Written By: Michael D. McClellan |
The creative team at Mailer Tuchman Media is on a roll.
Fresh off the success of its 2020 psychological thriller DieRy, starring the resplendent Claudia Maree Mailer as social media influencer Marie Clark, MTM continues tapping into the post-Millennial zeitgeist with a series of projects that are at once timely and timeless. Case in point: In A Pickle, written by Martinko – aka Martin Tuchman – with illustrations by Maggie Mailer, brings to life the classic tale of schoolyard bullying, which is especially relevant today, given the invasive, cloud-connected world in which Gen Z live. Based on the author’s life, In A Pickle is beautifully told, its narrative complimented by the richness of Mailer’s watercolor illustrations. We immediately identify with the precocious little boy who finds himself in a worrisome schoolyard predicament – who among us hasn’t found ourselves in a pickle of our own at that age – and we celebrate when brains and creativity trump insults and intimidation. The book, available for pre-order at Hat & Beard Press, is a reflection of the creative genius behind Mailer Tuchman Media: Artists with a deep appreciation for the classic storytelling of yesteryear, yet who are equally fearless in their pursuit of the cutting edge.
“This book is good example of that,” Maggie Mailer says, in an exclusive interview with FifteenMinutesWith. “There’s a certain nostalgia to Marty’s story, but it’s really very modern when you consider the world in which we live today.”
In A Pickle also illustrates the collaborative, forward-thinking culture that permeates MTM. The book is at the center of its own universe, orbited by various entry points into this compelling intellectual property. John Buffalo Mailer, the Creative Director at Mailer Tuchman Media, has laid out a clear vision for this IP and its audience. While In A Pickle will be released on February 16, 2021, an animated short has already blazed the trail, winning two Independent Short Awards. Voiced by legendary actor Peter Coyote, and directed by MTM’s talented Jennifer Gelfer (The Second Sun, DieRy), In A Pickle casts a wide net when it comes to charming readers. For her part, Maggie Mailer was thrilled to be part of the team.
“It was an interesting journey,” she says. “John Buffalo handed me the text and said, ‘I’m thinking this might make a great children’s story. We’d love to know what you think.’ So, I did a couple of sketches. I had done one other children’s book, which was in black and white, so this was really brand new for me. And they came back and said, ‘We love it. Let’s do it.’ And then they really left it open to me. I think Marty just wanted to see what I would do with it, which was kind of incredible, and so much fun. So, it really was an adventure right from the start. Their approach was: ‘Here you go. Come up with something. We’re gonna leave it to you for the most part.’ I thought that was amazing of Marty to do that with a story from his childhood. I was really honored.”
Creative Director – Mailer Tuchman Media
The universal theme of bullying was also something that Mailer could appreciate.
“I imagine that everyone can relate to bullying on some level,” she says. “I didn’t even realize the degree to which I related to it until I was well into working on the book. That was when I actually started to remember the time when I was in school and I had to deal with bullying. It was quite powerful to relive that. It was also one of the things that pulled me into working on the book. I just thought it was such a compelling situation and such an unusual story, so much so that the storyline felt almost in the realm of mythology – part fairytale, part myth, as if it were imbued with a kind of mystical solution.”
The world in which we live today is much more complicated than the one which Martin Tuchman experienced, yet his story is easily relatable to children today. While bullying still takes place on the playgrounds, the new battlefield is the smartphone, where social media shaming causes anger and anxiety in equal doses. The ability to fight back in more sophisticated, intelligent ways has never been more important, making Tuchman’s story more relevant than ever.
“In this day and age, social media really places a premium on using your wits,” Mailer says. “I think that children today can read this book and immediately draw that parallel. They can relate.”
By Martinko | Illustrations by Maggie Mailer
When the bully repeatedly takes the little boy’s lunch, it’s garden snakes that cleverly end the intimidation once and for all.
“Aside from the bully, the thing that grabbed me was his solution – that, and the image of the snakes,” Mailer says. “I just thought, ‘This is going to be a children’s book, can we pull this off?’ On the one hand, the story was so charming. On the other hand, it was really startling. Being an English major, I read and analyzed the text as an English major. I thought about the symbolism of the snake as the hero in nature. Looking at it through that lens, I felt like the book had this underlying message of responding to a human interaction that’s negative, and doing so with a really novel approach – by inserting nature into the situation to make everything okay.”
Executive Producer – Mailer Tuchman Media
With a slithering solution at the heart of Martinko’s story, the key was balancing this imagery with illustrations that projected softness and warmth. Mailer, an artist who has been featured in Art New England, and with cover stories in The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times, proved to be a revelation.
“I was interested in how to take this story, which is startling, and soften it so that it’s palatable and can work as a children’s book,” she says. “Then, giving it enough of an edge so that the adults reading it will relate to it and find some deeper meaning in it as well.”
Maggie Mailer, the daughter of famed Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Norman Mailer, drew inspiration from a number of places.
“I’m really interested in the work of contemporary artists like Marcel Dzama, who is one of my favorite painters. Arthur Conan Doyle’s father was an illustrator, diarist, and watercolorist. I had a lot of his drawings that I lived with and looked at as a child, so I think that his style also wound up in the book. As a result, the illustrations have a Victorian, old school, vintage quality to them. I think it works.”
Indeed.
Mailer’s illustrations work in concert with Tuchman’s narrative, the sum greater than its parts. Together they lift the story above others in its genre, delivering a classic children’s book for children of all ages.
By Martinko | Illustrations by Maggie Mailer
“Gauguin is a big one for me to go against color,” Mailer says, when asked to name some of her biggest influences for this book. “I did a show in like 2016 that was based on combining the palates of Gauguin and the Japanese artist Hiroshige, who’s one of my favorites, and who is known for his woodblock prints. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot is another big influence. Those are my core painters that I go to for inspiration.
“There’s something about the boldness of Gauguin’s color – there’s a wildness of it – and then you have Hiroshige’s softness and transitions. There’s a lot of that in the book with the backgrounds that are very soft and moving from one color to another. It doesn’t show up so much in the book, but I spent a lot of years making landscape paintings based off of Corot. I think that there are moments in the book where that feeling for me, when I look at it, comes through.”
With 47 pages of illustrations, what was Mailer’s approach to the creative process?
“Non-linear,” she says quickly. “I started and just went to town. That’s how I paint. I don’t have a beginning and a middle and an end, I just dive in. With this book, I didn’t start out at the beginning and go from there, I think I started on page 13. I was really happy that the production team was able to fly with that way of working, because I don’t think it’s a standard way of illustrating a book. There was really a lot intuition throughout the process.”
By Martinko | Illustrations by Maggie Mailer
The year 2020 will forever be connected to the coronavirus pandemic, which changed, well…everything. For this project, that meant Mailer and Tuchman would need to find another way to collaborate.
“Our collaboration was virtual. My family and I moved into another house in a neighboring town around the same time the book became a reality, which was the fall of 2019, and then COVID happened. Marty and I worked together remotely through Zoom, which is also how we would check in with Jennifer Gelfer, who is Marty’s creative partner at Mailer Tuchman Media. In fact, most of my work was done with Jennifer. She would give me cues, or she would give me feedback about what was working, or provide me with some of the of literal facts about Marty’s life, like how his father looked and that sort of thing. They would also supply me with photographs of Marty as a child. Then, they would step back and allow me to work. For me, it was fun surprising them.”
With Gelfer’s keen eye serving as the compass, both the book and the animated short began to take shape.
Executive Director – Mailer Tuchman Media
“What was great working with Jennifer, was that she kept pushing the color. She encouraged me to make it as colorful as possible, which was something that I was really happy to do. It was such a joy, and really fun. Not only had I never made a fully illustrated children’s book before, but I’d also never worked on an animation project – and we did them at the same time.”
The animated short, winner of two Independent Shorts Awards (Best Animation Short and Best Children’s Short), added an extra layer of complexity to project.
“As I was working on a given illustration, I knew that it would be going to the animator, and it would also be going to the graphic designer. The animator needed everything in layers. So, because of that, it actually changed the way that I made the illustrations. I feel like the animated short became a hidden character in the book. There’s sort of a living quality to the way the book was made. I was getting to see it in motion – I would see the dailies as they were being made – and then I would go back to the still image. That was one of the most exciting and fun parts of working on it. It was super exciting to see my see my still images come to life like that. I had to do was put the illustrations into layers and then hand them over to the animator. But I did have to think a certain way. I had to change the way I thought about making the images.”
The presence of an accomplished actor like Peter Coyote brought an added dimension to the project. Known for his work in various films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Patch Adams, and Erin Brockovich, Coyote certainly left an impression.
“I’m just so thrilled. Peter Coyote is one of my favorite actors and such a great person. I don’t know him personally, but I know about him. He’s done everything in his career – he’s an actor, author, screenwriter, director…he’s even a Zen Buddhist priest. To me, he’s just such a rock star. To have him as the narrator of this short film is so very exciting.”
With the release of In A Pickle on the horizon, it’s only fitting that Mailer Tuchman Media is partnering with Horizons National, an organization whose mission is to transform the way underserved students see themselves and their future. In A Pickle takes place in New York City, and with Horizons National expanding its programs there, MTM is donating a portion of the proceeds towards Horizon National’s goal: To grow capacity to provide at least 1,000 New York City public school students the Horizons experience.
“I was so glad when I realized that the book was going to be working with Horizons National in a way that would connect to underserved children,” Mailer says. “I started a project in in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, many years ago, where we set up artists working in storefront studios. The concept was to bring artists to an underserved community that doesn’t really have access to art. So, the fact that we’re working with Horizons National is really special. It’s something that’s near and dear to my heart.”
By Martinko | Illustrations by Maggie Mailer
The creative team at Mailer Tuchman Media has much to celebrate: The success of DieRy, with breakout performances by Claudia Maree Mailer and Ciaran Byrne; the release of Martinko’s timeless tale, beautifully imagined by Maggie Mailer; Jennifer Gelfer’s deft touch in producing the award-winning animated short; and a host of upcoming projects, including Mailer, a dramatic narrative series that brings to life the second half of the 20th Century as seen through the lens of the incomparable Norman Mailer.
“It’s an exciting time for Mailer Tuchman Media,” Maggie Mailer says, as the interview wraps. “I’m elated to be a part of such an interesting project as In A Pickle. To see it come alive is a success in itself.”
Mailer Tuchman Media
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