For Christmas, i wrote and illustrated a short board book for my son featuring an outdoor-loving tardigrade encountering a nurikabe.
For those who don't know, a tardigrade or "water bear" is a microscopic animal that lives in wet environments throughout the world. Their resilient little critters, being able to survive complete desiccation, and even high levels of radiation.
A nurikabe (pronounced noo-ree-kah-bay) is a Japanese monster or "yokai" that takes the form of a plaster wall that can expand infinitely in both directions to block a traveler's path. The most famous depiction of a nurikabe is by the manga author Shigeru Mizuki, who drew the creature as a gray square block with arms, legs and sleepy eyes in his manga Gegege no Kitaro. My nurikabe, though, is patterned after an illustration from a scroll by Kanou Tourin depicting various yokai.
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