I was born and have lived in the state of Michigan for my entire life. Walking through the botanical gardens at Michigan State University, spending days at the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, Mackinac Island and other parks, zoos, lakeshores, woodland trails and museums have enriched my sense of history and appreciation for our natural world. In all those adventures, though, I have yet to do more than pass through Muskegon, Michigan. Little did I know what happened in the nearby neighborhood of Bluffton in the summers of 1908, 1909 and 1910? Illustrator and author Matt Phelan knows. His newest title, Bluffton: My Summers With Buster (Candlewick Press), opens up possibilities, blending history and fiction in a pictorial journey back in time.
It's not every day a train rolls into the town of Muskegon, Michigan filled with vaudeville entertainers, an elephant and a zebra, but on a summer day in 1908, that's exactly what Henry Harrison saw. The troupe has come to vacation in the cottages at Bluffton; the heat having caused the closure of all the theaters. Henry decides to explore the next morning along the western shore of Lake Muskegon. Crashes and flying bodies introduce him to Jingles, Louise and Buster Keaton.
Leaving for home with the promise of a baseball game the next day, Henry (and readers) get the inside scoop on vaudeville and the people at The Actors' Colony from a man on the porch. For the next three months Henry and Buster play baseball, fish, swim, pull pranks and talk, reveling in all the peaceful bliss of summer. Each can't help but hopefully wish for what the other has; Buster, a normal boy's life, Henry, a life on the stage.
Henry attends school, helps out in his father's hardware store and juggles away the months, longing for the companionship of his summer pal. Another boy who is part of the traveling group, Lex, keeps him informed with the latest news through letters, including problems the Keaton family have had with authorities about their knockabout act. When they return Henry is more determined than ever to learn an act, to be on stage.
During the second summer more of the two boys' personalities and lives are revealed in their continued conversations and in the events experienced by both; boarding house fires, train wrecks, elaborately rigged contraptions, Harry Houdini, baseball and the presence of Sally, a neighborhood friend of Henry. Regardless of an initial failed attempt and caution urged by Buster and Lex, an incident teaches Henry more than one lesson during their absence before the third summer in 1910. Only three sentences are spoken throughout the pages of the last summer shared by Henry Harrison and Buster Keaton. But the visuals speak loudly and clearly of glorious memories made.
Thumbnails always come first. Very small, very loose. Those are scanned in to the computer and the words are added. From those, I make a second round of layout sketches which are in some ways even looser, but clearly place the dialogue and composition elements. Then I draw the final art on a new sheet of watercolor paper in pencil and paint it with watercolor. The final art is 100% larger than the size in the book.
I am also wondering if you have ever visited Muskegon or Bluffton? After reading your book, I sure hope to visit myself. J When you consider I’ve lived in Michigan my entire life, it’s sad I have never done anything but pass through there before now.
I spent a week in Bluffton in 2010 before I wrote the script. It was well worth it. I really gained the necessary feeling that I needed to do the book.
Were the characters of Henry and Sally based upon anyone real in or near Bluffton during that time period or are they entirely fictional? (I know you said they are fictional in your author’s note but where did Henry and Sally come from?) I love how you created this story around those three summers.
Henry and Sally are entirely fictional. For Henry, I basically just imagined how I would react if I met Buster as a kid. Three years is quite a lot of time for that age, and part of the challenge in writing the book was to age the kids physically and emotionally from summer to summer.
I remember reading in your author’s note how you and your brother watched the Buster Keaton movies projected on the bedroom wall. What sparked the interest in those movies? Did your study of film and theater in college increase your passion for this master actor?
As a kid, I just responded to how hilarious those movies are. They really haven't dated. Growing up in my family, we never had a stigma against black and white movies. Some kids do (or think they do) today but I'm pretty certain that a few minutes of a Keaton film could change that. As I got older and learned more about film and acting, my admiration for him grew exponentially. I believe he was the finest filmmaker of the silent era and certainly one of the greatest film actors. There isn't a single moment of overacting in any of his films.