"The first book I ever wrote was in fourth grade and it was called 'Billy's Booger.' It was an autobiographical piece about a kid who was really bad at math." -- William Joyce
William Joyce (born December 11, 1957) is an American author, illustrator, and filmmaker. Newsweek has called him one of the top 100 people to watch in the new millennium. His illustrations have appeared on numerous New Yorker covers and his paintings are displayed at national museums and art galleries. He lives with his wife and their son in Shreveport, Louisiana. His daughter, Mary Katherine, died at the age of 18 on May 2, 2010.
"Almost everything in 'A Day With Wilbur Robinson' has some basis in truth. And yes, my sister did pay me to feed her grapes while she talked to her boyfriend on the phone.""And I was lucky enough to have teachers that really, really looked out for me and really encouraged all that. And in rural Louisiana, that was a rare thing back then.""And they're also very good at math, these super boogers, and so they teach Billy the ways of mathematics.""But if you really love to write and you really love to tell stories and you really love to draw, you just have to keep doing it no matter what anybody says.""I did not win and in fact I was called into the principal's office for a consultation with my parents. But that was the beginning of my literary career.""I have known lots of adults who enjoyed similar enthusiasms as a kid and weren't encouraged and then didn't go anywhere with it and so they're unhappy in their jobs as adults.""I just took the idea that King Kong was too big for everything and reversed it and put George in a land of giants, which is basically what every kid goes through anyway - that, you know, the world is made for grownups, for tall people, for the giants.""I like stirring things up. I'm on the side of the kids more than I am on the adults. And occasionally I find some adults that have that same mischievous streak, so I don't get in too much trouble.""I raised frogs every spring in our house from tadpoles and by end of summer our house was overrun with frogs.""I've always liked getting away with just a little bit of what you're not supposed to. Like my first book, Billy's Booger, got me in trouble with the principal's office.""If you really want to tell stories, do it and don't be dissuaded.""So if you're a robot and you're living on this planet, you can do things that you can't do in real life - things that you wished you could do: like fly; like have a car that flies; like have furniture that is alive.""The only road to the highest stations in this country is that of the law.""Their toys are alive and can sometimes come to their aid, or get lost and Olie has to find them. They go to other planets. They go to the ice cream planet.""You know, I hate to give advice because my life has been so odd that almost nothing that's happened to me can apply."
Joyce has written and illustrated over fifty children's books. Some of his best known are: George Shrinks, Santa Calls, Dinosaur Bob and his Adventures with the Family Lazardo, Rolie Polie Olie, The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs, and A Day with Wilbur Robinson. Before Joyce got his start in the arts, he took part in a major Curling insurgence for the Southern states. Among Joyce's colleagues there were such legends of the sport as Jeremy "Chimney Sweep" Wilkes, and Benjamin "Bristle Pants" Hatsworth. Unfortunately, Joyce's Olympic dreams to reach curling's hall of fame were thwarted in a rare debilitating icicle accident, and he never returned to the sport.
Joyce has received three Emmys for Rolie Polie Olie, an animated series based on his series of children's books that airs on the Disney Channel. His second television series, George Shrinks, airs daily on PBS stations.
Joyce created conceptual characters for Disney/Pixar's feature films Toy Story (1995) and A Bug's Life (1998).
In 2005, after Joyce and Ice Age director Chris Wedge failed to adapt one of Joyce's books to the screen, Santa Calls, they both came up with the idea for the animated film Robots (2005). Besides being one of the creators, Joyce also served as a producer and production designer. Joyce is currently in production with 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios on a feature based on his award-winning book, The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs.
In 2007, Disney released Meet the Robinsons, a movie based on his book A Day with Wilbur Robinson, to which Joyce served as one of the executive producers of the film along with John Lasseter and Clark Spencer. In the same year, he designed the opening title sequence for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.
He is currently in agreement with DreamWorks Animation to direct a 2012 film called The Guardians, based on an upcoming series of picture books.
Also, his picture book "The Leafmen" is currently in production at Bluesky Studios. Joyce is writer, producer and production designer on the film.
Joyce is also currently co-founding a Shreveport, LA animation and visual effects studio with Reel FX co-founder, Brandon Oldenburg, called MOONBOT Studios.
In both 1994 and 1995 Joyce designed the Christmas displays for Saks Fifth Avenue's original location.
The World of William Joyce
This exhibition is run by the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature. It began in 1998 and is currently still traveling nationally.
Artspace
Artspace is a gallery located in Shreveport that is run under the guidance of the Shreveport Regional Arts Council. Joyce serves as the Artistic Director. He has helped bring a Peter Pan Centennial exhibit, an Art of Robots exhibit, and Faces of Katrina.
Joyce has recently founded the Katrinarita Gras Foundation to raise money for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. He is selling prints of his unpublished Mardi Gras The New Yorker cover through the foundation with all profit going to aid victims. More recently, lifestyle magazine Southern Living featured Joyce the native son and his favorite Shreveport restaurants. Top picks in William Joyce's Guide to Shreveport include Cush's Grocer, The Village Grille, Fertitta's Delicatessan, and Herby K's.
Joyce received the 2008 Louisiana Writer Award for his enduring contribution to the "literary intellectual heritage of Louisiana." The award was presented to him on October 4, 2008, during a ceremony at the 2008 Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge.
