First Edition - THE BIRD KING and other sketches - Shaun Tan

The Bird King is a collection of various sketches: random jottings, preliminary designs for book, film and theatre projects, sketchbook pages and drawings from life. Each of these represent some aspect of a working process, whereby stories generally evolve from visual research and free-wheeling doodles. They are also 'unfinished' pieces created in a single sitting, not originally intended for publication, and for that reason perhaps more revealing of a personal style (and particular obsessions) than other more polished artwork.

128 pages long, and in a format that emulates my actual sketchbooks, The Bird King includes some written thoughts on the practice of drawing and explanatory notes for each image.