World Famous Comics: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

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A Letter from Brian Selznick

Dear readers,

When I was a kid, two of my favorite books were by an amazing man named Remy Charlip. Fortunately and Thirteen fascinated me in part because, in both books, the very act of turning the pages plays a pivotal role in telling the story. Each turn reveals something new in a way that builds on the image on the previous page. Now that I'm an illustrator myself, I've often thought about this dramatic storytelling device and all of its creative possibilities.

My new book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, is a 550 page novel in words and pictures. But unlike most novels, the images in my new book don't just illustrate the story; they help tell it. I've used the lessons I learned from Remy Charlip and other masters of the picture book to create something that is not a exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things.

I began thinking about this book ten years ago after seeing some of the magical films of Georges Méliès, the father of science-fiction movies. But it wasn't until I read a book called Edison's Eve: The Quest for Mechanical Life by Gaby Woods that my story began to come into focus. I discovered that Méliès had a collection of mechanical, wind-up figures (called automata) that were donated to a museum, but which were later destroyed and thrown away. Instantly, I imagined a boy discovering these broken, rusty machines in the garbage, stealing one and attempting to fix it. At that moment, Hugo Cabret was born.

A few years ago, I had the honor of meeting Remy Charlip, and I'm proud to say that we've become friends. Last December he was asking me what I was working on, and as I was describing this book to him, I realized that Remy looks exactly like Georges Méliès. I excitedly asked him to pose as the character in my book, and fortunately, he said yes. So every time you see Méliès in The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the person you are really looking at is my dear friend Remy Charlip, who continues to inspire everyone who has the great pleasure of knowing him or seeing his work.

Paris in the 1930's, a thief, a broken machine, a strange girl, a mean old man, and the secrets that tie them all together... Welcome to The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Yours,

Brian Selznick

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Brian Selznick on a "Deleted Scene" from The Invention of Hugo Cabret

This is a finished drawing that I had to cut from The Invention of Hugo Cabret. I was still rewriting the book when I had to begin the final art. There was originally a scene in the story where this character, Etienne, is working in a camera shop. On one of my research trips to Paris I spent an entire day visiting old camera shops and photographing cameras from the 1930's and earlier, as well as the facades of the shops themselves. I researched original French camera posters and made sure that the counter and the shelves were accurate to the time period. I did all the drawings in the book at 1/4 scale, so they were very small and I often had to use a magnifying glass to help me see what I was drawing. After I finished this drawing I continued to rewrite, and for various reasons I realized that I needed to move this scene from the camera shop to the French Film Academy, which meant that I had to cut this picture. I tried really hard to find ANOTHER moment when I could have Etienne in a camera shop, but, as painful as it was, I knew the picture had to go. I'm glad to see it up on the Amazon website because otherwise no one would have ever seen all those tiny cameras I researched and drew so carefully!

--Brian Selznick

More from Brian Selznick

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Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 4.50 out of 5.00 stars

Rave review from an 11-year old reader
I have not read this book myself, but gave it as a birthday gift to an 11-year-old. I chose it based on Amazon reviews. His mother reports that he LOVED the book and asked her if it is "okay to read a book twice?"

Must have!
This is a great tool to have to give background and helpful information about the book and the author. The kids I showed the DVD to loved it and it helped them understand the book and not be overwhelmed by it!

A Modern Fairy Tale
A surprisingly complex book for children by Brian Selznick, told in pictures and words, about loss, trust, magic, dreams, the history of the cinema and finding one's purpose.
Selznick is both the author and the illustrator of this 20th century fairy tale which explores how people's fates can interlock, like the wheels and cogs of the automaton which Hugo seeks to rebuild.

Entertaining and Magical...Enter Hugos World!
This book can reach readers on many different levels. Movies, Inventions, Mechanical Beings (robots), train stations, orphans... they are all here.
THe illustrations in this book are as essential to the text, and one may compare this to old silent films where on sees the picture, then words come up on the screen.
No surprise that the illustrator and author is related to a major historical film director.

If you are a kid, don't let the number of pages keep you from this book... with so many pages of pictures, it is not much reading. On the other hand, if you are an adult, don't shy away from this because of the pictures....rather, relax and enjoy the magical world and atmosphere, and really look at the incredible detail of the illustrations.

Bravo!
There was a frequent segue phrase used on Monty Python's Flying Circus: "And now, for something completely different . . .," and I feel like that this book fits that perfectly.

On one level, this is basically a mystery story about a twelve-year-old orphan boy, Hugo Cabret, who lives in a Paris train station in about 1930. As the story progresses, we discover, gradually, the secrets that led to him living alone and secretively in the train station, where he keeps all the clocks working well and on time. We also discover the secrets behind the lives of the old man who runs the toy shop in the station, Papa Georges, and of his goddaughter, Isabelle, and to a lesser extent, Hugo's new friend, the one-eyed man named Etienne. Their secrets are interwoven, and the connecting and discovery of those secrets will have an impact on Parisian culture. What does the story have to do with magic, illusion, clock-making, complex mechanics, and the early history of film-making? Everything!

The story itself is done well, with interesting characters, a breath-taking pace, and a good degree of plot complexity, especially with how the secrets are gradually uncovered, and have fascinating interconnections and ramifications that stretch well beyond the characters. However, that is not what makes this book stand out.

What does move this book into the category of "And now, for something completely different?" The format! By topical genre, this book is a mystery, aimed at ages six to ninety-six, but the format, or presentation, is something I have never seen before. I have read books where illustrations are an important adjunct to the text. A good example is How to Keep Dinosaurs by Robert Mash. I have read good graphic novels, with The Hedge Knight - Second Edition [Graphic Novel] by George R.R. Martin being a prime example. The Asterix and Obelix books are good examples of comic books with enough mature connotations and subtexts that they appeal to some adults. I have not yet read, or viewed, The Arrival by Shaun Tan, which is a virtually textless tales of the struggles of an immigrant adjusting to a new culture, but The Invention of Hugo Cabret is not that, either, as text is an integral part of the story.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret is something else, yet again. Of its 525 pages, roughly 300 pages are beautiful illustrations, mainly complex, detailed pencil drawings by the author, Brian Selznick. Mr. Selznick was an illustrator before he became an author, and his skill and love for the visual medium sings loudly and clearly in this work of art. A typical sequence features a series of sequential drawings, perhaps covering seven or eight pages, presenting a key piece of the story, followed by an interlude of two to four pages of text, that often features dialogue and background history, presented by one or more of the characters, as they pry at, and unearth, and unravel each other's interrelated secrets. Even the paper speaks of the author's love of art, as it is all wood-free, woven paper, that is heavy and semi-glossy in texture. I would love to stroll throw a museum with this story, presented large, displayed upon the walls, probably underground, with dark and light areas, illumination-wise, and the hallways twisting and turning. If it were presented that way, many visitors would end up running through, as they get entranced by, and caught up in, this well-told story of tragedy, buried history, and triumph. They would want to devour it as fast as possible, and then run right back through.

-- Chris McCallister, author of Coming Full Circle

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