizes the error of his boast. Then, quite energetically, he embraces that realization and realigns his ego with his environment: he's the biggest thing inside the whale!

But the brag of being the best artist in the ocean doesn't make sense because he's the only artist in the ocean, as far as we can tell. Comparing himself to nothing, the fact of the matter remains in question. Logically one would assume he would find a better artist in nature and then could readjust his claim, but not here. Instead he utters a play on words and leaves us with a very elaborate illustration.

I have to interject here that I went to art school and have more art history in me than I know what to do with. That's me being Squid, but the boast is for a purpose. See, when you read the tiny print at the back of the book you discover that Sherry modeled the endpapers off the work of Miro and the illustration in the whale was influenced by Picasso's Guernica.

The graffiti on the whale is an homage to a cubist's rendition of the horror of the Spanish Civil War? What. The. Hell.

Now, if I hadn't read this note I would have just tripped merrily along, but then I had to go back and look. I don' quite understand how Miro fits into it, but is the Guernica-whale supposed to represent the Squid-artist's depiction of the horror of the oceanic life cycle? I mean, I guess it's cool and all, if you get it (which I didn't on the first pass) but is that really something to casually work into a picture book?

To make a sequel to I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean it would have seemed natural to me that Squid have some other illusion of himself exposed, knocked down another peg, or perhaps he could help some other sea life see the error of their ways. Perhaps we could learn something about the oldest thing in the ocean, where we move from old dolphins to old tortoises to crusty Old Mr. Coelacanth.

I guess that's the lesson I never learn. No matter how much I want sequels to favorite books I really should be more careful what I wish for.

I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean

by Kevin Sherry
Dial/Penguin 2007

Spoiler alert: Honestly, I feel it's a bit much to forewarn of a spoiler on a picture book, but when I picked this jolly little thing up I wasn't prepared for the twist and actually laughed. out. loud. If you would like a chance at the same ignore this review right now and go check it out for yourself. I'm not saying you will find it as funny as I did, only that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have laughed if I'd known where this story was headed. The spoiler comes after the illustration below.

Shall we proceed?

The giant blue Squid, presented in huge cartoon-y close-ups, very dramatically announces what we pretty much know: that s/he is big. Squid then goes about bragging about all the other creatures in the ocean that s/he is bigger than. Bigger than shrimp. Bigger than clams. Bigger than jellyfish and turtles. Bigger than this fish, and that fish and this and that fish.

At last, like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, Squid calls down the wrath of fate by announcing that s/he is the biggest thing in the ocean.

























At which point Squid is swallowed by a whale.

Poor Squid. A quick inventory of the whale's belly shows Squid in good company, surrounded by all the other creatures of the sea. In the end Squid perks up and his last words are presented in a word balloon coming from the belly of the whale leaping from the water.

"I'm the biggest thing inside this whale!"

Any fan of Lane Smith's The Happy Hocky Family might recognize the optimism of Baby Hocky in Squid's final declaration. Or perhaps it's the brighter side of a superiority complex.

There's a note in the back where the artist claims to have sandwiched watercolor backgrounds, paper cut-outs and ink lined drawings between sheets of glass for the final effect, which seems like the hard way to do what a lot of Photoshop effects can accomplish. Then again, it does have a very organic feel and I wouldn't be surprised if that was Sherry's method, though I sincerely doubt his claim that the glass was pried from old pirate ships and the ink is 100% squid.

Sherry is something of a youngster. At 24 he's the youngest author signed to Dial with a three-book contract. I pulled this article while trying to find out more about him. He seems like one of those nice young talented kids who make things look effortless. I'm going to let my jealousy go with this one and just enjoy it.