Ryan Claytor: One bite at a time
Designer of Ricochet, Ryan Claytor, is releasing an inspiring new book to celebrate 20 years of his creative career and all of the fantastic work he has produced in this time.
Crispin (Mr Jones), had a chat with Ryan to dive a little deeper into the meaning behind this book and his reasons for creating it.
You can watch the full interview below:
Ryan is an award-winning American Comics Creator and professor at Michigan State University (MSU) where he teaches Comics Studio courses and much more.
Claytor’s fascination with comics began at a young age and stayed with him well into adulthood. He did internships at Marvel Comics in NYC and eventually started making his own comic books in 2004.
He creates a wide range of different creative projects, from comics, to illustrations, to podcasts, to books and of course, cool watch designs!
Ryan has designed a number of watches for Mr Jones. His first design, Step right up was classic and intricately designed, but his most recent creation is Ricochet, which displays three robots battling over an intense game of Pinball.
Claytor’s book will be titled ‘One Bite at a Time’, paying tribute to a phrase his father would use all the time when he was a child. “It’s like eating an elephant, you do it one bite at a time.”
For those familiar with Ryan’s work, this iconic metaphor is echoed in the name of his comic book brand ‘Elephant Eater Comics’
In his book, Ryan wishes to answer in-depth questions about his work and the inspiration behind it. He makes the effort to address important questions such as where he came up with his ideas, when they were produced, what was the reasoning behind the concepts.
This is something he found that not many artists or illustrators did in their books and therefore, wanted to make it a unique theme in his; while using an extremely engaging format throughout (you’ll see what we mean…).
The book includes interactive pages in which circular holes have been cut out. This way the reader can see the original sketch and the finished artwork separately, or side-by-side using the nifty feature!
That’s not even the coolest part… the book will be designed to have a dual, cloth bound cover with foil stamped lettering and a ribbon bookmark. Fancy or what?
Once the book is ready to be printed and distributed, it will retail at $59.95, which is around £50.00. However, Ryan is offering 17% off and free US shipping within the kickstarter period. So, be sure to get your hands on one before the offer ends!
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