For those who keep asking...

...here's what it'd look like if the Wall Street Journal ran a feature on Mac Barnett as the star of an 80's cop show.

My Tucson Festival of Books Schedule

Schedule: Saturday, March 9

1:00 – 2:00 College of Education Room 353   Panel Discussion: No Animals Were Harmed in the Making of this Picture(book)  Adam Rex, Peter Brown, Lester Laminack

2:00 – 2:30 Autographing right outside the south entrance of the COE and to the east. 

4:00 Autographing at the Tucson Weekly booth

Schedule, Sunday, March 10 1:00 – 2:00 – College of Education Kiva.  Fear, Intrigue and Humor:  Engaging Kids as Readers. Stephan Pastis, R.L. Stine, Adam Rex. Jennifer J. Stewart is the moderator -Jennifer@jenniferjstewart.com

2:00 – 2:30 Autographing out the south doors of the COE and directly east.

3:00-3:30 – Storyblanket (Chu’s Day)
 

Excerpt!

Oh wow, the first 80 pages of Unlucky Charms are online.  Link

They're Not a Lover of the Cover That is Graven with a Raven. A Fairy in the Dairy is the Jacket That'll Hack It.

In 2010 I finished the first draft of a novel called Cold Cereal.  It’s the first of a trilogy about a kid who discovers that a breakfast cereal company is stealing glamour from leprechauns and fairies and magical beasts, and slipping this stolen glamour into their magically delicious cereals, and using these cereals to raise an army of sugar zombies and conquer mankind.

It’s meant to be funny.  Whether you find it funny will have a lot to do with your tolerance for this sort of thing.

I went through the usual battery of sketches for the cover of this novel:

Many of them eventually focused on my main kid (Scott) drawing a sword Excalibur-style out of a box of cereal, as if it were the prize inside.  This was an idea that my editor kept pushing, and which she kept insisting was mine.  I think I probably had originated it during some spitballing phone conversation, but the truth was that it made me uncomfortable–Scott doesn’t have a sword at any point in the book, and it’s exactly the sort of conceptual image that we accept as adults but which would have struck me as dishonest as a kid.  I’d be waiting the whole book for the sword scene.

Well, it did make for an okay cover image.  Painted in Photoshop, type design mine.

I ended up liking it.  My wife liked it.  My agent liked it.  My editor liked it.  She showed it to the Sales department, and they didn’t like it.

So we reeled back to an older idea: that of Scott approaching the cereal factory at night, seen only by the plaster eyes of mascots that overlook the entrance.

Now everybody was happy but me.  I was on the faculty of the Illustration Master Class in Amherst that summer (2011), so at the end of my keynote I put this cover up on screen.  I suggested that the students might enjoy critiquing one of my pieces after several grueling days of listening to the faculty critique theirs.  I remember being concerned that no one would feel comfortable digging in.  Instead, several students may have dislocated their shoulders from so much vigorous hand-raising.

They had, in fact, much better ideas than I could execute before the book went to print.  But I took as much as I could to heart and turned in this revision.  

Then I got to work on the 40-some pages of interior B&W illustrations, and started writing the sequel.

The sequel, Unlucky Charms, had its own cover struggles.  I thought I’d knocked it out of the park right away with a dreamy image of two of my heroes approaching a giant raven:

Turns out someone at HarperCollins is afraid of birds?  Or something?  Anyway, they said it was “too scary.”

The next was “too sexy.”

The third idea turned into one of my favorite digital paintings.

Everything just kind of came together–or at least, it did after I made a 3D staircase model in SketchUp to help me draw the vines.

I REALLY like this painting, which is why it pains me a little to tell you that it isn’t the cover of Unlucky Charms.

I believe Cold Cereal has been selling only modestly (I’m not sure because I only get sales figures twice a year, and it hasn’t been in stores all that long).  When a book isn’t performing to expectations the only thing you can really change about it is the cover.  So may I present the cover of the paperback edition of Cold Cereal:

And the redesigned Unlucky Charms, out this week:

I like them.  Again–Photoshop, dodgy type design mine.

I’m writing the third book, Champions of Breakfast, as you read this.  I already have an approved cover sketch.  They went along with the first idea I pitched.  It’s TERRIFYING.

Unlucky Charms is OUT!

To compensate you for this nakedly promotional post, please accept this disquieting picture of Queen Elizabeth II.

The Best of All Possible Unlucky Charms Reviews

Excerpt from Unlucky Charms

Decided to post an excerpt for this image that I put up the other day:

The tree, possibly tired of being hacked at and pelted with stones and filled with tiny hairy people, sprang to life.  John leaped away, and Finchbriton flew free.  The tree snapped a root from the earth like a tentacle, and gave John an uppercut that he only partially managed to absorb with the chickadee shield.  He landed hard on his back, and looked up to see a spindly fist of branches swinging down at him.  He rolled and turned, just as he had done on the set of Galileo’s Revenge, and carved a few twig-fingers from the fist.  Then Finchbriton fluttered in and set the rest ablaze.

The tree pulled back, creaking and groaning, and shook itself like a dog, joggling the some twenty Hairy Men still camped in its branches.  Then it plucked one of these Hairy Men free like an apple and chucked it at John.

“WAAAAH!”  The brownie whanged off John’s shield and landed in a wad a few feet away, then crawled off.  After a moment the tree found another brownie and did it again.

“WAAAAH!” (whang)

“Stop that!” said John.

“WAAAAAAH!” (whang)

Sandy Relief

Tucson: I'll be at Heroes and Villains tomorrow (Wednesday) from 3-5, drawing you pictures to raise money for Sandy relief.  Come say hi!

Unlucky Charms Cover

This was not the original cover, and I'll be telling the story of that soon.  But I am proud of this NEW! and Improved cover of Unlucky Charms, the sequel to Cold Cereal.

Unlucky Charms will be available On February 5th.

Naked Attention Grab

I'm craving some external validation today, so here are a bunch of baby animals.

Cold Cereal NEW! and IMPROVED!

Just occurred to me that I've never posted the NEW! cover of Cold Cereal, which graces the paperback edition.  Tada.

Unlucky Charms is Coming.

Are coming?  It's a title, so...I think "is coming."

UNLUCKY CHARMS IS COMING.

This sequel to Cold Cereal will be in stores in two weeks.  So here's a picture of a tree throwing tiny men at a guy.

To help me with all these drawings of the brownies above, I made a quick little head out of my kneaded eraser.  Then I photographed him with my laptop, atop a toothpick I'd pulled out of my sandwich.  I find it's best in these situations not to explain anything to the people at the tables next to you, and let them work out their own narratives for what you're doing.

Previously, This is So Raven.

Toad of Toad Hall

Chu's Day is out...

...and I can't help but link to a blog post that Neil Gaiman writes about it.  So go read that.  But I hope he won't mind that I stole one of his images, which I present below.

When Gaiman presented his manuscript to HarperCollins, he actually included his own B&W dummy, a drawing from which you can see above.  I don't actually know how many authors do this, but it was the first time that a publisher forwarded along such a dummy to me.

Anyway, it was understood that I didn't have to make the book-dust blower an elephant if I didn't want to.  But man, why NOT an elephant?

New Pssst! Review

Nice new review of Pssst! by Sid Allie.  Contains spoilers.

His dad's the Editor-In-Chief of Dark Horse Comics, so you know he knows what he's talking about.

I Attempt Felting

THE GREATEST STORY EVER

Hey, click here and scroll down for the GREATEST STORY EVER.

Anyone Want an Original Illustration from The True Meaning of Smekday?

Here, click on these words.  The ones you're reading right now.

Chu's Day Trailer

Fun fact–Gaiman wasn't available to make this video, so I played him wearing a Neilsuit a la the British "pantomime" tradition.

CONTEST WINNERS

We had a great response to our Hallowtweet Poety Contest (just made that name up).  I think it was exactly fifty entries.  Which makes this next part hard, but...

The winner of the 2012 Hallowtweet Poetry Contest is...

Zack Rock (@zackrock)

Frankenstein dons Calvin Klein/Dracula wears Crocs/Wolfman shaves & behaves/Bigfoot's in big socks/Tonite it's thus: we're them, they're us.

Isn't that nice?

Zack, if indeed that is his real name, will receive an original drawing by me, suitable for framing, if you think framing something like that is suitable.

We also have five runners up, in no particular order:


Brian Rafter (@WerewolfBathtub)

2 spatulas, a wooden spoon/The choices make him wince./The Slasher's stuck; the dishwasher/Is locked on normal rinse.

Talky Tina Kugler (@tinatheatre)

No child fears the Jubbalo/Sharp horns on top and claws below/No child fears his eyes a-glitter/His favorite food is babysitter.

Amanda C. Davis (@davisac1)

Ghoulsie dies and ghostsie dies and little vampsy dorgans. (A wolfully dorgans too, wouldn't you?)

Carter Higgins (@CarterHiggins)

Sugar coated canines and rotting roots in heaps. On Hallow's Eve, Tooth Fairy shakes her piggy bank and weeps.

Julie Falatko (@JulieFalatko)

The wind is howling/ The candlelight flickers/ To the wee goblins I say:/ Keep your hands off my Snickers.

Thanks again to everyone–this was even more fun than I'd expected.  Winners should get in touch via the email in my blog profile.

CONTEST

Hey, does anyone want to win a sketch by me? Head over to twitter and tweet a 140 character Halloween poem to @stevenmalk before midnight tonight!

Austin was a good time.

Birdie.

Bunny.

Art Show

Hey, if you're in or around Tucson tomorrow (Friday), maybe come by the opening of this art show. Features me, Mike Nolan, cartoonist Max Cannon (Red Meat), and my teacher, David Christiana.