Vladyslav
Yerko

Vladyslav Yerko is an illustrator, who works with the major children’s book publishing house “Ababahalamaha” in Ukraine. His covers for the Ukraineian Harry Potter series are said to be among J. K. Rowling’s favourites. Yerko is also responsible for Illustrating the Ukrainian edition of “Snow Queen” (Snihova Koroleva in Ukrainian). It was named Best Children’s Book of 2006 by Hans Christian Anderson foundation and released in English afterwards.

“The full page illustrations by the award winning Ukrainian artist, Vladyslav Yerko, are alone worth the price of the book. I recommend it to all ages.” – Robert Goldsborough, writer and former Chicago Tribune Magazine editor.

Illustrator Vladyslav Yerko compares his fantastically detailed cover to The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper and rightly so – like Peter Blake’s famous cover, this also features a wealth of characters. This vivid addition to the international roster of covers of Philosopher’s Stone was published in April 2002 by A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA. Yerko explains how every character ended up on the cover, because Harry didn’t look right on his own: ‘My first sketch of the cover was short-spoken. Harry’s lonely figure with an enormous fluffy pair of wings, and dozens of owls’ eyes looking out of them. I remember my publisher, Ivan Malkovych, gasping desperately. “Where is Ron? Where is Hermione? Where is Hagrid? Where is everyone? Oh my God!”’

Vladyslav Yerko was born in Kyiv in 1962. From the early childhood he was interested in illustrations and reading. The images of books were the first step in understanding the story and the narration was the second stage for him. Yerko, during his childhood, changed images in books, he added some “lost” details and very soon adults did not notice the changes. His mother encouraged and supported his early interest in illustration and bought him albums with works of famous artists. She recommended him to pay attention to Rubens and El Greco. Under some family circumstances he studied at boarding school and had no artistic education. Vladyslav Yerko studied at the Faculty of Book Graphics at the Ivan Fedorov Polygraphic University in Kyiv from 1984 to 1990.

He has been a member of the National Union of Ukrainian Artists since 1989.  Books with illustrations of Vladyslav Yerko were published in 20 countries. Vladyslav Yerko is not a public person and he completely devotes himself to painting.

Vladyslav Yerko:

“I don’t fill any book with codes, symbols, signs, mandalas and some other hermeneutics on purpose. But if you work a lot with one illustration (and I don’t work fast), it is done by itself that the sword becomes a Rosenkreuz symbols etc. They say not to overburden a child with excessive unexplained information. I know it by myself that there is nothing excessive in childhood. It is better when the book is “for growing”, than if a 3-year-old child has nothing to discover. I think that children are more adult than grown-ups, but in another way. I always focus on myself as if I am a child. I was not so smart child, but I am sure I felt life more complicated, exciting and not banal than I do it for now. Now I terribly miss it.“

“During my whole life I have been using warm colours for my paintings. I`ve had a wonderful yellow childhood – the sky had to be blue and trees green, but I looked at everything through “yellow glasses.” Yellow was considered to be a colour of filled life, colour of spring, autumn, summer and even winter if you were in warmth. People from the publishing house “Sofia” say that blue and violet are colours of the higher chakras and yellow, red and orange are materially-minded, ordinary, trivial… However, this triviality and simplicity appeal me.” Vladyslav Yerko

In the beginning of 2000 he created illustrations for books by Paolo Coelho and Richard Bach. Vladyslav Yerko has been cooperating with Ukrainian publishing house “A-BABA-HA-LA-MA-HA” (specialized in literature for children) since 2000.

Vladyslav Yerko created his own illustrations for book covers for Ukrainian publishing of Harry Potter series. ”I like it. Keep on going!” said Joanne Rowling as she saw Ukrainian cover for the first edition.

Joanne Rowling herself was seen giving special attention to his work. During an interview filmed in her house in 2007 one of the Ukrainian Harry Potter editions was seen standing at her desk, its cover turned to the viewer.

And Harry Potter?

I honestly admit that I haven’t read Harry Potter.

Not a single book?

None.

And how did you manage to make the best cover? ( Ukrainian cover of “Harry Potter” recognized as the best in the world )

Vladislav Yerko: I would never in my life agree to illustrate “The Master and Margarita”I drew from the interlinear translation. I illustrated the same way Pasternak translated Hamlet. I had a co-author, Viktor Bariba. He read the book from cover to cover, recorded absolutely all the characters, then agreed on the list of all the characters with Malkovich, because Ivan Antonovich likes it when there is a lot of everything. (You can’t depict two characters or three - that’s terrible minimalism! There must be 58 or 69.) Then I start working. I ask Viktor: is this a boy or a girl, is he blond or brunette? Then either he or Malkovich explains to me what this character looks like.

Actually, talking about Harry Potter always makes me hunker down, blush, and want to hide somewhere. I don’t think it’s an uninteresting job. Harry Potter has gotten on my nerves so much that I don’t really want to talk about him.

So JK Rowling herself praised you!

You don’t become better just because J.K. Rowling or the President or someone else praises you. If you are a normal person and consciously understand what you have done - normal or bad, then someone’s praise does not affect you much. If you are a half-idiot, then you collect this praise in the form of reviews or something else and then go and show not the works, but the praise.

However, working with an artist is not easy. The publishing house admits that they suffered the most during the release of the Harry Potter books . Joan Rowling sincerely admired the artist’s talent at the time, but he cannot bring himself to read even a few pages of her books. And respected publications from all over the world line up for his cover.

“He wants to draw what he wants to draw. And he didn’t want Harry Potter. And it took an extraordinary amount of effort and every book was under threat of missing deadlines,” says Ivan Malkovich.

Harry Potter

A separate story is the work on the Ukrainian edition of “Harry Potter”. Vladyslav was supposed to draw the covers, but he could not bring himself to read the books. Instead, an assistant did it, telling the artist what the characters should be like. However, the author of the novel, J.K. Rowling, highly praised the Ukrainian cover of Harry Potter.

— Vladislav, what are you working on now?

“On Harry Potter, what else? This will be the seventh book... You know, I’ve gotten tired of it somehow.”

— And Daniel Radcliffe is the opposite. He said in an interview that he can’t wait for Rowling to stop writing...

— And I got involved. It was I who agonized over the first covers. But by the way, Joan Rowling and Warner Bros. really like them all. By the way, do you know that in Moscow, for example, Potter is published in the fact that they will be lowered “from above”? Here, Malkovich, like a stubborn person, insisted: “I don’t want to publish in their covers. I don’t like them. Erku, draw something of your own.” So I drew it.

– Many people like your design for “Harry Potter.”

– “Harry Potter” is my biggest pain point. I once made a cover for this book, which was very simple and because of that Malkovich didn’t like it. After a while, I tried again, having in mind the plot and the number of characters. You can amuse children by letting them see all the characters on the cover. There are about thirty of them on one of them. But unfortunately, I never read the book. It’s just not my thing. I would rather reread “Alice” than get to “Harry Potter.” I don’t like science fiction. Even Bradbury, the Strugatskys... Malkovich asked me not to admit in any case that I haven’t read it, especially when children come running up and say: “Mr. Vladislav, thank you for “Harry Potter.” And my conscience torments me to say how much I don’t like it.

– What are you like in life, outside of work?

– I listen to music (mostly jazz and classical) and watch movies, sometimes I read. I like chamber music – some piano sonatas and suites, Mozart, Bach. Quiet things. I don’t like romantics. I like Beethoven’s later works. As for movies – I can say what I don’t like: “Day Watch”, “Troy”, “Harry Potter”

The triumphant march of Harry Potter (number seven) continues. The Ukrainian translation of Joanne Rowling’s latest book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” is in high demand on the shelves: about a hundred thousand copies have been sold. And at this time, “Potter,” who speaks Ukrainian, is also traveling like a pop star on promotional tours to different regions of the country. And the success of this work (in addition to the author, of course) is equally shared by the publisher Ivan Malkovich, translator Viktor Morozov, and designer Vladislav Yerko.

In an interview with “DT”, Mr. Yerko revealed some secrets of Potterian Ukrainian, branded with contempt the “political illustrativeness” of the current days of our lives. And he recalled the starting - “poster” - period of his creative path.

“I told everyone how much I suffered because of this Potter”

— Vladislav, when the seventh “Harry Potter” appeared, you probably put aside all your affairs and worked only on this project? After all, the work is responsible. The topic is in the ear, and the hero is in the eyes.

— I can’t work on just one project. Although I’m not Picasso or Julius Caesar… I’m a bit of a lazy person, I don’t like sudden changes. And even more so thematic and plot changes. Even technical ones! After all, it’s hard to scatter myself between black-and-white graphics and children’s illustrations. Between a metaphorical philosophical approach and a simpler, more accessible one. But I adapt. Writing a “regime charter” for work is not about me! I can laze around for a week, tormented by pangs of conscience. And then suddenly, for 15 minutes, thoughts come that give me the reserve to work calmly for six months.

As for “Potter”... Well, there’s only the cover. That is, one drawing. And I don’t consider this work as global, which could be compared, say, with “Tales of Foggy Albion” or “The Snow Queen”. For me, “Potter” is just an accident... Although the project left a tangible mark. And there is undoubtedly a phenomenon in “Potter”. Even considering those waves around the books that sway and never settle down.

— The cover of the Ukrainian (latest) translation features over sixty fairy-tale characters. A multi-figure composition.

— It was not easy for me to create a “novel” with this book. I wanted to make the cover of the first book completely different. My soul, due to the old, “poster” upbringing, strives for laconicism. Metaphors. After all, I started with posters. And this was my main specialization. And the cover for the first “Potter” I made, as it seemed to me, quite capacious, laconic. But Ivan Malkovich convinced me otherwise. He said that the drawing should be “more commercial”, “more understandable” to the mass reader. And I went for it with a very big creak, periodically becoming a “third position”. Malkovich invited another assistant artist — Viktor Baryba. Then, due to the rejection of the new concept, I flatly refused to read Rowling’s book. At the same time, I am grateful to Viktor for his cooperation. He was zealous about the work. He read the first volume and thought out the multi-figure composition.

— How did you get involved in the work, not knowing the plot?

— Every time I asked the question: who is it — a boy or a girl? Blonde or brunette? And how old is he? And what about the contours of his face? Well, and so on… In fact, I was building a police photo robot out of Rowling’s characters! It looked like a drawing of the Beatles’ album “Sergeant Pepper”. On the cover, if you remember, there are photo collages of the Beatles’ favorite characters — Marilyn Monroe, Harry Houdini, Mark Twain. And inside — a shadow contour drawing. That is, the figure has an outline, inside — a number, and a little below — a list of names. For example, Marilyn Monroe — 42, Elvis Presley — 43, Marlon Brando — 30, etc.

I did three covers of “Harry Potter” using this scheme. Malkovich was annoyed at first. I told everyone how much I suffered because of this Potter… However, I did the sixth and seventh volumes autonomously. From beginning to end, it was purely my work. At a certain stage, I even began to realize: the book is actually not bad! Bright, kind, serious. And children can hardly bear the negativity from it. The novel teaches adult things — responsibility, honesty…

“Rowling wrote to Ukraine: ‘Keep up the good work!’”

— At the last stage of work on “Potter,” did you clarify the final plot conflicts for yourself? Considering that Rowling’s book was translated, illustrated, and then printed right from the get-go.

— I can’t say that I read it from beginning to end. Because I joined the work “in parallel”. The publisher “published” another five or ten pages, which were processed - translated, edited, corrected. And since the book - both the text and the cover - is submitted to print at the same time, I completed my part of the work without ever finding out how it all ended - although I read three quarters of the book...

When we traveled with the promotional tour through the southern regions of the country, they even joked about the director of “A-BA-BA-GA-LA-MA-GI”, saying that he mercilessly exploits people. In turn, I told him that for creating large figures of “Potter” characters I received a cheburek, for a snake they gave a cheesecake, and for small figures they rewarded me with a donut. So you can calculate how many calories I managed to consume while working on the seventh “Potter”!

— Did they formulate a concept for the design of the seventh “Potter”, that is, the last and fatal one?

— The color scheme of the cover was Malkovich’s idea. I remember that after the second book was released, one buyer came to “A-BA-BA-GA-LA-MA-GI” and remarked: “Have you ever noticed what these two books look like if you compare their spines?” They looked closely and saw: a certain integrity was beginning to be traced. Therefore, the following volumes were made with an eye on the future. The color scheme is like the seven colors of the rainbow...

— It is known that in Russia and many other countries, Potteriana provides for an American analogue of the cover. But, rumor has it, Joan Rowling herself approved the exclusive artistic solution of the Ukrainian version. But what sources confirm such goodwill of the writer?

— Indeed, there are two design options. The American one and the exclusive one (for countries that want to create their own original “Potter”). Russians and many other countries use the American analogue - only with their own logo of the title. But Malkovich has one thing in common - he doesn’t want to be like everyone else. He walked around for a long time with a worried face, thinking about something. He really didn’t want to copy the American cover. Then he suddenly says to me: “Yerku, let’s draw something of our own”! So we drew “our own”. At the same time, we even managed to print the first book. Malkovich delayed sending the file with the cover until the last minute. The book was almost printed. But it was then that Malkovich sighed heavily and sent the file with the Ukrainian drawing to Bloomsbury Publishing. He was sure that they would definitely refuse, sending a corresponding letter prohibiting the sale of the book (even if it had already been printed). However, J.K. Rowling personally sent him a message: “A wonderful cover. Congratulations. Keep up the good work!”

— In your opinion, what are the main features of the design of these books — to not deviate from the author, to please a foreign publisher, and not to limit yourself?

— One of the conditions is that the characters, both main and secondary, do not differ from the images already embodied by Warner Bros. And this world-famous company, in turn, has agreements with the Bloomsbury publishing house — specifically regarding the visual side of the project, and those who are involved in the design of the Potterians will never make Harry blond, short-necked or chubby-cheeked. Perhaps our Potter is a little different from the cinematic image. Although in general the English image is unshakable. This is a fact and a given.

“Even Ivasyk-Telesyk can be accused of cannibalism”

— How did Russian publishers react to the fact that the Ukrainian “Potter” was a little ahead of them?

— I was surprised and even embarrassed by a recent interview with Russian distributors, when, to the question “Why did the Ukrainians beat you?” they answered: they say, we are trying to make the book very well, not like some...

And this is due to the fact that the Bloomsbury publishing house and the Translators’ Council (a club where translators from all over the world share their impressions and discuss the quality of a particular text), which has its own commission, determined that the best translations of Potter are Ukrainian and German... By the way, Russian is not included in either the top ten or even the top twenty. I am outraged by the very contemptuous attitude towards the Ukrainian attempt to be the first. All countries are fighting to be leaders in at least something. And here, it turns out, even an advantage turns into some kind of disadvantage, a provincial trait, “inherent to Ukrainians.”

— Are you familiar with the numerous “theories” about the “dark side” of the book? That behind all this is supposedly the very sectarianism. And other “hostile forces”. And it seems that it is not for nothing that people who are fascinated by Potter unite in special brotherhoods, create numerous “Potter-related” websites…

— And what’s wrong with a similar phenomenon associated with Tolkien? In this case, everything has gone much further... With a good imagination, you can even accuse the hero of the fairy tale “Ivasik-Telesik” of cannibalism. Like “Kolobka”, however, of anything. And in all our folklore, if your brains are turned towards the literary traffic police, you can see a lot of things... These are all elements of the “malicious editor”, who evaluates many things from the point of view of strict morality, which he most often applies to others, but not to himself.

— How do you rate the film adaptations of “Potter”? Which of the films, in your opinion, is closest to Rowling’s sparkling and magical element?

— In all the films — and there seem to be five of them already — I am primarily interested in the picture. The visual sequence. In my opinion, the third film is the most successful. Olga and Andrey Dudins took part in its creation. These are wonderful Russian illustrators who take their work very seriously. Imagine, in twenty years of their career they have designed only four books. And all these publications have entered the annals of illustration skills. They are a standard for many artists and an unattainable bar at the same time…

“Our politicians scan the texts of Robespierre and Hitler’s speeches”

— And after the fantastic Harry Potter, didn’t you have a “creative itch” to reflect the phantasmagoric world of our civilization in your illustrations?

— I am even disgusted to think about this explosive mixture of Kabuki theater and theater of the absurd! Any psychologist knows perfectly well the value of these “texts” and promises. After all, the public speeches of our rulers are scans of the speeches of Danton, Marat, Robespierre, Cicero, Hitler. And they do it simply shamelessly! They utter different, but alien, passionate texts in their own name! Isn’t it clear that all these people are dishonest and dishonest? And they are no longer interesting even to themselves. They live in a different space. Probably, even in their dreams they twitch and fight with someone.

— Don’t you sometimes plan a personal exhibition — from the illustrative heritage? Many would be attracted to the exhibition hall by the eloquent slogan — “Ukrainian illustrator of “Harry Potter”...”

— I finished with exhibitions as soon as I joined the Artists’ Union — still in my second year of the printing institute. Especially since a book circulation of 10 thousand or 5 thousand copies — isn’t that an exhibition? It’s even more! Therefore, placing your works in a certain space is just a headache, associated with a loss of time, with organizational functions and with completely empty communication with some people.

— Having mastered Rowling, don’t you want to capture another literary wizardry - The Chronicles of Narnia?

— I never read this book. But I watched the movie, which killed me with its vulgarity and incompetence. Everything in it is pathetic — both the characters and all their lines. I had nothing to get hooked on. This movie cannot be put on a par with the film adaptation of either Tolkien or “Harry Potter”. So, unfortunately…