An interview with Henry Jones, illustrator of My First Skateboard: A New Place to Skate by Karl Watson

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Henry Jones earlier this year over coffee and a bagel. As skateboarders, it was an easy conversation. We also have the commonality of working in the creative industry, and we bonded over ridiculous deadlines, late payments, and dream jobs. One of those dream jobs is Mr. Jones’s work on the My First Skateboard books with Karl Watson. He was kind enough to answer a few questions about the third edition of the series for the Skate Book Club.

Freeborn: First, congrats on the third book. You and Karl have been doing great work. What’s different in this third book from an art standpoint?

Henry Jones: Not too much has changed in this book artwise, I don’t think. Maybe just me getting a better grasp on illustrating digitally. The characters seem to come into their own a little bit more, too.

Freeborn: The books are clearly rooted in San Francisco, and this new one seems even more so. Were there any challenges in illustrating these locations?

Henry Jones: Most of the challenge with illustrating some of the locations was simply the fact that I’m on the other side of the country. With a little help from Google Street View, Karl scouting locations with his phone camera, and watching some old clips, I think I was able to piece everything together that I needed to well enough.

Freeborn: The collaboration between you and Karl appears so seamless. How does a kid from outside of Philly and a SF legend connect to make this happen?

Henry Jones: Really, just through the convenience of the internet and social media. Karl was able to become familiar with my art and connect with me through Instagram to start working on the first book, and ever since then, it’s just been a super smooth working and creative relationship

Freeborn: What’s the best thing about working with Karl Watson?

Henry Jones: Working with Karl has really given the project a strong feeling of authenticity. To illustrate a story from his imagination, influenced by his own roots in San Francisco skateboarding, just feels right.

Bonus question with Karl Watson

Freeborn: What’s the best thing about working with Henry Jones?

Karl Watson: If it weren’t for Henry, my little story would have only lasted one round is printing and I’d probably still be trying to slang the last few til this day haha. Working with Henry is wonderful because he knows how to bring my stories to life and does so with the full knowledge and understanding of what being a skater actually is.

Threatened By The Bell Tolls Of Time by Jono Coote

Picking up more or less where he left off, Jono Coote’s Threatened by the Bell Tolls of Time chronicles the skate journeys he embarked on in Great Britain after moving back to his home continent from Australia. A series of notes scrawled on trains and pubs in the nooks and cracks of his travels were edited into this slim travelogue that is interested in uncovering the history of a place through its industrial debris, transportation systems, and people. Skaters are excellent miners of this information, sussing out the footprints and trails of those before us while, whether we realize it or not, giving them reverence by trodding the same ground. Coote definitely understands this, and gives special attention to the parks and DIY spots – some nearly half a century old – that still stand as monoliths worthy of pilgrimage.

Readers of Coote’s first book, No Beer on a Dead Planet, or of Vague magazine, will be familiar with his style, a cross between barstool philosophizing and well-researched historical context. His second effort finds his tools sharper and output even more refined, as he seamlessly blends his lived or observational experiences with local histories, literature, and pop cultural references. The histories of UFO sightings, public space in the port town of Newhaven dedicated to Southern Californian rap legend Eazy E, and historical references from as deep as the 1500s all blend together seamlessly with Coote’s own idea of the world. His vast scope of experience is mined deep but never thrust in our faces and allows for trust to build easily: Coote is uncovering the reasoning behind his travels and hoping to understand the world with us, it seems, rather than directing our actions. Still, this is a personal travelogue so packed with information one could potentially use it as their own guidebook for the places he visited.

And he has extremely engaging modes of guiding himself around the UK, from more obvious symbols of train travel to the discarded cans of Tennents Lager and their associated advertisements that track him all through Scotland. His journey is as symbolic as it is literal. By the time he explains Robert Macfarlane’s concept of deep maps towards the end of the book, it is clear that Coote can feel the idea in his own being. With Threatened by the Bell Tolls of Time, Coote has already done some of the pumping and blow-torch-drying of the scummy filth accruing on the top of the first quarter of the 21st century for us. With a little push, this book can be just the anti-manifesto to inspire readers to get out themselves and finish the job.

– Abada