Where Koobish Come From

First, a little background: in my novel, The True Meaning of Smekday, there is a kind of alien livestock called the koobish. Here are a couple of them in a photo with one of the story's protagonists, J.Lo:

I'd like to explain how the koobish came to be, and to do that I first have to tell you about a very bad tattoo I got back in 1991.

I was eighteen, and away at college, and four of us decided on a whim to get tattoos. What, you may be thinking, could possibly go wrong. If memory serves I believe Liza got a Tazmanian Devil. Kim got some sort of dolphin/rainbow/Earth combo. I can't remember what Brad got, but based on these previous choices I'm going to go ahead and guess it was the Chinese character for "stupid."

I had begun writing a bit at this point, and I fancied myself something of a humorist, so I got a jester on my ankle. Like so:

I was not drunk.

I don't think I'm giving away too much at this point in the story if I tell you I no longer have this tattoo, but this is how it looked to the best of my recollection. Like Bea Arthur. I didn't even draw the original design myself. I picked it off the parlor wall. I was an art student AND I PICKED MY TATTOO OFF THE PARLOR WALL.

Anyway, years passed. I quickly grew to hate the tattoo, but it was on my ankle, and I almost always wear socks, and literally months could pass where I didn't think about it at all. It was so inconspicuous that I dated my wife for a whole summer before she noticed it was there. We managed to pull through as a couple.

Eventually I realized that while I would never pay to have it removed, it might be worth one or two hundred bucks to get it covered up with something else. So I designed this little fellow:

Here it is filled in:

And actually on my ankle:

I liked it, and I named it the koobish. And it occurred to me that I'd like it even better if it had some actual significance, so I wrote it into the novel I was working on.

Ta da.

Sometimes people ask me why I write, and sometimes I answer, "To correct the mistakes of the past." And then they nod sagely, and pretend to know what I'm talking about, and I reach down to pull up my sock.

Clock Without a Face 7

The clown, who lives one floor below the kids.

Clock Without a Face 6

Got a little behind on these. Here are the kids who live one floor below the future-man. Nobody seems to know what happened to their parents, but they don't mind. They think they're doing just fine.

Be sure to check out the website for Clock Without a Face. Join the hunt! Part of the treasure could practically be in your back yard.

Residents of Kansas City!

I will be a participant in this week's DNA Lit Fest. Please click that thing for more information. Also participating are Uri Shulevitz, Brian Selznick, Kate Klise, Patricia Polacco, and Judy Sierra, so give me a break, just go already.

If you don't want me coming and messing up your city now's the time to say something.

Ada Lovelace Day, Again

I can't believe it's been a whole year since the last Ada Lovelace Day. Phil Hilliker reminded me this morning, so I've decided to rerun my post from last year.

As Cory Doctorow puts it, Ada Lovelace Day is "the day that bloggers all over the world post about women in science as part of a global day of awareness and appreciation for the (often underreported) role that women play in the sciences." I love women in science (or at least one particular woman in science), and I'm a huge fan of awareness, so I'm blogging about my wife, Marie.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, she's an astrophysicist. That's her, second from the left, in a photo by Gaelen Marsden. Marie is here depicted in Antarctica in 2006, where she and her team built a telescope and launched it on a balloon to the edge of space to search the infrared spectrum for signs of star formation in the early universe. She was there for two months. Why yes, as a matter of fact she is cooler than your wife. That's nice of you to mention it.

Clock Without a Face 5

Once again I post a portrait from a forthcoming treasure-hunt book, The Clock Without a Face. Here's the future-man, who lives one floor below the hunter.

Today I have more to report, however, as I've noticed the official website seems to be back up again. Check it out, because there's a wealth of information about this weird little book, and about twelve emerald-studded numbers that have been hidden across this great country. These numbers will be yours for the keeping, if you find them first. Really.

Also, a great long-form review of the book up on the Fuse #8 blog.

There's a Pigeon Nesting on my Porch.

Clock Without a Face 4

Another portrait from The Clock Without a Face. Here's the hunter, who lives a floor below the hoarder.

An Open Letter

Dear Itawamba County School Board:

Forbidding Constance McMillen to attend prom with her girlfriend is bigotry. But it's unsurprising, run-of-the-mill bigotry, and I'll admit it's not what moved me to write.

To cancel prom rather than risk Constance's and her girlfriend's inclusion is petty and unconscionable, knowing (as anyone would) that it would lead to blame, harassment, and threats aimed at the girls.

But thank goodness that, due to your actions, there haven't been any "distractions" this year. That's what you were trying to avoid, right?

Take Care,
Adam Rex

The Clock Without a Face 3

Yet another portrait from that forthcoming book I've been talking about. This is the hoarder, who lives one floor below the alchemist.

Once again, this book is both a mystery and a treasure hunt. Readers will find clues inside that will lead them to twelve different bejeweled numbers hidden across the United States.

More information soon.

The Clock Without a Face 2

Here's another portrait from that forthcoming book I mentioned Sunday. This is the modern-day alchemist, who lives one floor below the billionaire.

Once again, this book is both a mystery and a treasure hunt. Readers will find clues inside that will lead them to twelve different bejeweled numbers hidden across the United States.

Someone asked on my last post if there was a way to get additional information. There will be soon, but the official website for the book hasn't launched yet. I'll pass along everything relevant when I can.

Tucson Festival of Books

If you live in or around Tucson, or if your car recently broke down here, I hope you'll join me this weekend on the campus of the University of Arizona for the second annual Tucson Festival of Books. Follow that link for a lot of information. Here, though, is my schedule:

Saturday the 13th:

10am–I'll be introducing the awards presentation for the Flash Fiction Contest on the Story Telling Stage in front of the Psychology building.

2-2:45pm–I'll be signing books at the Kids' Center/Simon & Schuster booth. No, I don't know where that is, either. Somewhere on the mall.

3-3:30–I'll be in the Teen Author's Lounge, which I understand is some kind of tent. I may be reading or drawing or just answering questions–it'll depend on who shows up.

4-5pm–I'll be on a panel with Jon Scieszka, Mac Barnett, and Chris Gall in the Kiva Auditorium in the College of Education building. We're apparently going to talk about being funny. To paraphrase Elvis Costello, talking about being funny is like dancing about architecture. So come watch us dance in the Kiva Auditorium in the College of Education building.

5-5:30–I'll be autographing some more in the designated area.

I've been to a lot of book festivals, and the one Tucson put on last year was among the best I've attended. Let's all get out there and show everyone what kind of town we live in.

The Clock Without a Face

Look at this thing. This unlikely-looking thing is a book, a mystery book titled The Clock Without a Face. And within this book lies the clues to uncover twelve bejeweled numbers which have been hidden across the United States of America. I'm not kidding about this.

The Clock Without a Face will be available this May. It features staggering environmental drawings by Scott Teplin, and those drawings are the stars of this book. But I'm happy to say that I provided portraits of its cast of characters, and I'm going to start sharing these today. Below is the billionaire–the emerald-studded numbers were stolen right off the face of his once-valuable clock.

Common Sense

(Titled in deference to Thomas Paine's much longer blog post about the authority of the monarchy)

A post by Ben Esch alerted me to Common Sense Media (CSM), a group dedicated to informing parents about the appropriateness of books, movies, etc. for their children. This group has begun to partner with Barnes & Noble online to provide this kind of subjective information on its product pages. Specifically, Ben pointed me to the fact that CSM rates Judy Blume's Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret as inappropriate for children under eleven, "a little iffy" for kids eleven to thirteen, and only fully appropriate for people fourteen and up. In case you think you misunderstand that: CSM believes that Blume's classic about the onset of puberty is truly appropriate only for kids who are post-pubescent. Which I don't really understand, but they must have their reasons.

All this got me wondering what CSM thinks of my books. Let's look at The True Meaning of Smekday. They consider it a little iffy for eight-year-olds, fine for nine and up. That's roughly what I tell parents myself when they ask, so great! CSM also has sections titled "The good stuff" and "What to watch out for," in which praise or warnings are dished out on a 0 to 5 scale on a variety of subjects. Regarding "Violence," Smekday gets a warning level of 3. Okay. I would have given it a 2, personally, but Star Wars: A New Hope gets a 3 as well, and I think they're similarly violent.

Regarding "Drinking, drugs, & smoking," CSM gives Smekday a warning of 3. Reason? "Several types of alcohol mentioned." This is true. On I believe about two pages (out of 423) my narrator does mention alcohol. She even implies that her thirtysomething mother partakes from time to time. There is no actual consumption in the book, but merely acknowledging the existence of alcohol apparently is worth a 3 of 5–that's pretty bad, and I feel a little ashamed of myself. The movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, for example, earns a five, and the protagonists of that story consume absurd amounts of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco nonstop, even while driving, for days. Again, to be clear: there is only one step between my middle grade novel's depiction of substance abuse and that shown in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Oddly, if we look at Star Wars again we see that, while CSM recognizes actual alcohol consumption therein and the smoking of a pipe, it earns a warning level of zero. I'm guessing this is because Star Wars features only space alcohol and so forth. I have a lot to learn.

There are other things, but I don't want to go on and on. Smekday also earns a warning of 3 for what I'd previously thought was fairly PG-rated, prime-time language. It gets two frowny faces for "some racial tension between Native Americans and whites, and between African Americans and whites." I haven't read my own book in a while–can someone in the comments remind me which page the black-white tension is on? Thanks in advance.

But enough of all this negativity, lets get to "The the good stuff." What does Common Sense Media say are the positive messages in The True Meaning of Smekday?

There are no positive messages in The True Meaning of Smekday.

Okay! That about wraps up my post about Common Sense Media. This is Adam Rex, wishing you safe reading.

Happy Valentine's Day

I realize I haven't been posting much as of late. 2010 has really started off with a bang. And by "bang," I mean "existential crisis-level workload." But in honor of today I decided to search my hard drive for the word "Valentine" to see if I had anything kicking around. I know, it sounds so sweet when I put it that way.

Frankly, I'm sort of ambivalent about Valentine's Day. The arteries of it are clogged with hackneyed greeting cards and performance anxiety and stultifying expectations. But here's what my computer found, from a truthy sort of piece I started writing about the planets:

PLUTO– Scientists no longer consider Pluto a planet, but rather our Solar System’s second-largest plutoid. And if this sounds like a big consolation prize, the astronomical equivalent of a Valentine from your mom, you are right. It is.
I sympathize with Pluto, as scientists recently phoned to tell me that I could no longer be considered fully human, but would henceforth be known as the world’s second-handsomest adamrexian. I thanked them, expressed my appreciation that they called me personally rather than just letting me hear about it in the media, then spent the next several days staring searchingly into mirrors and crying myself to sleep.

And, because most of you probably come here to look at pictures, here's a rejected cover sketch for a humor anthology I'm illustrating–the first of a number of anthologies published under the umbrella of Jon Scieszka's GUYS READ. More on this anthology to come. For now I'll just say I consider this possibly the best failed cover idea in my history as a cover artist.

Book-alikes

I love this. The True Meaning of Smekday readers Stacy (mother) and Zoe (daughter) decided to let me know that Zoe IS that book's protagonist, Gratuity Tucci. And I'm not going to argue with them, are you?

Above is their approximation of the illustration that opens the book, below is the book's closer.

This made me wonder if anyone else out there ever looked at one of my books and thought Hey, his Frankenstein looks just like my Uncle Whoever or Wow, the way he draws Billy Twitters reminds me of my classmate, Whatsisname. Anybody got any photographic proof of something like that? Or maybe you just think one of my characters looks like a politician or celebrity. If so, send pictures or links to adamrex(at)earthlink(dot)net.

Own a piece of Frankenstein

So to speak. Some original art from my picture book Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich is currently part of a charity auction here. This is what it looks like, please pardon the watermark:

There's also a great piece of original Charles Schulz art from Peanuts if you happen to be rich, or have some money that was cursed by gypsies so that you have to spend it before the week is done else ill luck plague your house or something.

No offense meant to my Romany readers.

If you'd like to learn more about the charity, try here.

Shortlisted for an Edgar!

Just learned today that Mac Barnett's The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity (Brixton Brothers #1, which I had the honor of illustrating), has been shortisted for an Edgar Award in the juvenile category. Here are some of my previous posts about the book. So anyway, it's an excuse to post more images from this excellent book.

Here's my sketch for a tense scene in which Steve Brixton is hiding in his local library from a unit of special ops-types bent on his capture:

I actually took this sketch, blurred it, posterized it into a flat gray, and used that graytone in the final:

Finally, apropos of nothing, here's a cartoon I drew in high school. My old friend Grant just rediscovered this and emailed it to me. It may be obvious that I was working through sort of a Monty Python stage in my life at this point.

el Chupacabra

Another holiday gift for a different friend. This one also about four inches tall.

Aaaand, I'm Back.

Still playing catch-up after the holidays, but I thought I should get busy posting again. Here's a small (about 4 inches tall) painting I made for my agent as a holiday present.

Could not seem to photograph him without picking up a lot of glare. Maybe because the brushstroke to painting size ratio is a lot bigger here than usual. Anyway, his name is Don Calavera, and I see him here and there around the neighborhood.

The Flight Before Christmas

I thought I'd repost this for anyone who missed it back during the Thirty Poets Thirty Days event in April. Happy Holidays!

The Flight Before Christmas

'Tis the flight before Christmas. Our aircraft today
is a Boeing C-25 JingleBus sleigh.
At this time I would like to say "welcome aboard"
and please ask for all luggage and toys to be stored
in the space by your feet or the overhead sack.
Use caution untying the sack when you pack
as the toys may have shifted about during flight.
Santa gets a bit…dazed by the end of the night.
It's hardly surprising for someone who stares
for twelve hours at eight tiny reinderrières.
Plus the eggnog. Our point is, expect a rough ride,
but in two thousand years not one passenger’s died.
In the likely event of a freefall or dive
there’s an oxygen mask that will keep you alive.
We ask that you first find a mask for yourself–
put it on and pull tight before helping an elf.
Get your safety belt buckled, and keep it that way–
no standing or stretching at all in the sleigh.
Not a soul should be stirring, not even the mice.
Our pilot is quite the flotation device!
If we land in the water, hold onto him tight.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good flight.

The San Francisco Panorama

Things are going to be pretty dead around here for the next few weeks, but before I leave I wanted to post about something that arrived on my doorstep today–my contributor's copy of the San Francisco Panorama. It's a one-time-only newspaper that was sold on the streets of SF a few days ago. But it's also issue 33 of the McSweeney's Quarterly, and as such it will also be sold for sixteen dollars in bookstores nationwide and through the McSweeney's Store.

This thing is a packed, Sunday-sized newspaper with original reporting, fiction by George Saunders and Roddy Doyle, Stephen King on sports, David Chang on ramen, comics by Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine, Art Spiegelman, and many more--and a children's games page, called the Rear End, edited by my friend Mac Barnett. He asked some of his favorite writers and illustrators to contribute--Jon Scieszka, Carson Ellis, Jon Klassen, Kevin Cornell, Jenny Traig, and Jon Adams--and he and I co-created our own feature called HOW TO SNEAK. So here's that. Click to enlarge:

Hey You Guys!

My mustache is gone but you can still support DonorsChoose.org and get a get a sweet piece of art to boot at the Hey You Guys charity auction. The auction is live now, and bidding has already started. Prices are still pretty low, though. You could currently grab my portrait of Andre the Giant as Fezzik (lower right) for 54 dollars.

Pictured, clockwise from top left, are works by Israel Sanchez, Dan Santat, me, and Shaunna Peterson.

Why not visit the auction site and see what else they have?

Mustache 2009 Wrap-Up

Mustache 2009 from Adam Rex on Vimeo.

Specifically, thanks to Gary and Chris Abbate, Mr. Israel Sanchez, Karen Taha, Michelle, Sarah Slocum, Cathleen McCoy, Anonymous, Joan Sandin, Jessica Olzak-McDonald, Ms Sacha Adorno, Anonymous, David Wiesner, Donna Bray, Nina Crittenden, Darrell Toland, Jacob Johnston, and Chelle Jenkins. And anyone I missed, either now or in an earlier post. Did I miss anyone?

Andre the Giant Has a Portrait

The second annual Hey You Guys charity event is set for December 5th at the Rialto Theater in South Pasedena, CA. There will be an auction of art inspired by family movies of the 80's, and a screening of Ghostbusters. All proceeds benefit Donors Choose, which is incidentally the charity for which I've been growing this damn mustache. So I've painted a little 5x7 portrait of Andre the Giant as Fezzik from The Princess Bride.

If anyone out there attends the event, let me know.