Edgar Allan Poem 2

Just posted over at Tor.com.

An Edgar Allan Poem

In acknowledgment of Poe's 200th birthday, Tor.com is republishing my Poe-ems from Frankenstein Takes the Cake. Here's the first of them.

Self-Portrait

Back when I was in school, my instructor David Christiana more than once charged us to do a self-portrait-a-day for a period of time. He had, himself, completed a self-portrait every day for a year when he was younger, and had found the process very instructive.
I always both hated and loved this assignment. It was tough, of course–I had to devote one to two hours a day on one class, for about two weeks. But at the end of the assignment I always recognized that I'd made some real progress in my development, and in a relatively short period of time.
Nowadays the internet is filed with people who do this sort of thing: portrait-a-day, dude-a-day, painting-a-day, etc. But this was back in, like, '96. It was considered pretty extreme.
If you've read this far you probably think I'm inaugurating a new self-imposed self-portrait-a-day assignment. It would have made for a great New Year's resolution, right? Truth is, I just felt like busting out a fast portrait the other day, so I painted this digitally from a photo taken with my laptop camera. Took about 45 minutes. I think it is OK.

Barnes & Noble's Best of 2008

Barnes & Noble has named Frankenstein Takes the Cake as one of its Top 10 Kid's Books of 2008! Thanks, Misters Barnes and Noble!

Benjamin ElectriFranklin

Shown a little bigger than actual size. From the collection of Mr. Steven Malk. Reprinted with permission.

Everything Has a Face, Part 2

A couple days ago a posted a short bit of writing called EVERYTHING HAS A FACE. I have no idea why I wrote it and didn't know what to do with it, so I invited readers to write the next bit. I got a few responses, all of which I liked, but I thought this one best continued the mood of the first part. It was submitted by one of my kid readers, Viv Rae, author of her own blog I'm Weird So What?

Anyone else want to pick up the ball from here?

EVERYTHING HAS A FACE, Part 2

"Well, that's rather creepy," he says with a bit of surprise in his tone. The bed gives him a somewhat concerning smile.

Suddenly there was tap on his shoulder. He quickly turned to see who or what it was. Standing behind him was a brown haired woman, that he suddenly recognized as his wife.

"Honey, are you alright?" she says in her normal voice,"You hit your head pretty hard on the medicine cabinet door, last night. You got up really fast saying that you had to pee really badly, you went in there so fast, you didn't even see that the cabinet was open. All of the sudden there was a huge crash. When i went in there, you were lying on the floor unconscious. Thank goodness you're alright."

Once again the man looks around the room. All the faces are still there, with their smiling faces.

"i don't think I'm alright because everything has a face."

Everything Has a Face

Just something I wrote recently, which I'm posting for the sake of posting something. I don't know what it's about. Anyone feel like writing the next bit?

EVERYTHING HAS A FACE

He wakes up, and everything has a face. The shirt he is wearing has a face. His boxer shorts. The footboard of his bed has a thin, wide smile, just a dark line, really, and small wide-set dots for eyes. The bed smiles a bit wider when it catches him looking at it. The eyes blink.

He doesn’t notice the faces right away. He’s myopic. In the shuffly morning he rises, has a pee, returns to the bedroom for his glasses, and then there they are. The endtable has a face. The mirror has a face. Two faces, now. Each of the four walls, the ceiling, the floor smile back at him. He examines his glasses. There is a tiny smiling face on the bridge, between the lenses.

Everything has a face. Everything that didn’t have a face already. Through his smiling window he sees happy buildings, distant, smiling mountains. The street has a face, one for each block. Trees, cars, public telephones, newspaper boxes, hydrants, signs, streetlamps. The people down on the street have faces. Their regular faces. They also have faces on each article of clothing, on the taut curve of an umbrella in the hand of a woman who hasn’t noticed it’s stopped raining. High above, the gray clouds have wispy, dreamlike smiles.

None of the people seem especially surprised by the faces.

He turns to look once more at his own room, and his eyes settle again on the bed. The bed grins a toothy grin. It seems really jazzed to have him looking at it so much.

“Can you talk?” he asks. The bed doesn’t say anything. It winks but it doesn’t say anything.

Click image for larger view.

Todd Lockwood Step-By-Step

All art students everywhere should have a look at this step-by-step progression of a book cover by Todd Lockwood. His isn't the only way to paint, or even the only way to paint digitally, but what's most important here is seeing how much work and thought goes into this cover before he starts the finished painting.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
(Thanks to Irene Gallo for the links)

Nebula Interview

There's a nice interview with me over at the Nebula Awards Website Blog Thing. My novel, The True Meaning of Smekday, was nominated this past year for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy (sort of the YA Nebula), but of course lost to the last Potter book.
If you like the interview, maybe leave them a comment.

Mustaches For Kids–Final Update

Together you and my mustache raised $1,120 for underfunded classrooms. But like another seasonal tradition, my mustache has waved goodbye, sayin' "Don't you cry, I'll be back again some day."
Special thanks to Ellen Greene, Ms. Deborah Bass, Mr. Mac Barnett, and Scott Rex.

Mustaches For Kids–Final Stretch

The Mustaches for Kids donor drive ends on the 13th...and I'm just overwhelmed by the results. My personal donors have at this point raised over a thousand dollars for underfunded classrooms. One of them stipulated that their pledge was contingent on my promise to do this every year. So you're going to have to put up with this again next November.
Anyway, I would have felt remiss if I didn't make one last plea. The donor sidebar is on the right. After the weekend I'll post a full mustache retrospective, and then I'll stop talking about it for eleven months.
Thanks to past donors and to Ms. Melinda Millington, Mr. Phillip Hilliker, Ms. Reiko Nakajima, Katy Kelly, Jon Scieszka, Angus Yuen-Killick, Mr. Steven Malk, Mr. Matt Phelan, Mr. David Adamson, Dawn Murin, Mark Susson, and Alicia Neal.

Whale Finish

Here's the finished painting of that sketch I posted last week. You may notice that I fixed a few drawing issues in the final–I'd done a pretty lousy job blocking in some of the houses in the background, and I think I had several horizon lines in play. I'm sure there are plenty more drawing mistakes where those came from, but I fixed a few of them, at least.

This is Photoshop and Wacom. No traditional painting in this book, though I'll be back to traditional materials with the following one.
Here are a couple details, including a bunch of cats that weren't in the sketch, but which I added at the suggestion of a friend of mine. I think it was Cyril.

As usual, click for larger views.

And Now, a Whale on a Skateboard

Wow, apparently I wore out my welcome with the mustache updates. Got a couple of snarky comments on the last one. Perhaps I'll continue to quietly try to raise funds through the sidebar, and stop talking about mustaches and needy schoolkids so much.

You'll have to take my word for it that this whale is on a skateboard, I suppose, since you can't see it under him in this drawing. But this is the sketch of the cover of my next picture book, Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem, written by Mac Barnett. In a few days I'll post the finished painting.
As always, click to see it larger.

Mustaches For Kids Update #3

To my regular readers, I apologize. There have probably been a lot more mustache-related posts recently than you'd come to expect. Sure, you read someone's blog, you're probably thinking, you expect a few mustache posts. But shut up already. I understand. If you can just bear with me a little longer, I promise to soon show pictures of blue whales on skateboards.
In the meantime, won't you consider donating ten dollars through the DonorsChoose sidebar on the right? You'll be helping underfunded school teachers to buy things like books and frogs.
Special thanks to new donors Dan Santat, Chelle Jenkins, green froggie, and Mrs. Elizabeth Haltom.

Anyone else notice I haven't posted much art lately?

Unless you count the performance hair art that is my mustache. Here's a cover painting I did for Irene Gallo over at Tor a couple years ago, for a book titled Hawkspar.

Mustaches For Kids Update 2

Mustache growth continues apace as the Mustaches For Kids Challenge nears its halfway point. I have so far stayed my hand and ignored my razor, knowing that generous donations from readers of this blog have helped to fully fund three projects in underprivileged classrooms. Please give a little if you can.
Thanks again to my former donors, and to my folks. You are the wind beneath my mustache.

John Hodgman

Weeks ago I discovered that I'd be presenting my new book at Politics & Prose in DC on the same day that John Hodgman would be presenting his (More Information Than You Require, in stores now), albeit eight hours apart. I didn't have eight hours to kill, but I did elect to leave Mr. Hodgman a signed copy of my book, featuring a mole-man sketch. I flattered myself that it might be the sort of kids' book he'd like, or I hoped so.
Today, via my Aunt and Uncle Papenfuss, I learned that Hodgman had reviewed Frankenstein Takes the Cake in The Week magazine. The review can be read here.
And above you can see my hastily drawn caricature of Hodgman, sketched in my sketchbook and held up to my laptop's iSight camera.

New Shirt in my Shop

Begin advertisement:

Available in my shop. It need not be on this style of shirt, or in a child size. All my shirts are customizable.
Advertisement ends.

Mustaches For Kids Update 1

Well, look at that. I think my mustache is...is really...it's...
Oh God, who am I kidding. Look at it. It's like I can see my future, and my future is Freddie Mercury. I mean...I mean MY GOD!
Please help me resist the temptation to shave by donating now to help underfunded schoolkids. Do you have a spare ten dollars? They could use ten dollars.
Big thanks to donors Kim Baker, Stephen Wood, Jason Michels, Israel Sanchez, Bernie and Laurie Thompson (in honor of Connor Thompson), and Douglas Florian.

Smeksbury

A while ago, while preparing material to put on the National Time Capsule Project site (aka The True Meaning of Smekday website), I sketched out this fake Doonesbury strip. The idea was that this was an installment of Doonesbury that actually appeared in newspapers at the time of the alien invasion that takes place in my book. I wrote to Gary Trudeau, asking for permission, never got a response, so I never inked this thing or posted it on the site. I forgot about it for a while. Then I remembered it after re-watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas recently.

So if Trudeau's people want to send me a cease-and-desist letter, now's the time. If I don't hear anything, maybe I'll ink it and put it on the Smekday site in time for the book's paperback release in May.

Mustaches For Kids

Here's a picture of me, taken today. You're probably thinking, Look at that Adam Rex. What a big mustache he doesn't have.
Well, in keeping with the rules laid down by international fundraising group Mustaches for Kids, I will spend the next 30 days growing a mustache, possibly a very bad mustache, and enduring the public ridicule and haunting personal doubt that follows. To stay strong I need your pledges–any dollar amount will help–and you'll feel good knowing that your donation is going to help underfunded classrooms.
I promise to keep checking in with mustache progress shots twice a week, if you promise to pledge. You can go to my pledge page HERE, or through the sidebar on the right.
And I know I'm asking for money again pretty soon after that 5K I ran. Sorry about that, I didn't plan it this way.

Hmm.

There's an interesting experiment going on at genderanalyzer.com. They claim their AI can analyze a blog's language to determine if it was written by a man or a woman. They think I'm a woman.

So I'm going to see if this post makes any difference, football beer boobies football.

FOLLOWEEN

No ghosts are seen on Halloween,
except for kids in sheets.
No zombies ring for anything
apart from tricks or treats.
Though people say today’s the day
when bogeymen come out to play,
November 1st is when the worst
of monsters hit the streets.

And in disguise the dead arise
to sell us magazines.
In ties and slacks they hand out tracts
as fine, upstanding teens.
Just like the kids the night before
these horrors go from door to door
with vacuums, mops, or other props,
and boring sales routines.

It might feel mean on Folloween
to just ignore your door.
“A Girl Scout troop is on my stoop,”
you’ll mutter. “Nothing more.”
You want a snack so bad it hurts,
but trust me–those are ghouls in skirts.
With that in mind you’ll find
you’re not so hungry anymore.



From Frankenstein Takes the Cake, in stores now.

TRICK

“We’re not supposed to trick or treat the houses with no lights on,” said Jack.

“Can’t hurt to check,” Sophie answered. She readied her sack and rang the doorbell again.

The door was opened by a man dressed all in black. Like a ninja. He had a sack, too.

“Trick or Treat!” the kids sang.

“Oh, right,” the man said. “I forgot. Let me see.” He rummaged through his sack. “Here. A pretty brooch for the Little Mermaid, and a golden candlestick for the vampire.”

“Wow. Thanks,” said Sophie, looking at her new brooch. “We thought maybe nobody was home.”

“Nobody is,” the man replied, and he ran off down the street with his sack of treats.