As Kelly left in a huff, she stumbled upon a skinny gray-haired man in the hallway who looked a little familiar.

He was holding a copy of the Little Prince, staring in front of the interstitial screen in a daze.

"You're you, ...... Mr. Verlein? ”

Kelly was a little surprised.

She had seen a photo of Verrhine on the official Twitter, but she didn't expect to see the illustrator himself here.

Kelly fumbled in her pocket, only to find the two paper vouchers that the staff had just given her.

She took one of them and leaned over to the white-haired man.

"Mr. Verlein, I'm a big fan of your illustrations and I've always admired your work, can I sign it?" Kelly asks for an autograph.

Vellein seemed to be in some kind of contemplation, staring at the cover of the detective cat's knife in his hand, muttering something to himself.

The Montblanc Rose Gold Writer's Pen, which sold for more than a thousand pounds, spun like a fidget spinner in the palm of his left hand.

The people next to him came and went, and he was not distracted for a moment.

"Fans?"

Hearing this self-proclaimed, Verrhine raised his head.

Europeans love to sign autographs.

If you like singers, you need to sign autographs, if you like basketball stars, you want to sign autographs, and if you like academic professors and artists, you will be asked for all kinds of autographs.

Not to mention, the signatures of well-known artists are actually quite valuable.

Restaurants like Picasso and Andy Warhol can easily sell for thousands of dollars on pawn shops or Ebay.

Great artists don't often sign autographs.

The main reason is that after these outflows, they will be imitated on oil paintings by counterfeiting gangs with various technical means. In order to avoid trouble, some oil painting artists will deliberately use different fonts for their signatures in daily life and the signature logos on their calligraphy and painting works.

Wehrlein is just an illustrator and has fewer concerns.

He subconsciously took the voucher handed over by Kelly, but paused slightly.

"You're volunteering this time?" He asked.

"Mm-hmm, I didn't expect to see an artist like you here." Kelly nodded immediately, and as she spoke, she looked left and right in the hallway, trying to see if she could see the detective cat.

Unfortunately, Villelein is the only one here.

She also doesn't know what Detective Cat Lady looks like.

"I'm an art student at the Royal College of Art, and I have your illustration 'The Green Wilderness'. I also wrote a cover letter to your studio, but unfortunately I didn't get a reply. Kelly introduced herself.

"Then who was chosen, me or detective cat?" Verlein didn't care who Kelly was, just asked coldly.

"Uh...... Is this a draft review?"

Kelly looked a little embarrassed.

She's not stupid, and it's very unlikely that a publisher will release two illustrated versions of The Little Prince by different artists at the same time.

I saw the registration form just now, and the painter Verlein asked like this.

She can guess the purpose of this market research.

"Well, it looks like I don't have an autograph."

Kelly was a little embarrassed.

just claimed to be a loyal fan of the other party, but he did two or five boys. She hesitated to tell a lie.

Verlein had already spotted the blonde girl's hesitation,

The already pale complexion of the thin man was even paler, which made the artist look a bit like a skeleton.

He didn't get as angry as Kelly had expected, or tear up the voucher in his hand.

"Forget it."

Verrhine just unscrewed the cap of the pen with a calm expression, signed his name on the voucher, and handed it to Kelly.

"You also study art, the good and the bad are there, I don't embarrass you."

"Thanks, actually...... You're also drawing well. Kelly looked dumbfounded.

"Don't comfort me."

Verlein turned his head, looked at the pile of detective cat's works like a hill at the place where the sample was returned, and sighed softly in resignation: "The result is in front of you, what's the point of lying to yourself." ”

When the volunteers first entered.

The illustrator Verlein felt that something was not quite right.

Even if the sound was not emitted, he could clearly see from the display screen in the observation room that the crowd was staying, gathering, and talking in amazement in front of some easels.

"What's going on?"

So many years in the industry.

Just by looking at the reactions of readers in the bookstore, Villerhine can judge the quality of an illustration.

In his experience,

There are only two possibilities to achieve this situation.

Otherwise, the illustrations are particularly shocking,

Otherwise, in all probability, it's a restrictive illustration.

In European and American physical bookstores and shopping websites, there are restricted erotic sales areas with [R18+] classification.

The illustrator will match it with all kinds of appealing and blood-pumping and hormonal-pumping naked girl illustrations.

Similar to the content taste of the well-known "Fifty Shades of Grey", it can be regarded as a small and fresh style in the [R18+] area classification.

It's like a picture book,

It's a thrill to play.

But this is obviously impossible, and it is one thing for Western illustrators to be more lenient.

But this is a children's fairy tale, if the Scholastic Group dares to put any marginal content, even if it is a tens of billions of groups, it will be directly punished to the end of bankruptcy.

Let's not mention that "The Little Prince" is a very small and fresh fairy tale.

If the detective cat dares to submit any heavy-tasting illustrations, the group will definitely want to touch her down the network cable and hack her to death, and then kick her into the blacklist and never use it.

And if it's the former?

Sensuality tells him that the detective cat may have drawn a great work, but reason doesn't want to believe it.

Verlein thought to himself,

Illustrations with such magical power are all classic illustrations that can go down in the history of publishing.

He himself is already a top painter.

If he really wants to say that after so many years, there is any work that can be regarded as a classic, he really doesn't dare to be arrogant enough to say so.

This cover created for "The Little Prince" is far from this standard.

It was not clear to see through the camera screen, and Vellein couldn't wait for the survey of the volunteers to end and then look at the report submitted by the marketing department.

He said hello directly, ran to the [bookstore] across the wall, picked up a sample book put down by a volunteer who had just come out from the sample return office, and pulled out a Montblanc fountain pen in his collar pocket.

This is a habit in the review of manuscripts in Vellein.

He is not only a well-known artist, but also the owner of the illustration studio in Würlein.

When confronted with the sketches submitted by the studio's young artists and interns, Wehrlein would review the drawings and draw all sorts of mistakes and details with a pen circle for them to correct.

In most cases, inexperienced young artists may have to reverse the draft five or six times before they can barely meet the criteria for submission to the employer.

The sketch is drawn like a spider's web with a dark pen line.

As soon as Verlein saw it, he watched it for twenty minutes.

He didn't even open the cap that rotated between his hands.

Wehrlein's side is a little stupid.

This line, this texture, this color...... The slightly solidified texture of fresh oil paint seems to be able to overflow from the paper at any time.

The Scholastic Group values illustration.

On the one hand, it is reflected in the willingness of the publishing house to pay a high salary to hire well-known illustrators, and on the other hand, it is reflected in the fact that the cover art book completely adopts the printing standard of the art album level of the art museum.

In order to reproduce the slightest change in color as much as possible, the printing cost of professional-grade art albums is very high, and it is necessary to use a special production line for printing art albums.

A set of 500 albums of famous artists produced by the Louvre sells for a few hundred euros in the market, which is a very conscientious price.

If a private person were to find a printing house to print a booklet, it might cost a pound or even a few pounds per page alone, and a small printing house might not have the capacity and equipment to do so.

That is, "The Little Prince" has an expected sales of millions of copies.

Large-scale printing can greatly reduce the cost per book, and this is a fist product that competes with the competitor Thomsensmann Group to compete for market share, and the strategic significance is greater than the profit value, so the Scholastic Group is willing to make such a bloody investment.

Art-level printing is art-level printing.

This cover painting restores the performance of the original painting of the detective cat to a high degree of similarity. Wehrlein can clearly see the slightest color change on the cover.

Perfect

In addition to perfection, it is still perfect.

The colors are full and rich, delicate but not rigid, full of variety.

If it weren't for the representative lines on the painting and the texture of the ridge pressed by the painting knife, Wehrlein would not have believed that there are really people in the world who can use a large open and closed oil painting knife to handle the details so delicately between centimeter-sized square inches.

"Damn, I'm going to compete with someone like that?"

The more he looked at it, the more he doubted life.

If anything, the painting's only drawback may be that it adopts a compositional style similar to that of Saint-Exupéry.

It's not professional.

"It's not right...... either"

Verlein felt that this was a deficiency at first, but as he looked at it, he slowly began to taste the composition.

Before painting, he repeatedly studied the manuscript and the original illustrations of The Little Prince.

His own painting is much more professional than that of Saint-Exupéry, but it also faintly lacks a bit of the Zen of clear spring water.

Verlein thought he was overthinking.

Now, looking at this painting of Detective Cat Lady, he once again finds the same feeling in this illustration as the fairy tale temperament of "The Little Prince".

"The secret is this exaggerated proportional composition?" Verlein licked the corners of his mouth and found the trick.

I lost it completely.

The composition of the other party's picture is stronger than him, and his painting skills and emotions can even be said to be hanging.

Verlein lost and couldn't even be unconvinced.

The painting was so pleasing to the eye that even he looked amazing.

Also an illustrator artist, Vellein can feel the feeling of flowing water when his opponent paints, this kind of freewheeling, wonderful feeling, he feels cool when he thinks about it.

It's just that

Why did I run into such a monster?

“Fuck。”

Verlein scolded aggrievedly and slipped the pen back into his jacket pocket.

……

In the observation room,

"The statistical table and detailed data of the first round at the earliest, when will the marketing department be able to make it." Director Morgan shook his head, and there was no sign of exhaustion on his wrinkled face.

The Group's two Gulfstream business jets have important business receptions during this time, and there is no free time.

Morgan's director flew 10 hours on Virgin Atlantic's intercontinental route to London Heathrow International Airport this morning from Scholastic's headquarters in Los Angeles.

The conditions of the first class and the kneeling service of the flight attendants are also very good,

But the top of the board, who played an important role in the publishing house's post-World War II business expansion, is now very old.

After he came to the observation room, before the volunteers entered, he began to breathe non-stop, looking drowsy.

The scene of the short first round of volunteer testing was like a powerful stimulant, sweeping away the fatigue on the directors' faces.

It was as if a director of Morgan, twenty years younger, had awakened from the old gentleman, with his waist straight and his face as radiant as that of a young man.

The old gentleman was a professional businessman,

He doesn't understand art, but he understands the market very well.

Verlein saw the reaction of the crowd, and the Morgan directors naturally saw it.

In the ups and downs of the business world for so many years, he has released countless famous works, and he has seen more popular scenes.

A signing of Lady Rowling in the later years of Harry Potter, a readers' meeting with a Nobel Prize winner or a sports superstar......

Memoirs for retired presidents and secretaries of state alone have been published, and nine have been published.

But those are all extremely topical and popular works to achieve such a scene.

"The Little Prince" is not a "very popular" book, of course, its sales are very high, but after all, it has been out for more than half a century, and now even the copyright protection period has passed.

The enthusiasm of the volunteers should not be due to the work of Saint-Exupéry, but only to the illustrations.

An illustration can do just that.

Morgan's directors had only seen them before in some of the exhibitions of Andy Warhol, the godfather of Pop, and in the work of illustrator Jane Arnold.

Needless to say, there are many business opportunities for the works of these two.

That's an art giant that can sell a print for 70 million euros. At the auction, the average unit price of Andy Warhol's works is only slightly inferior to Leonardo da Vinci, but there are many paintings.

There are only 7 works by Leonardo da Vinci circulating in the market, how many are Andy Warhol?

Andy Warhol's paintings on the market add up to a higher market capitalization than a business giant like the Scholastic Group.

The most lucrative artist in human history.

The price of tens of billions of dollars for the real thing.

Of course, the amount of an artist's work cannot be added up directly.

Rare is expensive,

If all of Andy Warhol's works were sold by collectors in a short period of time, they would certainly not be able to sell for this price.

But even if it's only a tenth, it's more than a billion dollars.

The detective cat is the third one he has seen in his life.

(End of chapter)