Terry Fan, Eric Fan and Devin Fan are American-born Canadian children’s book writers and illustrators, known collectively as the Fan Brothers.
Terry and Eric made their picturebook debut with The Night Gardener, which was named an ALA Notable Children’s Book. Other books include where the Ocena Meets the sky, The Barnabus Project and most recently, It Fell From the Sky.
Terry, Eric and Devin joined Nikki Gamble to talk about their creative partnership.
Interview transcript
Nikki Gamble:
In the reading corner today, I’m delighted to welcome the three Fan Brothers. They are the creative partnership behind the picture books, The Night Gardener, Where the Ocean Meets the Sky, The Barnabas Project, and It Fell from the Sky. They’ve also illustrated books for other authors, including The Darkest Dark by Chris Hadfield and The Antler Ship by Dasher Slater. So I’m sure you’ve answered this question before, but the most obvious one to begin is how on Earth does a partnership between three of you work?
Eric Fan:
We’ve all worked on non-picture book related creative pursuits. In the past, we’ve tried to get a screenplay made, so we all worked on that. We have a long history of collaborating together, going back to our childhood. As far as the process of making the book, we don’t really have set roles. It’s organic.
Terry and I have done books before, so we are used to that. With Devin on board, we’ve compared it to being like a sole artist versus being in a band. So everyone’s contributing their own instrument, their own sound. We all came up with the designs and the drawings. We worked on the rough together, the story, and for the finish artwork. Since we work traditionally and digitally, we do drawings and then we composite them in Photoshop. So any finished illustration can be a combination of all those various drawings that we’ve done that we hopefully bring together to a cohesive hold.
Nikki Gamble:
That’s interesting. So we couldn’t point to say a spread and say that it belonged to any one of you. You will have all contributed to that. You talk about it being a little bit like a band of musicians. I wonder if it’s also a little akin to working in an animation studio where you must make the work look continuous and cohesive even though there might be many different artists working on it.
Terry Fan:
That’s a very good comparison. And actually there are aspects of our work] that are animation like because we work digitally, Even if it’s hand drawn, it’s still, at some point digitally manipulated.
Eric and I, and Devin, too, are working more on the iPad. There’s a program on the iPad called Procreate, and it’s like Photoshop, in that it works in layers as animation does. We build up our scenes that way. Sometimes we’ll start with the background, and then we’ll build it up, and we’ll each contribute different elements, bring them all together in Photoshop and build it up in layers, and it gives us an amazing amount of flexibility. That’s what’s great about it. We often have all the different elements, like all the different characters, on different layers drawn separately, so we can move each one of those characters, make them bigger, smaller and manipulate them that way as one would do in animation.
Nikki Gamble:
Oh, really Interesting.
Terry Fan:
Yeah.
Nikki Gamble:
Devin, tell us a little bit more about your involvement here with your brothers. What was it like coming into a process that was quite well established with regard to picture bookmaking?
Devin Fan:
Yeah, they definitely had a ton more experience and knowledge when it comes to bookmaking than I did.
I think the band analogy is a good one. I always say I’m like Ringo in the band. I really felt that one of the things that made it possible for us to work together, because we don’t live in the same house anymore, which we did previously – we had apartments one on top of each other when we worked on other projects – is having cell phones. Being able to text through the process of making this book, I think, was invaluable. Because we’d be all working separately, but you can text images back and forth, make adjustments and text them back again.
We were texting the written parts back and forth all the time. So it made it so easy to collaborate. Honestly, without the technology to do that instantaneously, I don’t know how we would’ve done it in the same way.
Nikki Gamble:
I am intrigued to have three such creative people coming from one family. And I’ve read the dedication, I think it’s the latest one in It Fell from the Sky where you’re dedicating it to other brothers and sisters. And you talk about them as creative as well. So I’m intrigued to know, does this come from creative parents who nurtured your creativity as you were growing up?
Terry Fan:
Yeah, both are very creative. Our Mum’s a professional musician, – a harpist. Our Dad’s a philosophy teacher, but he also has a very creative side. And both really encouraged us. The first book Eric and I made was when we were just little kids. We made this crayon book about dinosaurs because we were obsessed with dinosaurs. Our mom helped us put that together and bound it up. She was like our editor. I think that planted the seed.
Nikki Gamble:
The Barnabas project is a story about failed experiments. Toys that don’t make the grade and are destined to be recycled. The plot is about them escaping from captivity. But of course, it’s about much more than that. Themes are very personal to readers, and I know that the young readers that I’ve worked with have very different responses to my own. Do YOU think about themes and messages as you’re creating your stories, or do you not even know that they’re there?
Eric Fan:
All our books have started with a standalone image that we either drew separately or drew together, and that’s acted as a springboard for the story. there’s something about the image that attracts you As you interrogate that image and try to find the story then, the theme comes from that.
I think for the Barnabas Project, we all felt a little bit like misfits growing up in school. So I think we related to Barnabas as being a misfit, and in some ways, all those failed projects hidden away represent all the failed projects that we’ve worked on through our lives that we put so much love into, but never saw the light of day
Devin Fan:
It definitely evolved as we were doing the story, but I found that what kids connect with is that idea. I think everyone. No matter how things may appear on the surface, at some point feels like they don’t fit in or feels like a failed project themselves, some more than others. And that story element is what appeals to kids. What does it mean to be perfect? And in the case of, our book, villains of the story, the green rubber suits, can only see the flaws in Barnabas, that his eyes are too small and that he’s not floppy enough. But then the question that’s not asked, literally in the book, but I hope that kids and parents are getting is, can they see that he’s brave and compassionate and loyal and all those other qualities? And which qualities are more important? And what does it mean when you’re talking about perfection? So it raises those kinds of questions. I’ve had some great discussions with kids around those ideas.
Nikki Gamble:
I said that children respond in very different ways. The stark stamping of ‘FAIL’ on the domes is something that they always respond to because children can easily be made to feel that they failed at something.
Terry Fan:
If you think about the educational system and the way it’s set up, it is very much based on success and failure. Whether you pass tests, or fail tests, it’s always judged in black-and-white ways. That just continues as you, grow older.
Eric Fan:
And you fear that, that red stamp.
Terry Fan:
Yeah, and I think everyone experiences that red stamp at some point in their life.
Eric Fan:
I think success and failure are intertwined. I’ve probably learned more from my failures than I have from my successes. I needed the failures to provoke me to towards success.
From all the projects we have done, you learn something from each time. And if you’re scared of failure, you can’t actually progress.
Terry Fan:
It’s more the perception of what failure is. I think is unhealthy because failure, is a great thing. That’s how you learn because no one ever got good at anything by not failing. The people who are at the very top of level failed thousands of times. When people watch the concert pianist they don’t see, all the scales and all the practising that led up to that performance. Or many times a figure skater falls when they’re trying something. People just see the end result.
Nikki Gamble:
Devin, what were the things for you that you were aware of as you were creating the book?
Devin Fan:
I think one of the things that was always so important to us is, we’re all mixed race. We’re all half-Chinese. Now that’s very common. But when we were growing up, it was not common. There was a lot of racism, and I know certainly I felt like ‘the other ‘that didn’t really fit in anywhere. But I know that children today would feel that way for other reasons. I think the most important idea, that I hope comes across is that you don’t have to fit the] mould that society has decided that you should fit. Be true to yourself and be happy. And be successful in that. Because who’s deciding that these creatures are failures? Those underlying themes are the ones that are important to me.
Nikki Gamble:
We are talking very seriously about this picture book, but it is very playful. There’s a recurring theme in your work about a world that is quite close by, but nobody sees it. With The Night Gardener, if only you followed the gardener, would you come to some other world that you can’t quite reach?
Eric Fan:
I think that’s always been with us since we were kids, ever since reading, Where the Wild Things Are, when the walls of Max’s bedroom dissolve and reveal this other world, it’s that idea of imagination. I think that’s just something that resonates with us.
So in our books, the idea of imagination or your curiosity permits you to enter this other world and you’ll see all this amazing stuff. I think that’s just. Something that’s always resonated with us since we were kids
Nikki Gamble:
And that other world, we get the sense is so close by. That world is really part of our world, but we just don’t see it.
Eric Fan:
Yeah, I think, our most recent book, It Fell From the Sky is all about recontextualising something that you see as ordinary, but, seeing the miraculous and the wonder in the ordinary, That’s one of the themes of that book .
Nikki Gamble
The moon seems to feature very large in a lot of your books as well.
Eric Fan:
I guess there’s something magical about the light. There’s darkness and light at night. The moon reveals enough for you to see, but it casts that mysterious light on things which opens the possibility of imagination coming into play.
Nikki Gamble:
it seems like we are segueing into talking about the new book. It fell From the Sky. It’s a story set on an uncultivated a patch of land. Then one day an ‘IT’ fell from the sky. The ‘IT’ we know is a marble, but to the anthropomorphized insects in the garden ‘IT’ is an object of wonder with a capital W. The spider believes it belongs to him, and he sells tickets to see this marvellous exhibit, raising the prices as demand grows. He’s such a capitalist.
Eric Fan:
Yeah. The story starts as an idea of something mysterious, falling amongst these insects. And they each have their own take about. It started as a story about perception. And then as we worked on the story, it became a sort of counter-narrative against rampant materialism and greed. The spider sets up this exhibit , but then it becomes greedy and raises the ticket price from one leaf to two.
And so there’s the idea that this sort of, capitalism is always transactional. Something is taken from the environment, in this case the leaves being taken. to enjoy the spectacle. And again, it’s a story that started just as an image of a marble surrounded by these insects wearing top hats, and the image stuck.
Nikki Gamble:
Marbles are like moons. Beautiful things. There’s something magical about the colours that are captured in the glass. You use a very simple marble, I think it’s called a cat’s-eye marble.
Terry Fan:
Yeah, we wanted an ordinary one. We all collected antique marbles for a time, and the marble that is in the book is actually one of our marbles. There are all kinds of fancy antique marbles. They have these, what they’re called pontil marks on each end, which is where the glass is broken off. You have these rough spots on each end and that’s how you can tell it’s a really old marble. There are different types. There’s a latticino, which has a lattice instead of eyes. Yeah, they’re incredibly beautiful.
Nikki Gamble:
I’m wondering now whether that knight in shining armour is on your desk?
Terry Fan:
Yeah I used to collect knighat. I had a huge army, and my best friend also collected. We’d have these big battles.
Nikki Gamble:
I suspected there were little bits of childhood making an appearance.
You’re very specific about the vegetation you have growing in this place.
Dandelions, clover, buttercup, they’re very evocative plants that grow in wild spaces. I wondered whether there was any kind of consciousness behind that choice?
Terry Fan:
Not really. We wanted to keep it prosaic, and we didn’t want anything too exotic.
Nikki Gamble:
That’s interesting. because they are ordinary, but they’re so beautiful.
Eric Fan:
Dandelions are underrated. I love Dandelions, and they’re just fun to draw.
And we wanted the visual impact. You know how they go through the different changes. Yeah because they become like a spherical celestial kind of shape before they blow away.
Nikki Gamble:
They do blow away in your story, and then they’ve regrown at the end So I suppose you can show that through the image, but I also felt that combined with the largely monochromatic palette that you’re using, that allowed you to do so much with the particular beauty of that plant. And it worked very well with the combination of the night sky and the light.
Can you tell me something about your colour choices?
Eric Fan:
We’ve always wanted to do a monochrome book just because there’s something about working with pencil that is lost when you colour both texturally and dramatically.
And then thematically, we thought the contrast between the colourful marble, which is to them, has fallen from another dimension, so it’s] that Lovecraftian colour from out of space idea that you’re encountering something that you can barely comprehend.
I think we wanted to emphasise that in their world. The colour was one way of introducing that. And then, the only other colour, up until the end spread, is the leaves that are used as money. So that’s the idea that the influence of the marble, spread to the money, which represents the spider’s greed.
Terry Fan:
Visually, we wanted that contrast to where the marble would seem extra otherworldly and mysterious.
Eric Fan:
Oz kind of influenced. We always love that one.
Terry Fan:
Yeah. The Wizard of Oz kind of influence.
Eric Fan:
The idea that the colour can demarcate two different worlds.
Nikki Gamble:
The objects are so prosaic. I think you have a safety pin and a pin tack at the end.
Terry Fan:
Yeah,
Eric Fan:
There’s no comprehension of our culture amongst these creatures. Anything can be miraculous if you re-contextualize it. It takes away your built-in conceptions and knowledge about something. Everything is intrinsically magical just by its very existence.
Terry Fan:
And that relates back to childhood. And as an artist, I’m always trying to get back to that, to be able to look at things with that wonder and that amazement and that mystery.
Eric Fan:
And I think it’s always there, it’s just that we have lost the ability to really perceive it that way.
Nikki Gamble: I
mentioned earlier the playfulness in the work. There’s definitely humour, whether it’s the little worker bee flying off with his briefcase or the five legged monster that, basically, is the hand of the child reaching down to retrieve the marble. Obviously, the point of view the insects, rather than our point of view My question is whether humour is important not only in your storytelling, but in the way that you work together as well.
Eric Fan:
I think because some of the themes are serious, we want to lighten it a bit and not make it didactic. We wanted it to be funny and charming, not too heavy. So humour helps balance that. Underneath the surface, there are some serious ideas going on.
Devin Fan:
Working together, humour honestly really helps with that. You have to have a sense of humour when you’re collaborating. You have to be able to laugh at each other and make jokes. And that’s what makes what can sometimes be stressful more tolerable.
Nikki Gamble:
I can see lots of threads or connections in your work. So, for example, in It Fell From the Sky, the spider is the capitalist, while in The Barnabas Project, Barnabas is the victim of that kind of capitalism.
Do you see threads of ideas that circle and come back to you.
Terry Fan:
Definitely. We are attracted to certain themes that showed up in our standalone work before we got into picture books,
We were both just doing our own illustrations and selling our work online.
And then, as Eric said, all. All of our picture book ideas came from those standalone images. So definitely we would be attracted to certain themes
Eric and I. We do have a similar aesthetic. Our styles are different, but we have a similar aesthetic. We tend to like the same sort of things, and so that makes collaboration a lot easier. Even though our styles are slightly different, , when we work together, we’re able to meet in the middle, and we’re both going for the same vision.
And I think, we try to be as accommodating as we can as far as our styles go, where we’ve almost created this third alternate style. It could be called the Fan Family style because I think it’s a little different from either of our individual styles.
Nikki Gamble:
Were you able to retain the copyright on your imagery because I know that you do create quite a lot of things from the images?
Eric Fan:
We do. For any art prints or anything, as long as it’s not book-related.
For selling prints and stuff like that, it makes sense
Terry and I were doing that quite a bit before. That’s actually what led to us getting into picture books, as our agent saw our work online and approached us. So for any budding picture book artist out use a platform and get your work out there It doesn’t have to be necessarily picture book related, but just to have your artwork. In the public sphere, so to speak.
Nikki Gamble:
It is a serious question because illustration is a profession, it’s an occupation, and people have to make a living, and it can be quite hard to do that. So I think there is a business side to consider.
Terry Fan:
Definitely. And as Eric said for a number of years we were just selling our work online. And that’s what enabled both of us to quit our day jobs. And we were both making a good living off that. We had always been interested in picture books, but we didn’t really know how to get in, and we were intimidated by it.
And had no idea. So that opportunity just came to us without us really looking for it at all.
Nikki Gamble:
Devin, do you see yourself being involved in a future picturebook making project? Either the three of you together or on your own?
Devin Fan:
I hope so. Yeah. We’re, we have some plans for some different things for the future. I am working on a poetry book now, but always working on different things. But I loved collaborating with Terry and Eric and would love to do so again in the future.
Terry Fan:
As it happens, we are collaborating on something…
Devin Fan:
Well, I don’t know what secret that secret is (laughs)
Nikki Gamble: Thank you for talking to me today In the Reading Corner.
We’ve skimmed the surface because I know there’s so much more in your wonderful books to talk about. I’m hoping that you may get across to this neck of the woods one of these days, and we’ll be able to hear more from all of you then.
Devin Fan: That would be lovely. And thank you so much for having us on your podcast. It’s been so much fun chatting with you.
About It Fell From the Sky.
It fell from the sky on a Thursday. None of the insects knows where it came from, or what it is.
Some say it’s an egg. Others, a gumdrop. But whatever it is, it fell near Spider’s house, so he’s convinced it belongs to him.
Spider builds a wonderous display so that insects from far and wide can come to look at the marvel. Spider has their best interests at heart. So what if he has to charge a small fee? So what if the lines are long? But as Spider raises the prices, insects stop showing up, much to Spider’s bemusement.
And then, all of a sudden, an unexpected disaster hits and the marvel disappears! This charming story is accompanied by characterful illustrations and also teaches children important life lessons about greed and the importance of sharing.