MOUNT VERNON — The characters in the Newspaper in Education mystery story “History Thief” come to life through the talents of illustrator Ian Moss. Moss, a graduate of the Columbus College of Art & Design, works in the ad design department of the Mount Vernon News and also does freelance illustrations for children’s books.
To create the “History Thief” illustrations, Moss first reads the relevant chapter and highlights the key points to get an idea of what to draw. Once the idea is formed, Moss starts reviewing references on the Internet.
“For example,” he explained, “if I’m drawing a bunch of kids on a bus, I’ll get different shots of the inside of a bus so I can actually see how to draw the bus.”
For the school-age characters in the story, he works from a series of photographs taken of fourth-grade students at Pleasant Street Elementary. He also uses photographs of Pleasant Street teacher Jim Thayer, Mr. Luckmiller in the story, and Debbie Baker, the librarian in the story, to produce their visual representations. Moss said most of the drawings in the story are cartoon portraits, not really meant to look like the real model. In the case of the story’s narrator, Jake, and Mr. Luckmiller, however, Moss simply emphasizes their features to create caricatures of the authentic individual.