Category: Odd Thomas Series

Doodles for Odd Thomas books

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This week, I am blazing through the pencils for the last 3rd of Small Shen. I also went to Free Graphic Novel Day at Kinokuniya, which was a lot of fun. I signed some books and did some sketches for them, and here I show you a bunch of sketches I did for a series of signed (by me and Dean Kootz) books that I get to send back to someone who’s been doing this since the very first Odd Thomas graphic novel. This book is the last Odd Thomas book I’ll be doing, so I look back with some fondness.

 
sketch-odd

sketch-stormy

sketch-ozzie

sketch-nedra

sketch-vern

sketch-cassandra

sketch-kirk

sketch-youngodd

sketch-mum

sketch-cover
 

And here’s a picture of Dean’s autograph! With mine below…

 
autograph

House of Odd

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This week I started on inks for chapters 3-4 of Small Shen, and also finished my short story for our Bento Comics Peter Pan anthology (which I’ll talk about in a few weeks). I’m also going to Adelaide Comic-Con as a guest om the 30th March – 1st April, but this post is entirely dedicated to what’s happening next week, which is…

 

Odd Thomas 3 - House of Odd

 

This is the third Odd Thomas book I’ve done, titled “House of Odd” and it’s coming out next Tuesday on the 20th March, 2012 (I posted some art from this a while back). This book was drawn in 2011, and like the other two books, In Odd We Trust and the #1 New York Times seller Odd Is On Our Side, it focuses on the adventures of psychic fry-cook Odd Thomas, star of Dean Koontz‘s best-selling prose novel series of the same name. This book is adapted from a script by Dean and Landry Q. Walker, and I thank the both of them for their fine work!

NB.I also got to thank Lala of Review Carnival, and Allen of Jazma Online for their interviews of me! Lala’s is a general interview, whereas Allen’s deals specifically with House of Odd!

 

  • For North American Readers: You can buy it here off Amazon.com
  • For International Readers: You can buy it here off BookDepository.com, which has free international shipping.

 

What’s the Story?
The story of House of Odd once again has Odd and Stormy trying to solve a supernatural disturbance, but this time it’s a disturbance with a difference! It occurs at the site of a supposedly haunted house, which has just been bought and renovated by Nedra Nolan, a friend of Ozzie Boone. Ozzie recommended Odd to Nedra as the resident ghost-busters of Pico Mundo, but Nedra isn’t impressed – she’s an ex-Hollywood producer who instead hires her own (and therefore competing) band of ghostbusters to figure the house out. However, neither Odd nor the ghostbusters are prepared for what will actually happen in the house…

 

Odd Thomas is a psychic fry-cook who can see dead people, who lives in the Californian town of Pico Mundo. Accompanied by his ass-kicking, gun-toting girlfriend Stormy, he often tries to help the forlorn spirits he encounters by finding their murderers. This involves getting into a fair bit of danger. Luckily, Odd has many (living) friends, many of them quite odd themselves, who help him in his quest. It’s a rather charming, off-beat take on the supernatural, with moments of action and suspense, as Odd finds himslf the target of some truly nasty people as he tries to uncover their nefarious deeds.

 

Here I Show Off Some…
I’ve got to end this with a picture of something Dean sent me for my work… signed, numbered, first-edition copies of the first 4 Odd Thomas prose novels!! It was so kind of Dean to make this generous gesture, so in return I sent him back some original pages from House of Odd. Mind you, I’ve never owned any first edition books before, and had no idea that they were so big. They’re beautifully-printed, leather-bound and the size of a Britannica volume. Here’s some pictures to share with the Internet. No doubt this is worth a lot!!

 

ot-cover1

The red book is “Brother Odd”. It has the prettiest cover design!!

 

ot-cover2

The lightening bolt one is “Odd Hours”. The green one is “Odd Thomas”, the silver “Forever Odd”, and the other red one is “Brother Odd”.

 

ot-insides

The inside covers of these first-edition books are beautifully illustrated, as are the chapter openings. In “Brother Odd”, all the text on the pages were in the shape of a church window. I thought it was a real nice touch!

 

ot-numbered1

There’s only 300 of each of these in th world!! (Well, 500 of “Odd Thomas”, 300 of the rest)

 

ot-numbered2

This was actually sent to me in December 2011, but I thought I’d save it until “House of Odd” came out to show the world. So here it is!!

 

House of Odd Art

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The last part of Odd Thomas 3 has finally been approved, and I can now work towards finishing the book! 40 pages left to ink before the end!

I realise I haven’t posted some art up for a while, so this week I’m posting up page 24 of “House of Odd”, the third Odd Thomas book. To give people an idea of how the art is adapted from the script, and the progression of the art from pencils to the final pages, I’ve put it here in stages.

The first stage is ofcourse the script, which in this case is written by someone else (with me acting as the illustrator only). This may be a good example of how to write a script.

 

PAGE 24

PANEL 1: Having turned away, Nedra walks into the house. Odd and Stormy follow behind her

STORMY: So, Ms. Nolan . . . Ozzie said you think this house is haunted?

NEDRA: These spirits are as spoiled rotten as any movie star.

 

PANEL 2: Reverse angle from the last panel, so we can see the characters walking towards the camera. In the background, behind them, the front door is now shut.

NEDRA: They think it’s all about them, them, them.

 

PANEL 3: Odd cocks his head to one side, eyes rolling a bit in frustration and bemusement. Nedra is blissfully unaware of this as she continues to lead them deeper into the mansion.

NEDRA: But it’s really my production.

NEDRA: I told Ozzie that I had no need for amateur ghostbusters like you.

 

PANEL 4: Stormy’s gaze narrows.

STORMY: Amateurs?

NEDRA: No offense.  I’ve called in the professionals!

 

Next up, are the pencils. You may have noticed that I didn’t follow what was laid out in the panels in the script. This is because I feel that an illustrator’s job in comics is to tell the story as best as it can be told, and if that means not following the script, then so be it.

This isn’t uncommon in comics, since a fair number of artists will have been in situations when they can’t follow a script – mostly because what is described in the panels can’t be depicted in pictorial form. If it happens, it’s not because writers aren’t respected, but because writers aren’t always visual people, and don’t always know if what they’re describing in a panel can actually be drawn.

House of Odd - page 24 - Pencils

 

 

The inks are next. This part is straight-forward. I use a combination of dip pens (The Zebra G-pen and nikko pen) and Sakura microns to do my inking, and it’s worked for me fine. I find that the look of the art changes depending on the tools you use, but for Odd Thomas, I’ve always stuck with this style of art. Different kinds of stories call for different kinds of art, and Odd Thomas requires art that isn’t stylised or takes artistic lliberties. It’s not that kind of story.

House of Odd - page 24 - Inks

 

 

Finally, the tones and dialogue. The tones are done by the wonderful Dee DuPuy, and she uses a program called Deleter ComicWorks, which I then later open up in Photoshop to add the words. And thus, the page is finished and ready for print.

House of Odd - page 24 - Tones

 

#1 New York Times bestseller!

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A whole bunch of stuff to announce this month, thanks to Halloween. I’m currently working on “Odd Thomas” vol3, and at the end of this month, I’m heading off to Turkey for the Turkish International Book Fair, due to the Turkish version of “The Dreaming”. It’s going to be a fun trip and I’m looking forward to seeing some of the sights of Istanbul, as well as visiting some of the schools there for workshops and talks.

Then, onto the two Halloween-themed books I have that’s already out:

 

Odd Is On Our SideThe Dreaming - Omnibus

 

The first book is the next Odd Thomas book, “Odd Is On Our Side”, which came out the 5th October and is #1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list! Does that mean I can now use NYT #1 bestselling as a tagline? Fame by association. Conversely, when the first book “In Odd We Trust” came out, the NYT graphic novel list didn’t even yet exist.

 

#1 NYT Bestseller

 

Also, “The Dreaming: Perfect Collection”, which is all three volumes of “The Dreaming” series (plus a short story) combined into one big brick of a book. “The Dreaming” series was what got me the Odd Thomas job, so if you want to see what the fuss is about, then the “Perfect Collection” is a good investment.

 
 

More about “Odd Is On Our Side”
“Odd Thomas” is a series of books by the best-selling suspense author Dean Koontz, and centers around a psychic fry book who sees dead people. Odd is one of Dean’s most popular characters, thus prompting a few graphic novel prequels (with a few more in the works). The books are a mix of action, mystery and humour, and are suitable for all ages.

I’ve got to thank Dean Koontz for his wonderful characters, and Fred Van Lente for being such a fantastic script writer. This was my first time drawing to someone else’s script (second time was “Boy’s Book of Positive Quotations”), and you can’t ask for a better script than the one Fred penned. I also want to thank my toner Dee DuPuy, who is a way better toner than myself. And ofcourse my editor Betsy, agent Judy and Del Rey for making this book happen.

 

Panel from In Odd We Trust

From the first page of "Odd Is On Our Side", where Odd sits outside his house


 
 

More about “The Dreaming: Perfect Collection”
“The Dreaming” is a 3-volume horror-mystery series set in the Australian bush, about a series of student disappearances in a remote private boarding school. The series ran from 2004-2007, and this 2010 omnibus is a collection of all three volumes (plus a short story) into a single book. The series is suitable for teens aged 13 and up, and there’s no objectionable material in it (not even any gore).

You can read more about this series at my site. A movie’s in the works too.

 

Panel from "The Dreaming" Omnibus

From the short story, Millie's nephew.