Don't get me wrong.

Maca still doesn't have a good impression of the detective cat.

If grassroots amateur painters who draw casually on the Internet can attract attention, what else do they need to do with these students of famous art academies who study hard?

The round-faced girl's professional stance is inherently consistent with that of art critics.

At this very moment.

Maca still prefers to believe the original opinion.

From the perspective of profound artistic conception and art philosophy, the work of Detective Cat must be a vulgar work that is difficult to reach the hall of elegance, as evaluated by the shareholders of "Oil Painting".

It just so happened to happen...... The detective cat painted them beautifully.

That's all.

A truly great work of art needs to be as civil and military as War and Peace.

At the same time, he has outstanding techniques and a profound spirit.

Grassroots artists on the Internet can occasionally draw beautiful pictures that make people shine.

However, they generally lack a systematic aesthetic education and a deep understanding of the philosophy of art.

In addition to the beautiful pictures, the deeper artistic connotation is relatively poor.

The problem of detective cats being looked down upon by the bigwigs must be here.

The skin is beautiful, but the spirit is empty.

Detective Cat is just a painter, not a painter.

Maca didn't really think of what an illustration created for a fairy tale should look like in the minds of those art critics in order to be called to have deep artistic depth.

But that was the only plausible guess she could imagine right now.

No matter how unpopular the knife painting is.

After getting this new version of "The Little Prince" in my hands, let Maca say that the illustrations in his hand are amateur works full of technical errors and omissions.

Maca really didn't believe it.

Even though the only good thing about this set of illustrations is that it's beautiful, and it's so beautiful that she really touches the deepest part of her heart.

Detective Cat's colourful brushstrokes resemble layers of hyacinths falling in early autumn on the railroad side outside London.

There is no difference between falling flowers and withering weeds in the crevices of the railroad tracks.

But it's a distracting stare.

is like facing Xiao Lizi's prosperous beauty, do girls really care about the criticism that the American Film Guild once thought that his performance was empty and too violent, and he only relied on his appearance to eat for 20 years.

"Perhaps...... I'll just buy a copy. ”

As Maca stares at the illustration cover of "The Little Prince" for a long time, the villain who agrees with the book gradually has the urge to drown in the water by pressing the head of the villain who disagrees with the book.

It wasn't just Maca who was also moved by the illustrations and changed her mind.

When Maca went to the bathroom, she met the young girl with pink earrings, and the young girl was touching up her makeup in front of the mirror while calling her boyfriend on her mobile phone to talk about the signing party.

Obviously, before entering the door, I told them that the girl who prefers the original illustrations has changed in a short time.

The tone of conversation was full of love for detective cat illustrations.

As she washed her hands, she barely heard the excitement of meeting Charlie Hawke, the translator.

This is still a fan of readers who love the translator Mr. Hawke!

What kind of fan loyalty?

To make matters worse, Maca also met the black student in the crowd in line.

Not only is this shy guy in the bag lining up to buy a book, but he is also holding a hardcover version with more solid materials!

Come on

Spend money to go out and turn left to buy a big pizza to nibble on, it's not fragrant.

"Maca? How did you get here? ”

Kelly walked around the bookstore several times, and finally found her friend in the corner of the huge bookstore.

Goldilocks saw Maca holding a fairy tale book, where she kept her head down and gnawed on her nails.

As friends who lived together in the same dormitory, she could see at a glance the tangled atmosphere that surrounded Maca.

"Look good, I don't lie to you. The artistic level of the detective cat is enough to come to our college as a professor. ”

Kelly crossed her waist with a look of "I told you a long time ago".

Extraordinarily proud.

"Cut, basically all professors in our school have a doctorate, and they have to be a top-ranked art academy, and she is not qualified as an online painter. And...... Our school does not have such an elective course as knife drawing. ”

Maca pouts.

"Then you don't like it?" Kelly didn't believe it.

"Hmph, he's lucky to draw it this time. Sister, I talk about it one by one, although I don't like her, but this book is not so bad. The students of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts are too naïve to look at this kind of illustration, and it is not a big problem to show it to children. To be clear, I'm not buying it for myself, I'm just preparing an Easter present. ”

Maca took the book and walked to the cash register.

"Dead ducks have hard mouths."

Kelly smiled and poked her best friend's waist.

"What are you smiling at this little girl. The water that spilled out of the words, girl, I'm not the kind of person who loses a bet and doesn't recognize it, I've done all the tailor work this semester. ”

Maca didn't lose the battle, so she took out her mobile phone in front of Kelly and dialed her boyfriend's phone number directly.

"Hey, dear. We've made an appointment to go fishing in the Scottish Highlands next weekend, right...... I'm fine, you can book two rooms at the hotel over there, that's all...... I'm not angry, it's not that you made a mistake. I'll explain it to you in the evening...... Don't talk nonsense, don't you say you love me, what's wrong if you don't sleep together. If you book more, you can book more......"

Maca didn't bother to pay attention to the inexplicable and incredulous boyfriend's shouting on the other end of the phone, and directly issued the verdict: "It's not a weekend, I won't be intimate with you for the whole next month, what?" Is the old lady willing? ”

"Detective Cat is really interesting this time, but don't blame me for hitting you, Kelly, Oil Painting magazine has already sentenced her to death for her career, and she won't have a good future."

Maca glanced at Kelly.

"I don't see it that way. Illustrations can be liked by the audience, which is the hardest truth in the world. I think the shareholders of "Oil Painting" may have to make a big mistake this time. ”

Kelly smiled and spread her hands.

"Time will tell."

When Maca walked through the shelves in front of the cash register at the door with "The Little Prince" to line up, she suddenly stopped.

Damn it

Since I bought it, I bought it.

Or—

Changing to a hardcover version, it will be more than a dozen pounds more expensive anyway.

Uh, maybe...... Why don't you just buy a set of "The Little Prince" collection gift box in one step?

"Hello Miss, a collection of gift boxes, you spent a total of £96.99, are you a member of Waterstone Bookstore...... Apple Wallet is still PayPal, do I need to use cash coupons......

20 minutes later.

Maca and Kelly appeared in front of the cash register with a dark collector's edition solid wood gift box.

The teller at the cash register saw this kind of big customer, and the smile on his face was a little brighter.

Priced from £60 to hundreds of pounds, the Collector's Box is a gift produced for hardcore readers.

The Scholastic Group's gift box includes a hardcover copy of the Little Prince, a little prince's figure, a special illustration book and an illustrated postcard.

The UK is priced at £96.99.

Buying this thing for a hundred pounds sounds like a bit of a leek cut with a high profit margin.

The realm that can be placed in the collector's box is not considered a black heart.

It's hard to buy fans like it.

Dungeons & Dragons and other board game collector's boxes sell for thousands of pounds.

Activision Blizzard's Diablo 4 Game Collector's Gift Box Set, which was released at the same time as The Little Prince, is also priced similarly.

There is not even the main body in it, and players need to spend dozens of pounds more to buy the game, and tens of thousands of units are still sold.

"Anyway, I guess it's hard to buy detective cat paintings in the future, so I should be kind this time."

Maca didn't wait for Kelly to tease herself, so she spoke up in advance.

The more she looked at the cover of the illustration of the Little Prince on the sand dunes sprayed on the lid of the solid wood gift box, the more she looked at it.

"It's really beautiful!"

Maca put the gift box into her shopping bag and glanced up at Goldilocks, "Kelly, you still have to wait until the signing session is over and take the poster, right?" ”

"Yes, the signing is expected to end at 5 p.m. at the latest. There were so many people here, I went to Starbucks across the street to drink a latte and wait, and I could read the whole book of The Little Prince during this time."

Kelly nodded: "If you are in a hurry, you can also go back to school first." ”

"Forget it, at this point now, I won't be able to catch up with the handsome guys on the catwalk when I go back. On a trip to Oxford Street, I happened to go to the mall next door. ”

Maca glanced at her watch.

"We met at 4:55 p.m. in front of the bookstore, and the signing should be almost over."

——

At dusk,

When Maca found her best friend in front of the Waterstone Bookstore again, she was already carrying all kinds of shopping bags in her hand.

Perfume, eye cream, lipstick, heels......

The parents of students who can learn art in this era are most likely to have little family resources.

The credit card limit held by Maca is not low, plus the entanglement and unhappiness of losing the bet today.

Naturally, she brushed and bought and bought for an afternoon.

When I couldn't get any more purchases, I sent a message to Kelly and wandered back to the Waterstone Bookstore on the east side of the shopping street.

Normally.

The most popular time for the book signing is when you have just entered the market.

Most die-hard fans who really want to meet the author and translator will line up in advance. If you enter early, you can also listen to the creator's presentation, speak and exchange questions.

If you come late, it's just a matter of buying autographed books.

Therefore, the signing sessions in the UK are rarely held in the morning and afternoon, and most of them are only half a day, or last two or three hours.

Except that the author needs to rest.

And because you can sell 70% of the book signing in the first hour, the traffic will become less and less after that.

Towards the end of the day, often the author wants to continue signing autographs, and there is no one left in the bookstore.

"Harry Potter", the royal family gossip autobiography of the prince and Meghan, and "Spare Tire", which has been hotly discussed by the whole people, have sold more than one million on the first day, and can be signed from beginning to end.

However, in the newspaper news photos, this kind of book promotion and signing meeting, the queue at the door can be discharged for two miles, and the real crowd of people is noisy.

When Maca and Kelly saw that when they opened today, there was also a lot of people in front of the Waterstone Bookstore, which was a lot in an ordinary sense.

Compared with the sheer number of readers of the top-of-the-line fire books that require ambulances and medical emergency teams to be on the scene to prevent fainting and stampede accidents, they can't even match the absolute number of readers.

The queue at the front door before entering was less than one-tenth as long.

Maca estimated that when she returned, there should have been no one in front of the Waterstone Bookstore.

Mr. Charlie Hawke is ready to leave.

But there are exceptions to everything.

When the line in front of the Shuishi Bookstore not only did not get shorter in the slightest, but the line that looked like it was about the same length as the beginning appeared in her sight.

Maca's mouth grew in shock.

The pile of shopping bags hanging from his arms almost fell to the ground.

"Holy moly!"

Maca placed her shopping bag on the white pedal in front of the Starbucks store and pointed to the crowd of people who were still struggling to stand in line in front of the bookstore at dinner time.

"All these people are here to buy fairy tale books from The Little Prince."

She said incredulously.

"I'm just as surprised as you are. Hungry? ”

Kelly pushed a plate of blue plum pancakes with more than half of them left to Maca's side, and motioned for the other party to wait: "Eat something, look at this situation, I think this signing meeting will take a while before it ends." ”

"Even if the public opinion on the Internet is very hot, the translator Mr. Hawke has a lot of appeal, which is still a bit too exaggerated."

Maca sat in a chair and stuffed a piece of bee candy-dipped pancake into her mouth, chewing on her phone as she went.

She took a picture of the crowd in front of the bookstore across the street, and in the process of choosing a perspective, she inadvertently pulled a large shopping bag on the table and the fairy tale book that Kelly had placed on the table into the camera frame.

Then she edited a short Twitter post - [I was pulled by my best friend Kelly to participate in the signing of "The Little Prince". It's hard to understand that there are still so many people in line at 5 p.m. 】

"The one illustrated by the detective cat in The Little Prince? The heat is so high! ”

"I bought the Saint Laurent Platinum Mirror Special Floral Perfume, I got 180 pounds, envy. In addition, the new version of "The Little Prince" on the table is much more beautiful than I imagined. It doesn't seem to be as bad as it says online. ”

"It's hard to say, I can't see the pictures on my mobile phone clearly, I'll go to your and Kelly's dormitory when I go back to school."

"Are you sure this photo was taken now, it's all at this point, are there still so many people queuing up in the bookstore before?"

“……”

As the number of viewers below the tweet increased, alumni began to like and comment.

Maca watched this scene with a smile.

According to this trend, it is estimated that it will not be long before this tweet will become her tweet with the highest number of likes and retweets in recent times.

Kelly has carefully admired all the illustrations of "The Little Prince" in the past few hours, and she is very satisfied.

Especially the separate illustration book in the Collector's Edition box.

Each page can be framed separately and hung on the bedroom wall.

Goldilocks also saw Maca's new tweet, and knew that the other party's main purpose was to ask Versailles for a new cosmetic purchase, but she still thought about it and said, "The reason for the poster." ”

"What?"

"I mean, there are still so many people queuing in front of the Waterstone Bookstore, and it's probably because of the illustration posters on the promotional stand outside the store."

Kelly took a sip of her coffee.

The visitors were all drawn to the illustrations – even if it sounded incredible, it was the most likely answer she could think of.

Goldilocks had been sitting in front of the coffee shop across from her for hours.

Everything that happened in the bookstore happened right under her nose.

When she first came out with her shopping bag, there was a real trend of fewer readers.

But there are always new visitors entering the door of the bookstore.

There are people leaving, and people coming.

After a while, there seems to be a harmonious balance between the number of visitors entering the door and the number of customers leaving the store.

The shop is not too crowded, but under the control of the staff, there is always a queue at the door.

In Kelly's observation, the readers who are still waiting at the door at this time may not be the same kind of readers at all as they were when they attended Dean Hawke's lecture.

These people are more like the international student who accidentally walked into the bookstore to join in the fun.

Easter is an important holiday in the British Isles after Christmas.

As the Easter holidays approach, Oxford Street sees more than 200,000 visitors a day.

Dense crowds walk past the bookstore all the time, and almost every clock is attracted by the beautiful posters at the door.

In the Bible story, the gods destroyed the Tower of Babel, and since then there has been a language barrier in the world. The people of the continent are divided by different scripts, nationalities and accents, and there is no longer a single world language that can connect the hearts of all people.

Then he probably neglected the way of painting.

When beauty is sublimated to a certain concentration, visual art can moisten everyone's heart without any prerequisites and cultural accumulation.

The crowd waiting in front of the bookstore now should be just tourists who have come to shop.

Visitors may never know that a book signing is going to be held here, they don't care about the public opinion on the Internet, they haven't heard of Charlie Hawke and the detective cat, and even Saint-Exupéry and "The Little Prince" are completely unfamiliar.

Such talents are the majority of the world.

Probably when they got up this morning and sat down at the table for breakfast cereal, they never imagined that sometime in the afternoon, they would go into the bookstore and buy a fairy tale book.

That's what shopping was meant to be.

During a leisurely stroll, discover the items that make your heart flutter and buy them.

It's just that in most cases, the products that people are happy to wear in fanny packs may be the clothes worn by models in the windows, the flying cakes that smell of baked flour in India, or the floral bottles of perfume in the Yves Saint Laurent experience store.

Buying books at physical bookstores...... This option is a bit old-school and out of date.

People are beginning to like e-reading rather than pages with the scent of ink and pulp.

Gone are the days when everyone on the street had a pocket book in their bag, and Waterstone, which has a good relationship with the Scholastic Group, has become the world's largest financial physical bookseller, and its share of annual shipments is also declining year by year, and it even needs to rely on selling coffee to save money.

Today.

A shocking illustrated poster successfully moved the gears of half a century of history forward, awakening the impulse of countless people to pick up a physical book that they had not had for a long time.

In principle, the illustrated poster in front of Waterstone is no different from the photo of global brand ambassador and sports superstar Son Heung-min on the sign of the Burberry store next door.

The only difference is that at the moment, the illustration of the detective cat is more seductive than the bright smile of the Premier League Golden Boot.

And buying a book will not be like buying a Burberry dark trench coat, which requires ordinary people to eat soil for half a year.

People's eyes swept over—

stare

Stop

Exciting.

……

In the bookstore, Dean Hawke was covered in a hot sweat.

After sucking up the ink from the ink bottle, the old gentleman twisted the pen, wiped off a few traces of carbon ink on the nib of the 17-karat rose gold pen with a facial tissue, and signed the letters of the surname "HAWK" under the title page of the book in a specially designed font.

Cool!

Dean Hawke felt the tingling and crispy soreness coming from his fingers and wrist bones, but his whole spirit was still highly excited.

The book signing is the premiere of the book seller.

Looking at the crowd in the bookstore, everyone's face has a glint of longing in their eyes, and everyone sings your name and praises your achievements.

Any writer will be suffocated with joy at this sense of accomplishment.

Translation is called the secondary creation of books, and in the process of localizing foreign masterpieces, the translator is definitely the most crucial person.

Charlie Hawk is the Dean of the School of English Letters at the University of Oxford, one of the top three translators in England, and has translated countless world classics, as well as a polyphonic book "The Broken Random World".

It's just that whether it's a translation or a personal creation, Hawke's direction of writing is biased towards traditional serious literature with an average age of 35 years or more.

Often "Game of Thrones", "The Lord of the Rings", "Twilight" and other popular fantasy book signings can only have hot scenes.

Dean Hawke was also meeting it for the first time.

"I had so many fans. The literary taste of the local readers in London seems to have risen a lot over the years! ”

The old gentleman was pleasantly surprised and handed back the book in his hand to the aunt in front of him, and while feeling happy, he casually thanked: "Thank you for participating in my signing meeting." ”

"Uh-huh, the illustrations for this set of books are really beautiful."

The aunt also gave a thumbs up to Dean Oxford.

Belch.

The corners of Dean Hawke's mouth twitched slightly.

This is not the first time that the old gentleman has heard this praise, and he even met a reader who asked the staff if he could find the illustration to sign it.

The illustrations are beautiful, Hawke surely admits it.

Many of Saint-Exupéry's storylines are inseparable from illustrations.

When the old gentleman learned from the publishing house that he couldn't get the stick figure illustrations of the original work this time, he needed to be backyard.

Hawke still has a lot of worries, whether the illustrator can understand the artistic conception of "The Little Prince" this time, and whether he will support himself.

Fortunately, the detective cat should have a deeper understanding of the plot of "The Little Prince" itself.

When he first saw this set of illustrations, he was also amazed by the expressiveness of the pictures.

But what is the point of the book?

It's his delicate and timeless writing.

At the book signings, I always heard praise for the illustrations, and Mr. Hawke felt a little sour in his heart.

It just so happened that a staff member walked by with a large basket of recycled readers' purchase intentions for the book signing.

Dean Hawke paused his signature and beckoned to the staff.

The two hundred and sixty chapters that were released before are in front of the single chapter prompt.

(End of chapter)