#1 New York Times bestseller!

Posted on3 Comments

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.

Halloween Horror: Elevator

Posted on

Hi folks, I’m now back in Australia and back at work.

There’s going to be a slew of things happening this Halloween (a month-and-a-half away), and Bento Comics is going to make something especially for Halloween this year. So here’s a short horror story I started years ago, which I only got motivated enough to finish recently. It’s about… elevators, of all things.

The first 3-4 pages of the story was originally one of those “true stories” you read in magazines, where people write in about their “spooky experiences”. It seems that a fair amount of spooky experiences happen to firemen late at night. I’m guessing that among firemen who deal with people supposedly trapped in elevators, this one is a bit of an urban legend. The rest of it, however, is completely made up by me.

E-book in .epub format available at the site too. Look on the right hand side of the page for a link.

 
 

Elevator

Click to read on BentoComics.com

Bentocomics.com – Meet Mimi Sashimi

Posted on

I just came back from a holiday on the Silk Road, spending 10 days traipsing around China with a Hong Kong tour, hitting all the predictable places and having a blast. We went from Urumqi to Turpan, to Hamu, then Dunhuang, from them onto Xian, Luoyang and the Shaolin temple. Sure, the last two isn’t really part of the Silk Road, But I must mention that Xian is a fantastic city and worth going to again sans-tour next time.

Now that I’ve been back for a few days and is rested enough, I bring you something fun and interesting: how we came up with the Bento Mascot for Bento Comics.

 

Introducting the Bento Mascot: I bring you all the mascots we designed before we decided on the official Bento Mascot, Mimi Sashimi. It was meant to be like a design contest – all the participants in Bento came up with their (mostly) food-related designs, and we collectively chose which one we thought was the cutest. Or the most suitable. Or the most clever. As far as these contests go, the criteria is never stable. It’s just a matter of what catches our eye. Which makes you wonder – what makes a good mascot?

Here’s the runner ups, by:

 

Dan's Mascot

Dan – A bunch of taco octopuses from outer space

 

Svetlana's mascot

Svetlana – It’s a happily crumpled piece of paper

 

Myung's mascot

Myung – Food and the one about to eat it

 

And the winning entry, mine:

 

Queenie - Mascot

The whole sushi family

 

I’m not sure what it was about my entry that people seemed to like, despite me initially being too embarrassed to show it. After giggling at everyone else’s mascot designs, it seemed that everyone unanimously liked mine the best.

Perhaps it’s the contrast between the 3 different sushi people – I often find that drawing a few versions of a “tribe” and putting them next to each other can often give personality to what is essentially a bunch of line drawings. It’s human nature to ascribe personalities to a “group” of things, no matter how non-human they look. Observe people pointing at a bunch of clouds and seeing giraffes, elephants and Persian cats. What gives? Looking at the three sushi people, who do you think is the out-going one?

We decided pretty quickly – Mimi Sashimi is our new mascot. We (Svetlana and Dan, mostly) tweaked her design a bit, to make her cuter, rounder, and more edible. Look out for more members of the sushi family later on!

Mimi Sashimi

Odd Thomas: More

Posted on

Hi all! I’m currently living in Hong Kong (will be here for about 3 months), settling in and entertaining friends. I’ve got some news to announce nevertheless, and some picture to show. Lord knows, I’d like to start posting regularly on this LJ again, and here I am trying to get into the swing of things.

 
 

Odd Thomas 3: You may have read that there’s going to two more Odd Thomas books in this ICv2 report, and that I’ll be doing book number 3. Book number 2 “Odd Is On Our Side” will be out this Halloween, so I’ll be starting on book 3 in early August. Book 4 will be done by the talented Ikari Studio, and it’s just as well because I originally had to turn down book 4 because of an

 
 

Art I did for a short film: I did some art for a short student film at NIDA in Sydney, and while the concept is quite interesting, unfortunately the sci-fi nature of the story means that funding is limited and my part of the work can’t be completed (due to lack of funds). Still, I thought I’ll show you the art. These are just rough colour works, done in about 30 mins.

 

Movie girl - 1
This was my first design for a samurai sword-wielding young girl in a post-apocalyptic setting.

 

Movie girl - 2
But it turns out the director was looking more for something like this.