A REAL Behind the scenes

look at how my book series was made Part 1

I’ll be talking about the Zoo Patrol Squad, available in Hardbound or softcover!

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So I started out being an author AND artist in 2019. Yep, that fateful year that upended life as we knew it. That was the year I was published doing my own stories and characters in both categories of writing and drawing. I actually completed an entire 4 book series in that time. 6 months each book, from writing, layouts, pencils, inks, and coloring. It was pretty nuts and I’d never work that fast and hard again. BUT, my publisher did give me this:

So I’d like to celebrate that crazy achievement by showing you how it all started…..

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At Comic Con I had just finished drawing the Beasts of Olympus for Penguin Random house, an 8 book series. The creative director came to my booth at Sand Diego Comic Con and bought a print and asked about it’s “story”.

I explained how I got to touch a fennec fox at big shindig event I was invited to draw at. It was strange event, drawing with kids and having Jeff Goldblum walk by shaking hands and some poor woman dumped my inks all over her hands. Weird day, but I got to take a pic and meet a fennec fox and loved that interaction. I went home and turned him into Fenlock Holmes, master detective.

He asked me to take a walk around the convention floor. I left my table in good hands, and told my booth mates, James Silvani and Amy Mebberson on one side, Jackie Huang on the other side of me. (Go check them all out) All Great people. I nervously went out with him.

As we walked I pitched 4 fully developed ideas I had, papers, character designs, plot points, everything under the sun I had everything prepped. But nothing grabbed him. So he pointed at the print he just bought from me and said, what about him?

And from my hip, with nothing prepped I pitched a sherlock holmes series with animals solving mysteries in the zoo when the humans left. A Pig that had been traumatized as a petting zoo animal with PTSD (watson) and the evil Otter named Mory Otter as the main foil.

“Great,” he said. “That’s the one. Can you get me something next week?”

“Sure” I replied, lying through my teeth. I was trying to remember what I had just blurted out, if I’m being honest. But it worked! That comic con, in the middle of small press, I got my first yes to be author and artist.

Watsig

Morry Otter

I plotted out a full Holmes 200 page story, Hyenas as the Hounds of Baskervilles because they fell into silver paint cans and it made them glow, I had Molly who was a love interest, etc etc.

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The creative director asked if I’d pitch the idea without the Sherlock Holmes stuff. Scrap the original pitch and just flow with it. Make it my own. No connection to Holmes, that way we didn’t have to keep to the property. So much work, so much effort. I wrote most of that 200 pager already!

Being a bit devastated and new to all this, I pulled up my sleeves and went back to the drawing board, literally and figuratively.

In the next substack, we’ll finish this long winded story of this behind the scenes…..