The Chatham Light and the Orb of Chatham

I take the same basic picture of the Chatham Light on every visit to the Cape. Compare Bob Staake's unique and evocative illustration, full of mystery, contrast, and a strange rolling orb observed by five witnesses one night in 1935...

The Chatham Light

Bob Staake, illustration from The Orb of Chatham (2005)
...and timed its journey to avoid the light.

http://giam.typepad.com/100_years_of_illustration/bob-staake

The illustrations to The Orb of Chatham are hauntingly beautiful. How long do you suppose it took Bob Staake to produce the suite of illustrations for this book? What kind of preparatory work was involved? Watch the video and all will be revealed. Well, not all.

Bob Staake Interview #1 : The Orb of Chatham
By Christopher Seufert

Note:  See the intriguing website for Bob Staake's The Orb of Chatham. What does it all mean?

If you somehow missed them, my previous blog posts about Bob Staake are just a click away.

Even better is Paul Giambarba's post about Bob Staake's New Yorker Covers. You know about the New Yorker work, right?

See any good TV commercials lately? Mike Lynch has a post about Bob Staake's TV commercial for Intel.

Also, I've been sharing my vacation photos from Cape Cod. It seems they've been looking less and less like vacation photos and more and more like everything else I do here.

You'll never guess what's at bobstaake.com, not in a million years. Don't even try.

Is The Orb of Chatham really a children's book like all the other children's books on this blog? Then why am I so curious about its secrets?

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The First United Methodist Church and the Orb of Chatham

In 1935, a mysterious black orb was seen and independently reported by five isolated witnesses, each of whom later disappeared. The mysterious event is the subject of Bob Staake's picture book The Orb of Chatham (2005). The First United Methodist Church is familiar to all Chatham's visitors. In Mr. Staake's superb book illustration, the orb can be seen floating eerily above the moonlit church.

The First United Methodist Church, Chatham, Massachusetts

Bob Staake, illustration from The Orb of Chatham (2005)

http://giam.typepad.com/100_years_of_illustration/bob-staake/

The Orb of Chatham

Note:  Check out the official website for Bob Staake's The Orb of Chatham. See if you can solve the mystery...

What do you know? The blog posts here about Bob Staake are starting to add up.

Ah, summer! See more posts about my vacation in Cape Cod.

Bob Staake's website is bobstaake.com. I don't get it.

Do you like to read blog posts about children's books? Can you guess why I asked?

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