Originally a speech given to the graduating students of the Rhode Island School of Design, Make Trouble is an illustrated manifesto from the filmmaker and pop culture icon John Waters.
...a commencement address I consumed with joy, will likely read again and would be happy to give to young people — especially brooding, complicated young people. (Yes, you.) Its pleasures are enhanced by playful typography and droll, sketchy illustrations by Eric Hanson ... Like Hairspray, Make Trouble fulfills its genre expectations while also gloriously subverting them.
Eric Hanson's crude line drawings, paired with Waters's unconventional advice—'design clothes so hideous they can't be worn ironically'—provide a brief but insightful glimpse into Waters's mind in an easily digestible package ... Hanson's black-and-white illustrations look like they could've been scrawled by Waters himself in the margins of his speech...In all cases, there's a sense of manic creation, and an unfinished quality to each drawing that underscores the conceit of the book—the artistic guidelines are in place, and it's time for the reader to take it from there.
In the style of little gift books, it uses an unconventional layout, contrasting design elements and artist Eric Hanson’s sketchy pen and ink illustrations to flesh out what is—while thoughtful, funny, and well-composed—still a just a speech ... It’s all very witty, but most importantly, makes explicit the fundamentally hopeful and uplifting spirit of a director whose positivity has previously been channeled through less obvious methods...But for all that, Make Trouble is still a slight little thing.
