Tiny Art Director

A friend recommended the website Tiny Art Director to me today. Please, go check it out. First, I think the name is awesome, mostly because it reminds me of Tiny Elvis, which is just plain funny (what’s wrong, Tiny E?) Now, that’s comedy. But so is this site.

Basically it’s all drawings by this illustrator, Billy Zeman. He shows his drawings to his daughter, and she critiques them. Here’s what she looks like: tiny-art-director-book1

Does she remind me of my girlfriend, my mother, or my boss? All three. One thing she doesn’t remind me of is my son. Perhaps it’s a gender thing (girls develop faster than boys, it seems), or just JP, but my boy’s an easy critic. At least at this age, he’s not capable of reacting to one of my magazine articles in any way. By contrast, consider this exchange that Zeman has with his “art director.” Bear in mind that they are discussing a drawing of an airplane, which said critic has deemed a “poo-poo airplane,” and that, at least for the purposes of the site, Zeman doesn’t go forward with a drawing unless his daughter likes it.

Kid looks at photo: Can you just paint one poo-poo in a frame? The poo-poo is an airplane.
Her Critique: Good. I want a treat.
Job Status: Approved

Thank God that’s not us. I don’t think I could take it if JP thought I was a hack.

Published by Theodore

Theodore Ross is an editor of Harper’s Magazine. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, Saveur, Tin House, the Mississippi Review, and (of course), the Vietnam News. He grew up in New York City by way of Gulfport, MS, and as a teen played the evil Nazi, Toht, in Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. He lives with his son, J.P. in Brooklyn, and is currently working on a book about Crypto-Jews.

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2 Comments

  1. this is funny stuff. what would be great is if the worlds of the tiny art director and tiny elvis somehow combined.

    “look at that picture of the airplane. that thing is HUGE.”

    “that’s a poo-poo airplane. tiny e.”

    “it may be, but all i’m sayin’ is that it’s HUGE. that’s one big poo-poo airplane.”

    “chalk another one up for the tiny king.”

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