Adam Rex

One of My Favorites From COLD CEREAL

2012-01-24T12:44:00.002-05:00

WARNING: Mild Spoilers Ahead

And Now a Word From Our Sponsor

2012-01-21T15:10:00.001-05:00

(Our sponsor being my new novel, Cold Cereal, available in February)

COLD CEREAL EXCERPT

2012-01-16T13:16:00.001-05:00

Finally they reached Manhattan, and then the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and then a spot outside some Port Authority restrooms, where Ms. Egami asked if anyone had to go and Scott raised his hand so energetically he heard his back crack.

He rushed into a narrow stall and was punched in the nose by the smell. The toilet showed signs of having been visited by either a very large man or a very small horse, but Scott didn’t feel he had the time to be picky. He spun out enough toilet paper to vandalize a house and carefully cleaned the seat.

Dizzy, he nearly dropped his backpack to the floor, then got a closer look at the floor. Instead he looped it over a hook on the stall door and then a great vinegar wave crashed over him and his knees gave and he gripped the seat and sputtered his breakfast into the bowl.

A minute later he flushed and turned.

Afterward, he’d realize he didn’t think about it at all—when he saw the hand appear over the top of the door and reach for his bag, Scott lunged forward and seized it at the wrist. The tiny wrist, attached to the tiny hand on an arm like a doll’s. A real ugly doll made from dried fruit and old footballs.

The hand squirmed. Scott looked down beneath the stall door for the thief’s feet. There were no feet. Scott considered his options, and so did the thief.

“Well now, son,” said the thief in a voice that was both high and coarse, like a kazoo. There was something a little foreign about it too. Australian, maybe, or Irish? “It seems you’ve got me. So wha’ d’yeh suppose you’ll do with me?”

Still holding the tiny wrist, Scott unlatched the door and opened it just enough to poke his head around. It was a tiny man, this man who was trying to take Scott’s bag. He couldn’t have been more than two feet tall, with a miniature red tracksuit and his arm hooked over the top of the stall door. His tiny old-man face was pug nosed and underbitten like some overbred kind of dog, and it seemed puckered with sadness. Not to mention oddly familiar. If it wasn’t for this familiarity, and for the feel of the man’s arm in his hand, Scott would have mistaken him for another aura.

“Yeh don’ happen to have somethin’ to eat, do yeh, lad?” the little man asked. “I’d be in your debt. ’Tis always a blessing to have one o’ the Good Folk in your debt.”

Scott glanced around the restroom. Men and boys were coming and going, but none were paying any attention to what he considered to be a fairly unusual tiny-man-hanging-on-a-toilet-door situation. That’s New Yorkers for you, he supposed.

“Except when it’s not a blessing, yeh know,” the thief continued. “Speakin’ fair, the blessings o’ the Good Folk can be worse than the curses.”

“You could have just asked in the first place,” Scott muttered. “You didn’t have to try and steal my bag.”

“Asking is begging. Pitiful. Want to punch myself in the eye for even tryin’ it. Stealin’ is good, honest work,” said the thief, puffing out his chest.

“Well, not honest, strictly speaking,” he admitted, after a moment. “Or actually good.”

They were interrupted by Denton Peters, who barged through the men’s room door, shouting Scott’s name like it was a swear word.

“I’m right here,” said Scott.

“Ms. Egami wants to know what’s taking so long,” said Denton. “You got the squirts? Should I tell her you have a bad case of the squirts?”

“No! I’m just . . . this guy was trying to steal my backpack.”

“Yeah? And you’re scared he’s gonna come back?”

Scott gaped at Denton.

“Need yeh to let me go now, son,” the thief said to Scott.

“Are you telling me you can’t see the . . . little . . . guy hanging here?” Scott asked Denton.

Denton frowned in the little man’s general direction, and then Scott thought he saw a flash of recognition on the boy’s face. He’d seen something. Denton Peters squinted, titled his head, crossed his eyes like he was trying to cope with an optical illusion.

“I can . . . sorta see,” he whispered.

“Just sorta?”

“He’s like a mirage.”

What Denton Peters saw next was a sort of prismatic blur, and then Scott jerked back his arm, yelping with pain. Scott pushed past him and scowled into the distance.

Denton followed his gaze to the men’s room door.

“Uh . . . what just happened?”

Scott unhooked his backpack. “Your mirage bit my hand.”

Oh Huck! seemed like kind of a lousy musical, but Scott supposed he might have been in the wrong mood.

His migraine vanished shortly after leaving the bus terminal, but on the way to the theater Denton staunchly denied having seen anything unusual in the men’s room apart from the new kid hiding from imaginary elves. Denton had by this time already forgotten Scott’s name, however, and most of the other kids didn’t know who he was talking about, and Scott had hidden behind Carla Owens until it all blew over.

Scott was quiet as they returned to the bus terminal through the toy store dazzle of Times Square.

“I just don’t think they should have made the raft a separate character,” said Emily.

“Riff-Raft?” said Erno. “But she’s the narrator. She told you what was going on.”

“Mark Twain didn’t need a talking raft in the book. Or a rapping scarecrow.”

“Scott, tell my sister that everything doesn’t have to be exactly like the precious book.”

Scott started. “What?”

“You’re still upset,” Emily told him. “About Denton teasing you.”

“No. No, I’m fine.”

“Forget about it,” said Erno. “Everyone else has.”

The thing is, they probably had. Scott was nothing if not forgettable.

Back at the Port Authority there was some sort of situation. Two flashing police cruisers were up on the sidewalk in front of the entrance, grille to grille. A crowd had formed, and three uniformed officers attempted to push back these people with outstretched arms and patently false claims that there was nothing to see. Another officer, on horseback, paced the street. And in the center of it all, two more policemen squared off against each other like big dogs.

“Let’s not do this here, man,” one of these officers was saying in soothing tones. “We can talk about it at the station.”

The other man took a step back, took a step forward, his boyish face tangled with fear and anger. “We’ll go back to the station when you admit I’ve apprehended a suspect!” he said, pointing to the backseat of one of the cop cars. “This is not cool, guys! I know I’m the rookie and all, but—”

“Not in front of the juveniles,” said the first officer, glancing at Scott’s class.

“We’re not juveniles,” Erno muttered.

“It just means kids,” said Emily. “Nothing bad.”

An electronic red news crawl on an adjoining building declared the dow down and reggie dwight punches queen and then police disruption at port authority bus terminal. It flashed like a marquee for the weird bit of drama playing out in front of them.

Scott craned his neck to look at the rookie’s car. There was someone in the backseat, but the suspect was very small. Smaller than a toddler. He wondered. . . .

If Scott Doe had a talent, it was his ability to walk about unnoticed. When not actually calling attention to himself in bus station bathrooms or by defending his indefensible given name, he was one of those kids who could practically disappear in a crowded room. Inconspicuous. Unremarkable. It had always been that way.

So now when Scott shuffled away from his class and approached the police car, Ms. Egami did not notice. Even Erno and Emily didn’t notice, transfixed as they were by the police and the strobing lights. Scott stepped up to the cruiser on the street side, away from the cops, and looked in the rear window.

It was the little man again. He was slumped in the backseat, his round fists ringed by silver handcuffs like tiny planets. He could have just slipped them free if he wanted to. Apparently he didn’t want to.

“Look, Pete . . . ,” the cop was telling the rookie. “We need to get you some help. There is no one in back of your squad car. There is nothing but a pair of empty cuffs.”

“Fight!” Denton Peters suggested from the sideline, and Ms. Egami tried to shush him. “Shoot something!”

The window was open a crack. The little man sniffed and looked up at Scott.

“Oh. ’S you. Come to gloat?”

“I can see you,” Scott said quietly into the gap, “and that policeman can see you, but nobody else can.”

“You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes, yeh are. Quick now an’ offer your services to those coppers! They could use a brilliant mind like yours.”

“Why can I see you? Am I crazy?” Scott asked, worried suddenly that his headaches were the sign of something else, something festering in his brain.

The little man studied him for a second. “Set me free, and I’ll explain everythin’.”

Scott looked again at the handcuffs, so large against the man’s wrists that they looked like a practical joke. “Why can’t you—”

“It’s complicated.”

“Were you stealing again? Is that what happened?”

“What else am I to do? Work for a livin’? Make shoes?”

Scott breathed, and tested the door. He expected a police car to be locked, but it wasn’t.

“Hey,” one of the police officers said just then. “Hey, your door is open.”

Scott ducked down, and the little man scootched to the edge of the car seat, rattling his handcuffs.

“Quickly!”

Scott pulled them off, easy as anything. And that’s when the little man leaped up onto his shoulder, ran down the length of his back, and was away.

“Hey!” said Scott. “Come back!”

The small red tracksuit slipped into the street, dodging traffic. Then the clop of hooves, and the mounted policeman was towering over Scott, her horse snorting thick, furious clouds.

The officer was shouting. Scott cowered. It might have gone badly for him had the horse not chosen just then to turn into a unicorn, and throw its rider, and turn back into a horse again.

The policewoman landed on the pavement, hard. Scott ducked and dashed back to meet his class as the other officers rushed to her aid.

“There you are,” said Erno when Scott turned up beside him, panting. “Did you see that horse rear back like that?”

Scott goggled—at the flashing squad cars, the Keystone cops, the plain brown horse mincing about. Just a horse.

“I’m having kind of a weird day,” said Scott.

AH ha ha ha! Now I have ALL THE GIRAFFES!

2012-01-15T14:03:00.001-05:00

It's Like Looking In a Dead Pottery Mirror

2012-01-12T13:52:00.002-05:00

Tucson artist Vicki Lazaro made a raku ware calavera mask of me in exchange for a visit to her son's school. I do not, to be clear, usually make out this well on school visits.

An Open Letter to the Mother Who Thinks One of My Monster Poems is Inappropriate for Children

2012-01-10T20:03:00.000-05:00

(I received an email from the mother in question a few days ago. She was kind enough to tell me she and her 8-year-old liked my book Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, but that the whole family was shocked and disappointed by the opening line from the mummy poem. The opening lines are: "There's a place in France where the naked ladies dance./ But when King Tut died, he wore bandages for pants." What follows is my response to her email.)

Letters like yours are always distressing. It's never been my intention to offend parents or introduce children to any material I believe is inappropriate to their age. Of course there will always be spirited disagreement about just what is appropriate for children and what is not, and so here we are.

Why did I include the bit about the naked ladies in my poem? It was my intent with the mummy poem to craft something that would be understood to be read to a particular tune, in much the same way as the Phantom poems are in the same volume. When we take a cartoonish view of ancient Egypt we often think of a song that's familiar to nearly all Americans, even if most of us are unfamiliar with its actual title and history: "The Streets of Cairo, or The Poor Little Country Maid."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Streets_of_Cairo,_or_the_Poor_Little_Country_Maid

Of course, children everywhere have been singing this song to one another for decades with the schoolyard lyrics, "There's a place in France where the naked ladies dance, there's a hole in the wall where the boys can see it all," etc. I can't know if your son was familiar with this, of course. Maybe you weren't either, though I certainly knew it thirty years ago, when I was eight. My wife tells me that she sang it as a little girl as well.

Regardless, my early drafts of the mummy poem didn't contain that line about the naked ladies. But I discovered that readers were not intuitively realizing that they should be reading it to the "Streets of Cairo" tune, so I rewrote it with that first line from the playground standard.

I respectfully disagree that the line is inappropriate for school-aged kids, but I don't expect to change your mind. I take no pleasure, anyway, from learning that it bothered your son. But I hope you understand that I had an editor on this book, and that editor had a boss, and that boss had a boss. Likewise the publisher had a sales and marketing team that shared the book with hundreds of teachers and librarians before its publication. The poem was published as is because none of these people voiced any objections. Indeed, the book has been available for over five years, and this is the first objection to it I've received.

None of this means you're wrong, of course. You're certainly not wrong about the care and raising of your own son. But I want you to understand that there was nothing careless or cavalier about the years-long process of writing and producing Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. I hope you'll continue to enjoy it with your son, and to paperclip together the pages of the mummy poem until you return it to your library.

Best Wishes,

Adam

J.Lo, Painted

2012-01-09T15:46:00.002-05:00

Recent painting of that recent drawing of J.Lo I posted earlier.

The Review I've Been Waiting For

2012-01-09T13:52:00.002-05:00

I mean, Kirkus gave Cold Cereal a star and everything, but Your Neighborhood Librarian at the blog Pink Me gets me:

http://pinkme.typepad.com/pink-me/2012/01/cold-cereal-by-adam-rex-review.html

Oh Yeah, I Have a Blog.

2012-01-05T13:01:00.003-05:00

So here's a recent drawing of J.Lo from The True Meaning of Smekday.

Perfectum Muralis

2011-12-10T20:11:00.001-05:00

Finished.

Previous work in progress post here.

Horn Book Review of Cold Cereal

2011-11-30T12:56:00.001-05:00

Another nice review of my forthcoming novel Cold Cereal came to my inbox today. From the Horn Book:

"Rex takes his time mounting his preposterous edifice of a plot, but reader interest and suspension of disbelief never flag in this humorous, consistently entertaining, well-spun yarn."

Preposterous edifice of a plot. That sounds about right.

Here's another illustration from CC. Regular visitors to my blog will be able to discern all the important plot points from these images, and will have no need to read the book.

Star for Cold Cereal

2011-11-21T15:00:00.001-05:00

I craved little gold stars when I was a kid, and apparently not much has changed. Kirkus reviews recently gave a starred review to my next novel, Cold Cereal (coming Feb. 7th), and if they saw fit to send me an actual star in the mail I'd stick it right on my Trapper Keeper.

Kirkus said that

The author tucks in portrait illustrations and hilariously odd TV-commercial storyboards, along with a hooded Secret Society, figures from Arthurian legend, magical spells and potions, a certain amount of violence, many wonderful throwaway lines (“Yeh may have a tarnished glamour about yeh, sure. Like a celebrity’s daughter.”) and tests of character with often surprising outcomes.

I think their classification of the pictures in Cold Cereal as "portrait illustrations" may have something to do with the character of those few images that were actually on display in the Advance Reader Edition. I'm afraid most of the illustrations were missing then. But I got the picture above done in time to include it. From the book:

He steered toward the local park, down the storm drain shortcut he’d discovered yesterday, dodging broken glass and a man with a rabbit head, up the embankment, toward the gap in the fence and was that a man with a rabbit head? Scott braked hard, grinding a black snaking skid behind him. The rabbit-man stopped, too, and looked back. Its tweed pants and white dress shirt were creased and dirty. Its necktie was askew. Its rabbit head was a rabbit head.

And, by way of signing off, here's a picture of two men dressed as a unicorn.

Mural!

2011-11-07T21:11:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I started on a mural overlooking our pool, based on an illustration from BILLY TWITTERS AND HIS BLUE WHALE PROBLEM. An illustration that is available as a t-shirt design in the Zazzle sidebar on this blog. (cough)

Here's the wall "before." The pool didn't actually have to be green to get this process started, but I found the brackish smell and the heady vapors of a hundred dollars worth of algaecide put me in the seafaring mood.

My wife, seen here, had an idea that may seem like old hat to regular mural-painters, but which I found ingenious: tape the design up in sixty or so pieces, then take one piece down at a time and reproduce it in paint underneath. That way I can look at the enlarged design on paper in my hand, and the surrounding paper pieces will guide my lines and ensure everything connects. Like those grid-drawings everyone did when they were younger.

This is as far as I got in one afternoon. Should take another to finish up–I'll post the whole wall when it's done.

The Fraternal Order of Fingerhats

2011-10-31T17:00:00.003-04:00

Shared by Heather Alexander of Dial Books.

Halloween Costume WIP

2011-10-28T16:39:00.000-04:00

More Brixton Brother Art

2011-10-11T19:13:00.004-04:00

This one was tricky. The original sketch for it looked terrible, 'cause I hadn't any photo reference for it. If I can find it I'll post it later. The photo reference is fun in and of itself–me in a fluffy bathrobe lying prone of a chaise in the backyard.

Anyway, the question of why Steve Brixton is in a bathrobe atop a moving train is best answered by reading the book, WHICH IS AVAILABLE NOW.

UPDATE: Due to popular demand (2 comments), here's my first attempt at a sketch, with no reference at all. I think this got approved, but I'd always promised to fix the dodgy drawing after shooting some photo reference.

Lacking a train and a 12-year-old boy, I put on my wife's robe (it actually has "Dr. Rex" stitched on the front–very hot) and lounged on a chaise.

Additional Fingerhat Update

2011-10-04T21:47:00.001-04:00

From Brooke Boynton Hughes:

New Brixton Bros. Releases Tomorrow

2011-10-03T21:04:00.003-04:00

October 4th is the official release date for Mac Barnett's Brixton Brothers #3: It Happened on a Train. So here's another look at one of my interior illustrations–a masked goon and potential car thief.

The sketch:

And the finished illustration:

IMPORTANT FINGERHAT UPDATE

2011-09-29T15:23:00.004-04:00

My agent apparently couldn't resist yesterday's little cut-paper activity, and can be seen here attempting to open negotiations with the leader of the Cat Planet.

If anyone else sends me fingerhat pictures they're going right up here.

FINGERHATS!

2011-09-28T15:28:00.004-04:00

Previously I posted an illustration of Abraham Lincoln fighting an octopus on the moon that ran in an installment of the syndicated newspaper feature, THE GOODS. (Follow that link and scroll down to read one commenter's critique of President Lincoln and tacit approval of slavery as "peaceful." It's a stitch!)

Anyhoo, here's a more recent issue of THE GOODS showcasing, among other things, fine finger haberdashery. And also Lincoln again. Because I only have five or six separate ideas in my head.

Auction!

2011-09-12T15:02:00.003-04:00

A piece of original SMEKDAY art is being auctioned off for Banned Books Week: http://myworld.ebay.com/abffe

Only $10.50 right now!

Vacation

2011-08-25T01:45:00.003-04:00

Vacation means you get to draw the Hulk in your sketchbook while the plane is landing into the Anchorage airport and no one can tell you, “Get back to painting panda bears.”

I know that doesn’t sound like much of a distinction but it meant a lot to me at the time.

(Disposable Bic pen and green Sharpie)

I’m in Alaska. My wife and I are taking a cruise with my parents, and right now we’re in the midst of a land tour. Today we passed through Wasilla and saw Sarah Palin’s old house. It’s a Lincoln-Loggy sort of place and not really the castle of frozen tears I was expecting.

Here’s an impromptu drawing of my mom, for which she will probably not be terribly grateful.

My mom is encouraged to remember that this was drawn in pen on a rattling motor-coach and that I was very tired.

This just in: My Artwork is Still Fine.

2011-08-10T15:53:00.003-04:00

From the Kirkus review of IT HAPPENED ON A TRAIN:

Kid gumshoe Steve Brixton (who actually doesn’t have a brother, he just picked the name because it mirrors his beloved Bailey Brothers detective stories) has, at the ripe old age of 12, retired from the detecting game. He became disenchanted upon discovering, during his last adventure (Ghostwriter Secret, 2010), that the author of those inspiring books was actually a criminal mastermind. So Steve’s given up his agency, and now his best chum Dana is spending entirely too much time with Other Dana, his girlfriend. Little does Steve know that signing up for the Model U.N. with Dana and Other Dana will place him on a train rocketing toward detecting destiny! When meeting a mysterious young lady onboard gets Steve invited into the mysterious last car on the Sunset Coastliner, Steve and Dana (but not Other Dana) find themselves invited to protect Mr. Vanderdraak’s new, vintage motor car from serial car thieves! Can Steve solve the case? More importantly, can he go more than five minutes without getting trapped somewhere? Barnett’s sly and often silly Hardy Boy parody chugs along with plenty of laughs and enough honest-to-gosh mystery to please any lover of boy detective fiction. Rex’s black-and-white pencils (which also parody the Hardy tales) are still a fine match for the goofiness.

Here's one of those "pencils" which continues to be perfectly adequate:

This is actually, of course, a pretty nice review from a notoriously demanding publication. Happiness just isn't as much fun to blog about.

All Will Be Revealed.

2011-07-25T12:16:00.003-04:00

I was recently emailed two questions by a reader of my picture book, TREE RING CIRCUS. I present these below, with their answers, as a service to other readers who may have similar concerns.

1. When the tree first appears it is MISSING! A branch. How did the branch get cut off before the tree appeared?
2. After we first see the chicken he is not in the tree. He is in the next view of the tree. Where was he?

The missing branch was removed between the pages by pirates who all needed new legs. Some people tell me that if you look very closely you can see the pirates but I think these people are lying.

The chicken is obviously also hanging out with the pirates.

Also, chickens are girls.

Further questions can be directed to adamrex(at)earthlink(dot)net.

Get Antsy When I Haven't Posted Any Art in a While.

2011-07-23T22:53:00.001-04:00

So here's some. A preview image from my next novel, COLD CEREAL.

Rescued a Some Kind of Scarab Beetle Out of My Pool Today.

2011-07-20T16:42:00.001-04:00

Surely now Lord Anubis will let me into the afterlife.

And People Wonder Why I Don't Read My Reviews...

2011-07-14T19:48:00.003-04:00

Behold the first masterpiece of Amazon customer criticism. Then go ahead and order the book she feels so strongly about, WILDWOOD by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis. Maybe from your favorite indie bookshop?

There Was a Lot of Pepper Dust in the Air...

2011-07-14T15:14:00.003-04:00

Slightly dodgy photo of first finished spread from forthcoming picture book with Neil Gaiman. Click to enlarge.

I Suppose if the Chinese Don't Publish It, It'll Be Because of My Disrespectful Painting Style.

2011-07-01T13:31:00.005-04:00

From an interview with Neil Gaiman:

The last time I was in China, I was very puzzled because none of my children’s picture books are in print in Mainland China. They’re in print in Hong Kong and in Taiwan, in complex Chinese characters, but they are not in print in Mainland China. I asked my producer, “Why aren’t any of my children’s picture books in print in Mainland China?,” and they said, “It’s because of their disrespect for authority.” I said, “Really?!” And they said, “Yeah, look at them. The Wolves in the Walls is about this little girl who tells her parents that there are wolves in the walls, but they do not believe her. There really are wolves in the walls, and thus her parents are proved wrong. And, in The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, these kids swap their dad. If that happened, society would crumble.”

So, suddenly, it became a goal of mine that was almost a little obsession to write a children’s picture book that would be published in Mainland China, that they could not help but publish, but still could have all of the things that are in my children’s picture books, and I did it. I wrote this book and it’s being painted right now by this wonderful artist, and it’s called Chu’s Day, and it is about a baby panda who sneezes. There is no way that anyone can resist a baby panda who sneezes. This is the single cutest book I’ve ever written. It is written for two-year-olds and is designed in such a way that I’ve tried it on kids and it actually works that when you get to the end, they just look at you and they say, “Read it again!” The only words on page one are, “When Chu sneezed, bad things happened.”

Thanks to Jorge Lacera for the link.

Cold Cereal Characters

2011-06-29T13:18:00.003-04:00

In the interest of just posting something new, here is a character collage I refer to from time to time as I work on the interior illustrations for my next novel, COLD CEREAL. Mostly just a bunch of details from various sketchbooks.

Illustration Master Class

2011-06-21T14:17:00.007-04:00

I spent the last week in Amherst, Mass, for the Illustration Master Class. It's an intensive weeklong illustration boot camp focusing on fantasy, sci-fi, and children's illustration. I was one of fifteen faculty members and guest speakers. Follow the link above to see more about it, and look at pictures from previous years. It's really kind of an amazing program. Faculty assistant Julia Griffin called it "Hogwarts for Illustrators," which couldn't be more right.

I don't have any of my own photos from the week, but here are shots of me working on an assignment at the IMC courtesy of Kim Kincaid. Note that in the background there is original art by Dan Dos Santos, Rebecca Guay, Gregory Manchess, and Jeff Mack.

Anyway, during my lecture I tried something a little risky. I put up the cover to my next novel, COLD CEREAL, and asked the hundred-odd students to critique it. Here's what they saw:

They had a lot to say. It was unfocused. It was like "visual hopscotch," as one woman put it. The row of windows cut the composition in half in kind of an unappealing way. The door should be bigger. The hero should be bigger. They were right about everything.

That's what I ended up with after I'd processed their suggestions. It's a much stronger cover now, in my opinion.

I wouldn't normally show this cover so early, since the book doesn't come out until February, but I want the IMC alumni to see what I've done. Thanks again to the students, and to Rebecca Guay for putting the whole program together.

Poseur

2011-05-31T19:46:00.002-04:00

A small selection of recent reference photos, taken in service of illustrations I'm working on for my next middle grade novel, COLD CEREAL.

My Cat Celebrates Opening Day of Lizard Season

2011-05-19T17:24:00.002-04:00

Clarification

2011-05-17T23:21:00.002-04:00

I don't expect it's a common misconception, but someone on Twitter recently asked me why, in my recent post, I was telling others not to write kid's books. I wasn't doing any such thing, but to be clear: if you want to write kid's books, write kids books. If you're thinking you might try it only because you assume they're easy to write and easy to publish...don't.

That's all.

For My Birthday, Please Get My Dad Out of Jail.

2011-05-16T14:39:00.002-04:00

As has been noted 115 times already on facebook, it is my birthday. In lieu of flowers, you might consider helping my dad make bail.

He's going to be locked up by the Muscular Dystrophy Association for a Muscular Dystrophy crime he didn't Muscular Dystrophy commit. There was a ridiculous show trial that lasted twenty-one hours, and Jerry Lewis stayed awake for the whole thing, and...anyway, I try not to ask for money very often, but if you have even a few bucks lying around we'd appreciate it.

Thank you. Here's the donation link.

There Are Pigeons Nesting in My Pigeon Spikes.

2011-05-13T21:25:00.003-04:00

I feel obliged to tell you that I don't like pigeon spikes. I don't like the way they make every ledge and sign look like some Lilliputian Thunderdome.

And I actually like pigeons. Longtime readers of my blog will remember how delighted I was to discover that first nest of them on my porch. I even asked you to name the babies.

But nest after nest of chicks convinced me that this was not some rare and fragile miracle. This was not Pale Male nesting on Fifth Avenue. My porch was more like an especially unsanitary inner city maternity ward.

Unsanitary because I've learned, and I don't think there's a delicate way to phrase this, that pigeons produce an astonishing amount of waste. They'd turned the columns flanking my house into two abstract expressionist monoliths, like exactly the sort of crapcentric art installations that make Republicans want to defund the NEA.

So, pigeon spikes. And now pigeons nesting in what was apparently not the appropriate amount of pigeon spikes. Those chicks above were fledged a couple weeks ago, so I went up the ladder to install stronger defenses. But they'd already rebuilt the nest. And the mother in it would not leave. I didn't take this with any kind of zoom. I was this close.

Eventually I was too close, and the pigeon lunged at the brush I'd brought to clear away the twigs and droppings. So for a moment I could see that she'd been hiding two new and dandelion-yellow chicks.

So, back down the ladder. I'll try again in a few weeks.

Accidentally Joined Twitter

2011-05-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

@MrAdamRex

An Open Letter to Everyone Who Thinks it Must be Easy, Writing Kid's Books

2011-05-12T00:01:00.000-04:00

You should totally write one. Maybe the fact that it seems so easy is your brain's way of telling you that you'd be good at it. I really couldn't say if you'd be any good at it or not so soon after meeting you, and telling you what I do, and listening to you disparage my life's work and all.

Then again, if you notice you're often saying "I could do that" when confronted with all kinds of things that are easy to do but difficult to do well (non-representational art, haiku...kid's books), then it might be time to put up and get your hands dirty. Yes, anyone can smear paint around, anyone can count syllables, anyone can write a very short story about bears learning to share or whatever.

You may even think, having crafted a bear story with a beginning, middle, and end, that it's fit for publication. Maybe you'll ask me who to talk to about that. I could give you the names of a number of editors, each of whom literally rejects thousands of stories per year. Because she doesn't think they're good enough. Or she doesn't think they're sellable. Or she doesn't think they have anything going for them besides a beginning, middle, and an end.

I wonder if you like the NPR comedy news quiz show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I usually catch at least a little of it each week, but I missed the episode a couple Saturdays ago when children's book agent Brenda Bowen got to be one of the call-in contestants. Here's a link to the transcript if you're interested–it's what got me thinking about all this.

Anyway, one of the panelists kicked things off by essentially mentioning that she suspects it would be easy, writing kid's books; and Paula Poundstone, whom I must say I like, nevertheless trotted out a variation on an old chestnut that I assume every kid's book writer has heard at least as often as I have. It always goes something like this: these books are a snap to write, which I will now exemplify by mentioning a board book I saw once that contained only pictures of shapes or farm animals or the alphabet. Because surely the fairest way to evaluate any vocation is by its most rudimentary example. SpaghettiOs. An elementary school dance recital. US Weekly.

Or maybe it's a question of length? Certainly I've heard that often enough–"It's only thirty pages and there's, like, ten words on each page. How hard can it be?"
It's a high school composition approach to writing–if a 500-word essay is hard, then a 1,000-word essay is harder. A novel must be harder to write than a short story. A really long novel must be harder to write than a novel.

May I suggest you try something?–write a brand new, memorable quote. Something we'll still be repeating a hundred years from now, like people are always doing with Twain. It should be easy, shouldn't it? It only needs to be, like, ten words.
Or is it hard to think of something worth saying? And hard to think of the perfect way to say it because, with so few words, each one has to really count? My stars but that's interesting.

And then you have the audacity to say I'm "lucky" to be doing what I do.

No, you're right about that, actually.

On deck for tomorrow: another post about how hard it is to be me. Maybe something about the headaches of having a beautiful, intelligent wife.

Mick Again

2011-05-11T03:02:00.002-04:00

But painted a bit this time. Yeah, I know–it's unsettling. Stupid uncanny valley.

Mick

2011-05-08T16:57:00.001-04:00

New character model for my next novel. For my next three novels, come to think of it.

Tucson Art Show at Lulubell

2011-05-05T20:29:00.002-04:00

Lulubell Toy Bodega here in Tucson has a new art show opening this Saturday called "Creature Feature," so I've contributed a couple paintings–one was a Magic: the Gathering card, the other (below) a book cover for an M:tG tie-in anthology.

I'll be there at Lulubell (on Toole and 7th Ave.) from 6-9 this Saturday for the opening. So will a lot of other artists. Come say hi, maybe.

It Continued to Happen on a Train

2011-05-04T14:12:00.007-04:00

Yesterday I shared some of the sketches and steps–the station-stops, if you will–needed to arrive at Successful Book Cover Terminal. Previously I mentioned that we'd gotten to a pretty good place with the sketches, but certain people were uncomfortable with A) showing a knife on the cover and B) showing a boy in a towel on the cover.

So the knife became a lead pipe (which, if also rejected, would have been replaced with a candlestick or some business), and then I made the towel a robe:

Which everyone liked, but now they were disturbed by the placement of Steve's hand.

There, now. We have arrived at Successful Book Cover Terminal. All passengers must exit.

It Happened on a Train

2011-05-03T14:41:00.007-04:00

I don't make a habit of illustrating books I haven't read. But it's happened a few times, typically in cases where the cover was needed before the book itself was actually written. The forthcoming Brixton Brothers #3: It Happened on a Train was such a book. Mac Barnett was getting a late start writing it–he had the mystery mapped out but not a lot in the way of action set-pieces, so he and I talked on the phone about what could conceivably go on the cover.

Of course there had to be a foot chase on top of the moving train at some point. But this alone wouldn't convey the slightly off-center atmosphere that all the BB books have, and which I like the covers to reflect. I asked Mac if it would be possible for main character Steve Brixton to be wearing a bath towel. If memory serves, I was sort of kidding.

"Actually," said Mac, "I think I could make that work."

I think you should read the book, so I'm only going to say that it makes perfect sense in context. But the above cover sketch isn't very good. I struggled early on with how to show both the train and the action in an engaging way. I could pull back and show more of the train, but then the action would suffer for lack of tension. I could close in on the action, but then everyone might look like they're fighting atop a Tuff Shed.

Ooh, better. But at this point Mac let me know that there could only be just the one masked goon.

And that he needed to be left-handed.

And this image-flopping killed two birds, actually, since the train needed to be shown traveling south down the California coast. So now everything was perfect, except that the publisher decided that they couldn't show a knife on the cover, and also that Steve in a bath towel was stirring up some...confusing feelings.

TOMORROW: The finished cover.

블로그

2011-04-26T15:28:00.004-04:00

Sorry the blog's been so fallow lately. Too busy. But I had to come up for air a moment and share this, the Korean edition of Billy Twitter and His Blue Whale Problem.

I haven't had a lot of translations of my books, and there's always something cool about Asian editions, isn't there? Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, I hear from Mac Barnett that the title actually translates as IF YOU DON'T LISTEN TO MOM'S WORDS, I'LL BRING A LONG WHITE MUSTACHE WHALE TO YOU. Isn't that nice? Tells you everything you need to know. I look forward to collecting other Korean editions such as THE CAT IN THE HAT IS THE CAUSE OF AND THE SOLUTION TO ALL OUR DIFFICULTIES and maybe WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS THERE IS POETRY AND ALSO A FUTURE SITE FOR FURTHER SIDEWALK DEVELOPMENT.

Does anyone out there read Korean? I'm curious which part of that cover is my name.

Toy Story 4

2011-04-11T14:24:00.000-04:00

Finally got around to seeing Toy Story 3 yesterday. Whatta movie.

I have a pitch for Toy Story 4 now: the toys go on a quest to confront God and demand to know why they were given sentience and free will when it can only cause them pain.

Goblins

2011-04-10T15:12:00.003-04:00

A couple minor characters from my next novel, which is written but not illustrated yet. It'll be the first volume of a new middle-grade trilogy (by which I mean it's for middle-grade readers, not that it's a mediocre, utility-grade trilogy), and will be in stores some time in the winter.

These guys are goblins, and are described in the manuscript thusly:

They were each perhaps just a half-foot taller than Mick, with milky-white bodies but startling red faces. Red as if they’d been dipped to their chins in blood and the stuff had dripped some foreign alphabet all over their necks and collars. From top to bottom they had: bald pates, all the worst features of both toad and bat, little wool grey suit jackets with ties, short pants, and chicken feet.

So I just wanted to point out that I was right.

2011-04-05T19:47:00.002-04:00

A little while back I worried publicly about my review of The Ring of Solomon, which I decided to advance over Sugar Changed the World in this year's School Library Journal Battle of the Books. I just learned that TRoS went all the way to win the title!

So, that's comforting. Here's my review, in case you're interested.

BRONZE.

2011-04-05T13:54:00.003-04:00

Say! The cover design for my book Fat Vampire won third place in the Children's Trade category at the 25th Annual New York Book Show!

Though I didn't photograph it myself (it was photographed by Dan Saelinger) and I'm only partially responsible for the finished design (Carla Weise collaborated), the whole thing was based on my sketch. So.

A Poem I Don't Think I've Shared Here Before:

2011-03-25T13:15:00.003-04:00

E.T.MAIL

We assumed it was the case

that in a place as big as space

we’d find some trace of other races

with our scientific bases.

When a signal was detected

it was not what we expected.

In the subject line it pleaded,

PLEASE REPLY–ASSISTENCE NEEDED

SALUTATIONS TO YOUR HEALTH.

PLEASE HELP ME TRANSFER ALL MY WEALTH

INTO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT ON EARTH–

ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS WORTH.

I NEED YOUR ANSWER RIGHT AWAY.

PLEASE SEND A LETTER BACK TODAY

(ALONG WITH FIFTY DOLLARS, PLEASE,

TO PAY THE MONEY TRANSFER FEES).

We gasped–a message from the stars!

And then another came from Mars:

NEED BIGGER, YELLOWER ANTENNAE?

HAVE TO FEW OR HAVE TOO MANY?

LOSS OF VIGOR? LOUSY SLEEPER?

OUR PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ARE CHEAPER!!!

We were noticing a pattern,

when a bunch arrived from Saturn–

FANCY WATCHES! CLICK AND SEE!

and GET YOUR HYPERSCHOOL DEGREE.

At SINGLES IN YOUR SECTOR!!!

we disabled our detector.

Then we emptied out the cache

and dragged the letters to the trash.

So that’s the fact we had to face:

there’s no intelligence in space.

But that’s okay–for what it’s worth,

there isn’t much of it on Earth.

From Frankenstein Takes the Cake

So I wrote this a few years ago, and always thought its natural habitat was the internet. Of course I control the rights to this poem–there's a copyright notice and everything following the verse. But I am curious to see if people like it enough to share it, and if so how long it takes before it's forwarded to me or someone I know. I also understand that all creative writing on the internet eventually gets attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, so we'll see how long that takes.

Rotten Tomatoes may be Addressed to Me Care of my Agent

2011-03-20T19:16:00.003-04:00

I'm anxiously awaiting the blogosphere's reaction to my entry in the School Library Journal's Battle of the Books, which will be posted tomorrow morning. It's a bracketed March Madness-style competition between various YA and Middle Grade titles, and I was asked to advance either The Ring of Solomon or Sugar Changed the World. And no, I'm not going to reveal my decision–I'm not allowed yet.

Anyway, some of the judges so far are drawing criticism for being too nice, and for doing essentially the same thing I did–explaining why both books are great, and then kind of arbitrarily choosing one over the other. Rather than actually explaining why the winning book is BETTER than the other, you understand. So I admit that in this sense I wimped out (as Roger Sutton has put it), choosing instead to write a review designed to divert attention away from these two great books and back to ME.

I've been feeling a little neglected lately–my wife's in Switzerland.

Koo Koo Ka Choo

2011-03-17T21:39:00.002-04:00

My new novel has 41 instances of the word "egg." My new novel which is not, I should be clear, about eggs.

This seems like a lot to me. Fully .06% of my novel is the word "egg." For reference I should tell you that my novel is in many ways actually about magic, but the words "magic" and "magical" only appear a combined total of 106 times.

For continued reference, I could add that my novel contains 75 mentions of cereal, and this is not accidental. But it also contains a whopping 2,502 instances of the word "and," YET IS NOT ABOUT CONJUNCTIONS.

No doubt some of you have a favorite word and are now wondering how many times it appears in my novel, and whether I could be persuaded to slip it in there if it doesn't. I invite your comments.

Tucson Festival of Books

2011-03-09T22:27:00.003-05:00

The third annual Tucson Festival of Books is coming to the UofA mall this weekend (the 12th and 13th). As in past years I'll be appearing on panels and at signings and just generally walking around and knuckle bumping Dora the Explorer and so forth.

Here's my schedule:

Saturday, March 12th

12:00-12:30 Teen Author Lounge (reading of Fat Vampire)

1:00-2:00 COE 351 – Adam Rex -- Digital Painting Workshop: Illustrating Books with Photoshop. I'm going to actually give a live demo of this I guess, God help me.

2:00-2:30 Post-workshop autographing

3:00-3:30 Signing at the Mysterious Galaxy booth, #429-251

4:00-5:00 COE Kiva – E. B. Lewis, Wendy Watson and I will be on a panel called "I Didn’t Write It, But….Illustrating for Other Authors."

5:00-5:30 Post-panel autographing

Sunday, March 13th

12:00 Signing at the Heroes and Villains booth. It's #240, I think.

Ongoing Evidence That Aaron Zenz is the Best Dad Ever

2011-03-04T12:44:00.001-05:00

Can be found here.

If There Isn't, I Want to Nominate "Dissynonym."

2011-02-22T18:35:00.003-05:00

I've been curious lately if there's an official term for a word which, colloquially, is used to mean the exact opposite of what it actually means. And I'm not referring to intentionally ironic slang, like the way people used to say "bad" to mean "good." I'm more interested in cases where the speaker is likely not even aware of what they're doing, as with the word "literally," say. In fact, I could include just about any word or phrase which is intended to assert the veracity of something but which, in informal usage, doesn't. As in the example below:

I swear*, this burrito last night was literally** like a hundred pounds. Seriously***, it would have taken fifty people to finish it, I shit you not****.

*I don't swear.

**figuratively

***Not seriously

****I totally shit you. Figuratively.

I don't normally like to swear on my blog, but if any young kid made it past the phrase "intended to assert the veracity," he's earned it.

So does anyone know if there's a term for this? Can anyone think of other examples?

**UPDATE** CONTRONYM! A word which is its own antonym. Apparently "literally" may just be on its way to becoming a solid contronym. Like "cleave," which can mean both "cling to" or "split."

I love that I know this word now. Thanks, internet! Specifically, thanks Aaron Zenz, who pointed me toward a great Slate article. An article which points out that while I'm bugged by this use of "literally," I've been ignoring the same misuse of "really."

Manners Mash-Up On Sale Today!

2011-02-17T11:50:00.003-05:00

I know I mentioned all this before, but I just learned that a collection to which I contributed called Manners Mash-Up is officially on sale today. This book also features Bob Shea, Sophie Blackall, Dan Santat, Henry Cole, and many others. Kirkus says it's "Good advice waggishly packaged and not completely tasteful—a winner."

I did the spread about table manners. Click to enlarge.

You know, I don't think I follow any of these commandments except the ones about feet and napkins. It's like my mother didn't raise me right. But I know that could not possibly be the case, because my mother is classy and beautiful and reads my blog.

Happy Belated Lincoln's Birthday

2011-02-16T18:49:00.008-05:00

A day or two ago you may have seen this feature of mine in your local paper:

Click to make it bigger.

It was only one oddly-shaped piece of this week's installment of The Goods, a bounty of games, comics, puzzles and more that's distributed by McSweeney's and Tribune Media. Upcoming contributors will include Carson Ellis, Laurie Keller, Jon Klassen, Sean Qualls, Jon Scieszka, Bob Shea, Lane Smith, Dan Santat, and Mo Willems.

UPDATE: Fellow President's Day contributor Brian Biggs just posted his maze over at his site. Go look at it! It's hair-raising! You'll understand why it's hair-raising if you go look at it.

Not getting The Goods in your paper?

Oh my gosh I'm so sorry.

Well, maybe write to your paper's features editor, then, and request it. You can direct him or her to this link.

For Her Birthday My Friend Wants Two Libraries.

2011-02-08T23:17:00.002-05:00

My old high school friend Stephanie is about to turn 38 (Which I suppose means I am, too. Shoot.), and she's doing something really excellent. She'd like to raise 700 dollars in 7 days–which is apparently just enough to establish two libraries in rural schools in Guatemala, where Stephanie was in the Peace Corps. She's doing this through her late mother's charity, Books for a Better World, and I'm going to help. I thought some of you people might like to help, too.

To earmark your donation, please add 38 cents to the dollar amount. Make it $5.38, $20.38, whatever. I'll have her report back in a week to tell us how much she raised.

I know you have a lot of people asking for your money, but can I just reiterate: for her birthday Stephanie wants two Guatemalan libraries. Isn't this exactly the sort of person we want to encourage?

Tucson People! Tiny art show

2011-02-04T15:13:00.003-05:00

New show opening tomorrow night at Lulubell Toy Bodega. More than 20 artists, and all artwork is to be 7 inches by 7 inches or less. I'll have three very affordable paintings in the show. David Christiana will have something like eight pieces. Phil Hilliker painted on Scrabble tiles. You should probably go. Click this for info, and make sure to click "next" in order to see some samples from the show.

This green girl is a detail from one of mine. Her head is maybe an inch and a half across.

FAT VAMPIRE Banned, Somewhere.

2011-02-01T12:32:00.004-05:00

Yesterday morning I awoke to find I had an email from someone about my Teen/Adult novel, Fat Vampire. People email me all the time. Sometimes they write to say they like my books. Sometimes they even write to say that they like my other books, but that they didn't like this one or that. I have a policy about not reading reviews, but it's hard to stick to your guns when reviews are coming straight into your inbox like that. But yesterday's letter was different.

I'm not going to print it, because a person who emails me should not have to expect that his private message is going to be published on even this tiny public forum. But I'll summarize: Fat Vampire is smut. The emailer went to his daughter's principal and convinced her to remove it from the school library. He promised to tell everyone about Fat Vampire and requested, in the future, that I please keep my books out of schools.

The following was my response. I have not yet heard back.

I regret that you were offended, [Name Redacted]. And in monitoring your daughter's reading and requesting that she refrain from books you don't find appropriate you were doing exactly what all parents should do, if they're able. You'll understand if I don't agree with censorship, however. The other parents at your daughter's school also have the right (some would say responsibility) to regulate their kids' reading, and you've taken that right away from them.

I think you're mistaken about my role in all this. I didn't put my book in your school, nor do I decide where they're sold. I merely wrote a story I wanted to write, and was grateful that my publisher published it. Ultimately my publisher is the entity that decides how my book will be marketed, as well, and with thousands of Young Adult titles to their name they decided that my book, too, is a Young Adult title. Mind you, I'm not saying I disagree, though I tend to describe it as a Teen/Adult title myself (which essentially amounts to the same thing). Regardless, I don't put my books in your or any other school, so I can't be entreated to keep them out. You could only ask me to stop writing, and to that the answer's no.

I don't envy you your task these next few years–you're going to have to be very vigilant. If you consider my book to be smut then you'll find that there are a great many Young Adult titles that are just as bad, and a fair number that are worse. Anyway, though I don't like book-banning I defend your right to tell anyone and everyone you know just exactly how you feel. You may want to temper your enthusiasm, however, with the knowledge that it's a rare censorship campaign that doesn't increase a book's sales.

Sincerely,

Adam Rex

I'm On the TeeVee.

2011-01-26T13:11:00.002-05:00

I don't have an iPad, but I am typing this on a four-year-old MacBook–which I realize is so old in computer terms it's practically steampunk. But if I command my old-timey inter-net browsing soft-ware routine to visit the correct address, I can watch this national commercial for iPads, which features a shot of one of my books at the ten-second mark:

There it is, a Fat Vampire second from the upper left on the virtual bookshelf:

TGIP

2011-01-21T14:42:00.004-05:00

I think this is it–the culmination of all my panda-related efforts this past week. A little cub wearing a t-shirt and a pilot's helmet and goggles. This is what it's all been for.

I hope the Home Office agrees that I can't responsibly get any cuter than this. What would they have me do? Draw a panda in a onesie? Or with...I don't know...wings or something? Or dressed up as an entirely different animal? Or even–and I hesitate to suggest this–a panda covered in smaller pandas?

Special Request

2011-01-20T12:49:00.005-05:00

My Illustratophone started chugging away again last night, much to my surprise. This morning I had a special request from the Illustrators Home Office:

It's nice to see them showing an interest. I think the assignment must be going really well.

Brian Biggs commented on a previous post that he was disappointed with the Apple Illustratophone App. I've been thinking of getting an iPhone–anyone else have this problem? I love my landline Illustratophone but it goes through kerosene like nobody's business.

Pandamonium!

2011-01-19T11:51:00.005-05:00

Big emergency this morning. I sat down to draw the day's batch of pandas and I guess I went into some sort of fugue state, and when I emerged I'd accidentally drawn Abraham SuperLincoln fighting an octopus on the moon.

And to think I almost sent this to the Home Office! This kind of thing doesn't usually happen to me when I draw, though I can tell you that I've often begun writing what I intended to be an international bestseller and mistakenly ended up with a book nobody wanted to read.

Anyway, I got back on track, and ended the morning with what I consider to be a passable panda-in-waistcoat sketch.

One reader asked about my Illustratophone, seen previously. I realize I'm lucky to have one of the nice old ones. I'm told it was formerly commissioned to Clive Lumley, who of course is best known for the popular "Lumley Girl" series of illustrated hosiery ads in the 50s and 60s.

I prefer to remember him for these, and not for his slow decline into pornographic album covers in the 1970s and beyond.

Stories that Soar!

2011-01-18T20:37:00.002-05:00

I don't know if I mentioned previously that I'm on the board of a Tucson nonprofit called Stories that Soar! The exclamation point is part of the name–I'm not trying to convey that I'm really excited about that last sentence or anything. I mean, I AM excited about StS!, but I'm not really an exclamation point kind of guy. If I were any kind of punctuation it would probably be an em dash.

But the point is, Stories that Soar! visits Tucson-area schools and encourages kids to write and to feed the Magic Box, a hungry box that eats stories. Then StS! returns and puts on a stage show scripted entirely with the words these schoolkids wrote. And in case this sounds like it could come off as kind of squirmy and precious, let me tell you that the acting troupe is AMAZING.

Usually their shows are for the kids only, but this Thursday, the 20th, they'll be giving a public evening show. If you live in or around Tucson, I would love to see you there.

Jan 20, 2011 at 7:00 PM
STS! at AZ Schools for the Deaf and Blind
Berger Performing Arts Center
1200 W Speedway
Tucson, AZ 85745

The Illustrators Home Office Continued

2011-01-18T13:03:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I mentioned that I'd gotten a new assignment from the Illustrators Home Office in Pueblo, Colorado. I'm pretty jazzed about it now. I don't know why they need all these pandas and I'm not going to ask. This offers a good lesson for the art students and up-and-coming illustrators who read my blog: DON'T QUESTION THE ILLUSTRATORS HOME OFFICE. The one and only time I asked for a little clarification they had me drawing hands and complicated Rococo furniture for a month.

Anyway, here's today's batch of pandas. I think I'm really getting somewhere.

The Illustrators Home Office

2011-01-17T14:16:00.006-05:00

Late last night I got an assignment from the Illustrators Home Office. I hadn't heard boo from them in two years but then I'm suddenly awakened by the chugga-chugga noise of my Illustratophone. I didn't even know it was plugged in.

I hate that chugga-chugga noise.

Anyway, I checked it this morning and the assignment's a peach, so I must be back in their good graces:

Here's the first batch. They'll probably have me doing these all week. I won't know I'm done until the Illustratophone makes the pinging noise and raises the little flags and the tiny metal bird goes back and forth on the track with the yellow things, and you know what they say–a watched illustratophone never pings. So I may as well keep my head down.

Need a Recommendation

2011-01-16T21:02:00.002-05:00

An elementary school teacher friend of mine, who teaches 2nd and 3rd graders, needs age-appropriate books about toy design. Design, invention, toy testing...anything along those lines, I think. All I could come up with is Marla Frazee's Santa Claus: The World's Number One Toy Expert, and it's a little lean on real-world information.

Little help?

Odyssey Award

2011-01-10T15:57:00.002-05:00

Well! This is nice.

The ALA Youth Media Awards were given this morning–a big batch of medals that includes the Caldecotts and Newberys (Newberries?).

So I eventually emerge from my bedroom this morning to discover a bunch of congratulatory emails, because the audio production of The True Meaning of Smekday (read by Bahni Turpin) has won the 2011 Odyssey award for best audiobook produced for children or young adults. Which was a complete surprise. That's not to slight the production or Ms. Turpin, but I just didn't go to bed last night hoping the ALA Santa might bring me something in the morning. It hadn't occurred to me that the audiobook of Smekday was in the running.

I'd have a celebratory drink, but it's only two in the afternoon here.

Thanks to Bahni Turpin and producer Dan Musselman at Listening Library!

DNA

2010-12-19T16:44:00.005-05:00

Recently I received a mailing from A. Bitterman at Reading Reptile in Kansas City, MO. The people of KC already know that Reading Reptile is the greatest kids' book store in town, if not in all of these United States. But they may not know that it is also the world's largest repository of genetic material culled from authors and illustrators.

The mailer contained a pair of tweezers, nail clippers, two cotton swabs, a collection dish, a SASE, and a letter which I excerpt here:

It is our intent to become the preeminent DNA bank for the children's book industry. Students of the art will now be able to study not only the work of the great masters, but their genetic make up as well. In this way, aspiring writers might determine whether or not they have "the right stuff" to make it in this competitive, and oftentimes unforgiving, profession, before they inflict their misapprehensions on an unsuspecting public.

Your samples will not, under any circumstances, be used in government research, or for cloning purposes, without your expressed permission in writing.

I'm going to go ahead and give you that permission, Bitterman. I can't imagine what could possibly go wrong.

The letter also details the extraction procedure, which includes tweezing 2-5 hairs (with roots) from any part of my body (I chose head), paring at least 4 nail clippings from my fingers and/or toes (I chose toes), and using the cotton swabs to collect saliva from the inner cheek of my choosing (I chose face).

Then I packaged up my samples for their return back to Reading Reptile.

Anyone who visits my samples might drop me a line to let me know how they're doing. And if anyone in the greater Kansas City area happens to notice a lot of new residents who look like me at various ages, please encourage them to get in touch. I might be wanting a new kidney at some point.

Tucson-Area People!

2010-12-09T15:09:00.003-05:00

I'll be signing at the Barnes and Noble on Broadway this Sunday, the 12th, from 1-3. I'll be there with a bunch of other local authors, too.

Also? I recently learned that my novel Fat Vampire will be on the Washington Post's list of the best books of the year. I understand the list will be printed in this Sunday's section.

Finally, I present a photo of what's on my work bench right now. Hands.

Previously, heads.

Three-Minute Fiction

2010-12-05T18:53:00.004-05:00

Some people swore that the house was haunted. Enough so its listing came up first in her Google search.

“I’ve found one I want you to look at,” she told her husband. She often had real estate listings to show him, or upholstery samples for recovering her college-era couch, or fun ideas for their upstate vacation. He often had hilarious videos to show her, or pictures of people’s cats. He liked to say that they each brought something important to the marriage.

He hoisted baby Max up to his shoulder and leaned over hers. She clicked through different views. “It’s…awesome,” he said, as if there must be some mistake. “That’s really the square footage?”

“I know.”

“How can that be the price? What’s wrong with it?”

She turned and looked at him squarely. Her expression and the pause that followed announced this as an Important Marriage Trust Moment, like when he’d asked to spend four hundred dollars on a theremin.

“I got an idea from that horror movie we watched last night,” she said. “People are always finding great big houses they couldn’t normally afford that turn out to be haunted. So now I’m only searching for haunted houses.”

“…Um,” said the husband.

“And it’s fine because there’s no such thing. If people want to be stupid and superstitious it’s not our fault, right?”

Max needed a diaper change. Their entire two-room apartment smelled like diaper. The husband glanced back at her laptop.

“Show me the granite countertop again,” he said.

The front yard was immaculate. As they approached, Janice the realtor pointed out the carved duck mailbox with whirligig wings, as if it couldn’t point out itself. The husband and wife shared a smile. Ghosts did not haunt places with novelty mailboxes. They did not haunt ranch-style split-levels.

The first walkthrough would have gone beautifully if not for the baby’s fussing. Max upshifted abruptly from squirmy to tantrum, then cycled through seven or eight distinct wailing screams like a car alarm. They all agreed to try again the next weekend.

“Another couple’s shown interest,” the realtor warned them, but then you could almost see the delicate lie fall apart in her hands. “Not…not really though,” she admitted.

Their friend Jeff had been a house inspector before the market tanked. He agreed to have a look as a favor on Tuesday, and so Tuesday evening both husband and wife glanced at the phone as they nursed Max through some kind of croup. But it didn’t ring that night, or the next. Finally, reluctant to press a favor, the husband emailed Jeff and received a reply–just a spare list of concerns, no niceties:

shingles missing
flashing needs repair
cracked window
walls of half-bath bleed the curses of the damned

Jeff was the funny one in their group.

On Saturday they returned to the house. As they walked through empty rooms Max again threw a fit, but now they were determined. The realtor smiled sympathetically and walked them through the bedrooms, baths, dining room, kitchen. In the kitchen was a door to the basement, and they descended the sharp stairs, Max squealing, with only the light of a bare bulb to guide them.

The basement was large. The floor was unfinished dirt. Faint sunlight filtered in through mesh slits in the corners.

“What do you think–?” the wife began, hopefully. But she faltered when she realized Max had grown silent and perfectly still.

The lightbulb burned out. In the thin blue of the sun Max turned.

“We’ll take it,” he said.

Nothing was ever the same again after that.

NPR's Weekend All Things Considered has a regular contest called Three-Minute Fiction. Round Three submissions had to be inspired by a photograph. Round Four were requires to contain the words "plant," "button," "trick," and "fly." Round Five started this past October, and had the following stipulation: that every story begin with the line, "Some people swore that the house was haunted," and end with the line, "Nothing was ever the same again after that." And, as in previous rounds, it could be no longer than 600 words.

When I heard those lines an idea came to me right away. So I set aside my work and spent a day writing my submission. I sent it off, and forgot all about it. I don't listen to Weekend ATC religiously, so I missed it when the winner and twenty-five runners up were announced last month.

Needless to say, I didn't win. But something reminded me of the contest today, so here I am digging up my entry for a blog post. Maybe you people will like it. Go check out the winning story though, too, and the runners-up (which are listed in a sidebar).

Manners Mash-Up

2010-12-02T19:55:00.004-05:00

Whoops, I forgot to post anything for three weeks. Naturally I have been very busy–those funny cat videos don't watch themselves, you know.

Also I went to the conference of the National Council of Teachers of English in Orlando. And I had a free day whilst there, so of course I visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, just to get a sense of what to do and what not to do when all of my own books are invariably turned into theme parks.

Thanks to my editor Donna for those pictures. I don't want to sound like a commercial, but I was pretty impressed with the aesthetic of the place. Unlike the rest of the Universal Studios Islands of Adventure (which featured, among other things, a theme park based on the books of Dr. Seuss, and a theme park based on Marvel Comics), the Potter section didn't feel like a theme park at all to me. You could tell that the philosophy there was that you ostensibly were in Hogwarts, or Hogsmeade. That it just happened to be Muggle Day or something. I liked that.

I also want to share my contribution to a new picture book titled Manners Mash-Up. This book also features Bob Shea, Sophie Blackall, Dan Santat, Henry Cole, and many others. Kirkus says it's "Good advice waggishly packaged and not completely tasteful—a winner."

I did the spread about table manners. Click to enlarge.

All Souls Procession

2010-11-10T14:39:00.002-05:00

Every Dia de los Muertos Tucson holds their All Souls Procession–a community parade of costumed volunteers who walk down one of the city's historic thoroughfares to an empty lot downtown, where a celebration is held to honor the dead. I realize that for probably ninety percent of the participants the Procession is just an opportunity to play dress-up and watch people eat fire, but here and there the true spirit of the day comes through–in a projected display of portraits of people who have passed, or in the little personal shrines that are carried or trundled past. Here are some photos from a few days ago. Click to enlarge.

IDEA: The Interior Doorbell

2010-11-05T17:12:00.003-04:00

Why don't we all have doorbells on the insides of our front doors? When confronted by a visitor with which we don't care to speak, we could discreetly press our hidden inside doorbell and trigger, elsewhere in the house, the sound of a baby crying. Or a smoke alarm. A tea kettle. Whatever.

Or hey, all four. "I'm sorry–I'd love to discuss my immortal soul, but my tea kettle appears to have set off the smoke detector and frightened my baby."

For some reason I feel like I'm ripping off the blog Ironic Sans, where my friend David posts ideas like this all the time. Go visit that, maybe.

Amazon Best of 2010 for Teen

2010-11-04T14:02:00.002-04:00

Just learned today that Amazon has selected Fat Vampire and nine other YA books as their Best of 2010 for teens.

I swear soon I'll go back to posting something other than self-promotion or pictures of my yard.

TEMPE EVENT

2010-11-01T14:04:00.002-04:00

I'll be at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, AZ for an author's panel at 7pm on November 2nd. Also appearing are Tom Leveen, Molly Idle, James Balsingame, and Christianne Menses-Jacobs. Hope to see you there!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

2010-10-31T20:48:00.001-04:00

Suggestion for New Halloween Party Game

2010-10-25T18:09:00.003-04:00

Two or more partygoers visit Google Image search and enter "sexy ________ halloween costume." If the world justifies your worst fears and the costume already exists, do a shot. If you're trying to get drunk you can just keep saying "nurse."

Here, I'll get us started. "sexy willy wonka halloween costume." Oops, my bad.

Thanks, ALAN.

2010-10-20T17:26:00.001-04:00

Hey! The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) has made Fat Vampire an October Pick!

Event and other Stuff

2010-10-18T15:02:00.004-04:00

I'm going to be appearing at the Barnes & Noble at 5130 E Broadway in Tucson on October 23rd at 2pm. I will sign books (preferably mine), possibly do a reading, and accurately guess people's weights to within three pounds. Hope to see you there. Hope to see anyone there, really.

I thought I'd also share another cover illustration I don't think I posted before, since I've been talking about the Brixton Brothers books a bit lately. Previously I posted this, the cover of the first BB book. Steve is about to be apprehended by a cadre of mysterious and commando-like librarians.

When the time came for the paperback edition a new cover was requested, so I devised something a lot simpler and I think a little less stiff than the original:

You'll have to read the book if you want to understand why Steve is dressed like a sailor.

Brixton Brothers #2!

2010-10-12T21:48:00.006-04:00

Just ocurred to me that Brixton Brothers #2: The Ghostwriter Secret is out in stores! It's written by Mac Barnett (what isn't?) and illustrated by me, just like the first book was. So today I thought I'd share the cover.

Here's the tight sketch, with digital color.

Man, look at that! Those are bullets streaming through the water! From a gun! Originally I thought it would be funny to show the gun as though the bad guy was crouching on the pool deck with his hand in the water, shooting at Steve and Dana. But you can't show a gun on the cover of a kids' book. So hence just the bullets.
Of course we considered the idea that the bullets were too intense, and might inspire kids to get shot at whilst tied up in a pool, so we tried another version where the bad guy is down in the pool, just screaming at Steve and Dana. Really going off on them. But then we ran it by the national buyer from B. Dalton and he was like, "Wow, that guy's really angry," so I painted a new cover where he isn't so much screaming at the kids as giving them sort of a stern talking-to, and afterward we tried one where he's just taking them for hot wings, but then we were all like, "Whoah! What happened to the conflict?" So we went back to the bullets, and I think we made the right choice.

Here's the final, painted cover, with type. Photoshop and Wacom.

Ironically, an Airline Called Delta Can't Seem to Get Me to Greece.

2010-10-01T12:11:00.004-04:00

I fly a lot, but this was new to me: after sitting out on the Tucson runway for about twenty minutes the pilot informed us that we were too heavy. I will admit to looking askance at the passenger next to me at this point. Given our weight, we could not legally take off in the current winds. Almost immediately I thought to myself, "Well. We'll probably have to return to the gate to dump excess fuel." But I know nothing about the actual mechanics of air travel, so even I didn't assume I had the answer.

Twenty minutes later, we returned to the gate to dump excess fuel. Apparently the Tucson airport only has one fuel truck or something (keep shootin' for the stars, Tucson!), because we then waited a half hour just for the crew to arrive.

Long story short, I'm supposed to be checking into my hotel in Athens right now, and meeting my wife. Instead I am enjoying lunch at an Atlanta airport-area mexican restaurant, which is every bit as good as it sounds.

Could be worse. I was originally rebooked on a flight that would've required I stay in Atlanta for TWO DAYS. Not that I don't like Atlanta. But, Zeus willing, I will be taking a circuitous Athens-by-way-of-Amsterdam-by-way-of-Minneapolis trip later this afternoon.

But enough of my whining, right? I'm still going to Greece, and you're probably not, currently. So here's a page from my sketchbook featuring a woodcutter and some patrons of the Surly Wench pub.

Antigone Reading this Friday

2010-09-22T15:44:00.002-04:00

Which is not to say that I'll be reading Antigone. But I will be reading from Fat Vampire at Antigone Books in Tucson this Friday at 7pm. Joining me will be Janni Lee Simner and Jillian Cantor. The readings will be followed by a question and answer period. There will apparently be refreshments!

Also, here's something nice: don't live anywhere near Tucson but want a signed copy of one of our books? Antigone has agreed to ship personalized copies! Just email info@antigonebooks.com with your name, address, which book you'd like, and who you'd like it signed to, and they'll get in touch to work out the details. Note: Signed copies must be ordered through the email address, not the web site.

GUYS READ: Funny Business, Released Today!

2010-09-21T15:07:00.002-04:00

Previously I've posted some images from the forthcoming anthology GUYS READ: Funny Business. I have a story in it, and illustrated the thing. But more importantly, other people have stories in it. Other people like Mac Barnett, Eoin Colfer, Christopher Paul Curtis, Kate DiCamillo, Paul Feig, Jack Gantos, Jeff Kinney, Jon Scieszka, and David Yoo. And David Lubar. You know David. Author of Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie and In the Land of the Lawn Weenies?

Here's the illustration I made for David's story, "Kid Appeal." I defy you to figure out what's going on in this story from the image. You'll just have to get the book, which is in stores now.

Letter to My Younger Self

2010-09-20T15:16:00.004-04:00

Recently I was asked by Anna Staniszewski to write a letter to my younger self. The result is below, but there are a lot of letters from/to other authors on her blog. Maybe go have a look.

Dear Younger Me,

DON'T READ YOUR REVIEWS. I hope I've caught you early enough. The first book you'll illustrate (The Dirty Cowboy, by Amy Timberlake) will garner pretty much universally positive reviews, and win a bunch of minor awards, and this will ruin you. You're going to assume it'll always be like this, and you'll start Googling yourself to the point of blindness. Metaphorical blindness.

Just know that, in time, you will long for the good old days when reviews came to you at a trickle–a handful of clippings from your publisher now and then–and a reader had to care enough to post an actual letter. Do you know that feeling you get now when you're just out on the street, minding your own business, and some anonymous critic shouts "nerd" from a moving car? Or something disparaging about your outfit? Now imagine that's the only outfit you own. You have to wear it all the time, like one of the Castaways. You're Ginger, and you're only strolling on the beach, hurting no one, wearing that dress that says "U.S.S. Minnow" across the bust which you obviously made yourself, and in fact the only things you even have to wear are the Minnow dress and the "Happy Birthday Mister President" dress, and then a bottle washes up on shore, and there's a message inside, and KittyKat93 from Tulsa, Oklahoma says "Nice outfit, Ginger lol."

That's the internet.

Understand that your brain, which is not as smart as you think it is, will file the anonymous car-shouters in the same cabinet where it keeps a review from The Washington Post. And that it will highlight any and all negative passages with ink so ostentatiously yellow that you will be able to read them in your dreams. The part of your brain which currently sucker-punches you with humiliating junior high school memories during random quiet moments is going to discover its true calling after people start publishing your fiction. It's really going to come into its own. You know the part of the brain I'm talking about. It's located in your gut, despite all medical evidence to the contrary.

At the age of thirty-seven you will institute a No Reviews Policy. It's going pretty well. You're learning to concentrate on how you feel about your writing and looking forward to a day when you can hear the word "Goodreads" without getting sick to your stomach. But there's going to be a lot of years of existential angst before you get here and you know what? You're going to really love your wife (if you're not married to her already), and she doesn't deserve all that garbage. So maybe never get in the habit of Googling yourself in the first place and save us all a lot of headaches. Literal headaches.

Love,

You

Best of Friends

2010-09-13T12:07:00.003-04:00

Previously I've posted some images from the forthcoming anthology GUYS READ: Funny Business. I have a story in it, and illustrated the thing. But more importantly, other people have stories in it. Other people like Eoin Colfer, Christopher Paul Curtis, Kate DiCamillo, Paul Feig, Jack Gantos, Jeff Kinney, David Lubar, Jon Scieszka, and David Yoo. And Mac Barnett. You know Mac. Practically every image I've posted for the last two years has been for a Mac Barnett book.

Here's the illustration I made for Mac's story, "Best of Friends."

Currently On My Desktop...

2010-09-12T13:13:00.001-04:00

...heads.

My Parents Give My Bedroom to a Biker

2010-09-07T18:36:00.005-04:00

Previously I've posted the cover and a whole lot of cover sketches for the forthcoming anthology GUYS READ: Funny Business. I have a story in it, and illustrated the thing. But more importantly, other people have stories in it. Other people like Mac Barnett, Eoin Colfer, Christopher Paul Curtis, Kate DiCamillo, Jack Gantos, Jeff Kinney, David Lubar, Jon Scieszka, and David Yoo. And Paul Feig. You know, the Paul Feig who created the best television show of the nineties, Freaks and Geeks.

Here's the illustration I made for Paul's story, "My Parents Give My Bedroom to a Biker."

Things!

2010-09-06T13:21:00.004-04:00

Recently Angela Fox conducted an interview with me via Skype in which she asked a very thorny question regarding baby werewolves. Heres the link.

Also! I'll be doing areading and signing at Antigone books in Tucson on September 24. I'll be sharing the stage with Janni Lee Simner and Jillian Cantor.

Guys Read: the #$@!! Cover

2010-09-05T19:16:00.009-04:00

Pardon my language. The cover for this book, the first of a forthcoming GUYS READ Library, was a little slippery. Hard to nail down. Previously I showed you the cover we ended up with, today I show most of the ones we didn't.

Early in the process I was really attached to the idea that all of the GUYS READ anthologies might have the common element of an illicit black bar or box, possibly containing the GR logo, which could always be concealing an ostensibly naughty or terrifying or mysterious part of the image. Jon Scieszka and the good people at HarperCollins humored me for a long time about this.

Click to make big.

Then we all glommed onto the pie in the face element for a while.

What I'm not showing you at this point is a number of formal-looking portraits of a Little Lord Fauntleroy type with pie face or, alternately, Groucho glasses. That's because eventually Harper or Jon or somebody thought it might be better to pull back from this portrait and show a modern-looking boy admiring it in a museum setting.

Eventually it was agreed that the gallery was working but Fauntleroy wasn't, so we explored other options.

NOT SHOWN: about a half-dozen other concepts that were too superficially similar to these to bother including.

If I sound bitter or tired that's only because I enjoy complaining. I love this book and I like its cover.

Guys Read: Funny Business

2010-09-03T13:16:00.003-04:00

In case you missed it when I posted this back in May, here's the...trailer? Sizzle? What are we calling these things now? Here's the moving talky thing for GUYS READ: Funny Business, which I mentioned yesterday.

Guys Read: Funny Business

2010-09-02T14:24:00.004-04:00

For years now Jon Scieszka has been championing books for boys and encouraging parents and educators to just let the poor guys read what they want with his organization GUYS READ. He's even published a Guys Read anthology already, with a lot of great stories, but now he's getting serious. So to speak.

Later this month all good Americans will be reading Guys Read: Funny Business, the first of the forthcoming Guys Read Library. I had the honor to write a story for this anthology of humor, and to illustrate the whole thing.

So I thought I'd kick off September, which will inevitably be renamed Guys Read Month, with the uncropped cover of GR:FB.

This is what it'll look like in stores:

We went through a lot of iterations with this cover. I'll post all of them soon.

sketchbook: LIONS

2010-08-06T13:54:00.002-04:00

sketchbook: DRAGONS

2010-08-05T15:19:00.003-04:00

Largehearted Boy

2010-08-04T18:50:00.002-04:00

Interested in the secret soundtrack to my new novel, Fat Vampire? No? Oh.

Well, then don't go to the music and book blog Largehearted Boy. Forget I said anything.

sketchbook: GIRLS

2010-08-04T15:56:00.003-04:00

Show and Tell Me

2010-07-26T17:55:00.003-04:00

Please click through to Amy Timberlake's blog Show and Tell Me to read the story (and see a larger image) of this terrible thing to the right. But suffice it to say that yes, it is a picture of a zombie throwing up a smaller zombie.

The Comic-Con

2010-07-25T19:47:00.003-04:00

A Short Play by Adam Rex
Based on True Events

A hall in San Diego. An attractive woman dress'd and undress'd in the guise of slave Leia poses for photographs. Three rogues look on.

ROGUE ONE: Not hot, methinks this counterfeit of Princess Leia be.

ROGUE TWO: Forsooth, my friend speaks verily: not so hot is she.

ROGUE THREE: FAIL.

Rogues Exeunt.

FIN

Comic-Con Signing

2010-07-23T16:00:00.003-04:00

Previously I mentioned I'll be participating on a panel at Comic-Con. I just want to say today that I'll also be signing in the Autograph Area after my panel, and giving away FAT VAMPIRE t-shirts to the first fifteen people in my line (who want one).

The t-shirt graphic looks like the image up left. My signing is in AA1 from 12-1 pm. See you there!

Okay, I'm Back

2010-07-22T15:10:00.003-04:00

Just a quick note to say that I'll be at the San Diego Comic-Con in support of my new book, FAT VAMPIRE.

On Sunday from 11-12:00 I'll be participating in a panel called Entertaining One's Inner Child in room 24ABC. Also participating will be Matt and Jennifer Holm (Babymouse), David Steinberg (Daniel Boom), Jimmy Gownley (Amelia Rules), Sina Grace (Among the Ghosts), and Greg Van Eekhout (Kid vs. Squid).

I'll also just be wandering around most of Saturday and Sunday, so if you see me please say hi. I'll be the guy who looks like me.