Episode 19: Graphic Novels

In this episode of the Watchung Booksellers, authors and TV animators Jorge Aguirre and Jason Patterson discuss the art of storytelling in graphic novels.

Jason Patterson is an award winning graphic novelist and animator. Jason has been drawing and telling stories with his best friend Dan Abdo ever since high school. Dan and Jason created the hit animated series Rocket Monkeys. They have directed national and international advertising campaigns. Jason is a regular cartoon contributor to the New Yorker. Dan and Jason’s latest graphic novel for middle grade is bestselling series, Barb the Last Berzerker. They also have created the hit emerging reader graphic novel series, Blue Barry and Pancakes.

Jorge Aguirre is an author and TV writer. Two-time Emmy nominated, he created, co-developed, and co-produced Disney Junior's, Goldie & Bear. He’s the Head Writer and Co-Executive Producer of the PBS Kids/Fred Rogers Production show, Alma’s Way. He's written preschool shows for Disney, Jr., Nick, Jr., PBS, Amazon, and Netflix. He wrote the graphic novel series The Chronicles of Claudette, which he co-created with artist Rafael Rosado. The first book, Giants Beware received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and was a nominee for a Texas Bluebonnet Award. The sequels are Dragons Beware and Monsters Beware. His latest book is Call Me Iggy, a middle-grade graphic novel about a Colombian kid in Columbus, Ohio. His  new graphic novel series, Monster Locker, with artist Andrés Vera Martínez, come

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A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here.

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The Watchung Booksellers Podcast is produced by Kathryn Counsell and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Silver Stream Studio in Montclair, NJ.

The show is edited by Kathryn Counsell and Bree Testa. Special thanks to Timmy Kellenyi and Derek Mattheiss.

Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica.

Art & design and social media by Evelyn Moulton. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff.

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Transcript

Hi, welcome back to the Watchung Booksellers podcast. If you're new to our podcast, thanks for listening in.

Each week , we bring in two or three writers, publishing folks, booksellers. to talk about a different aspect of the book world. They share a conversation that we might get to hear at Watchung Booksellers And now we get to share these with you.

I'm Marni and I'm here with my co producer, Kathryn. Hi, Kathryn. Hey, Marni. How's it going? Good. What are you reading? , well, I finally scored an advanced reader's copy of The Last Bookstore on Earth by our beloved bookseller Lily Braun Arnold. Um, it's not coming out till January but, um, we booksellers are lucky enough to get, , some advanced copies and it is so great.

It's YA, dystopian, involves a pandemic, but it's very funny and charming and has all kinds of Easter eggs for the, uh, Watchung booksellers staff. Uh, it's wonderful. And, you know, it's, It's just great when you get to see someone who you know is just going to be a super talent along the way and get to see the beginning of their career.

So that's pretty cool. How about you? I'm super excited to read that book. I can't wait to get my hands on my copy. Well, I'm actually reading a book that Lily recommended. I'm on a bit of a Patricia Highsmith tear at the moment. I read the first Ripley books. I have the other three on order, but I did pick up a copy of The Price of Salt.

Highsmith put it out in 1952. Classic thriller. Um, it was later made into a film in 2015, Carol, which was fantastic, but I'm excited to read the book. Yeah, very cool. You are on a tear. That's nice. So it's the end of summer, um, maybe not officially, but with Labor Day under our belts, um, and while we're boohooing that, we're very excited to bring back more new conversations. So today we are welcoming Jorge Aguirre and Jason Patterson to talk about writing graphic novels. Jason Patterson is an award winning graphic novelist and animator.

Jason has been drawing and telling stories with his best friend Dan Abdo ever since high school. Dan and Jason created the hit animated series Rocket Monkeys. They have directed national and international advertising campaigns. Jason is a regular cartoon contributor to The New Yorker. Dan and Jason's latest graphic novel for middle grade is the Barb the Last Berserker series.

They also have created the hit emerging reader graphic novel, Blueberry and Pancakes. Dan and Jason love telling stories with heart, humor, and lots of adventure. But most of all, their stories show the enduring power of friendship. And, uh I'm going to apologize in advance for how I pronounce Jorge's last name.

I've been trying to roll my R's since I was 13 and never been successful. That's hard! Here we go, here's the Midwestern version. Jorge Aguirre is an author and TV writer. Two time Emmy nominated, he created, co developed, and co produced Disney Juniors Goldie and Bear. He's the head writer and co executive producer of the PBS Kids slash Fred Rogers production show Alma's Way.

He's written preschool shows for Disney Junior, Nick Junior, PBS, Amazon, and Netflix. He wrote the graphic novel series The Chronicles of Claudette, which he co created with artist Rafael Rosado. The first book, Giants Beware, received a star review from Publishers Weekly and was a nominee for a Texas Bluebonnet Award.

The sequels are Beware and Monsters Beware. His latest book with artist Rafael Rosado is Call Me Iggy. A middle grade graphic novel about a Colombian kid in Columbus, Ohio. His new graphic novel series, Monster Locker, with artist Andres Vera Martinez, comes out this October. A Colombian American born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Aguirre calls the great state of New Jersey home.

Enjoy the conversation, and we'll be back after to fill you in on what's coming up in the store. 

 Hey Jason, very nice to meet you and weird to meet you because we live in the same town. We do a lot of the same stuff, graphic novels, and we've never even run into each other at the ShopRite or anything like that. Grocery shop and.

Yeah, no, it's true. Jorge, it's so nice to meet you too. Yeah, it feels like I'm discovering a like minded soul in a town you've lived in for over 10 years. And it's such a nice surprise. It's like walking by a coffee shop you didn't know existed. And you're like, Oh, I'm so glad that this person shares my town and my life.

This is really cool. I feel like our town is probably full of those coffee shops. Like lots of people we don't know who kind of share interests. Yeah. And, uh, I think I'll get to know them little by little until I move. Yeah. Right, yes. On your way out, you're going to meet all the most interesting people.

And they'll be like, why are you leaving? And you're like, I don't know. College was like that for me, too. Um, I went to Ohio State, and I remember I hated it. But then the last quarter, I started meeting cool people. Like the, you know, I joined the vegetarian club. You know, vegetarians are really cool. I feel like part of life is trying to find your tribe.

You know, the people you really connect with. And It sucks when you find them so late, like at the end in your senior year, but it's so nice, it feels so good to find them, people that kind of connect. It does, and I feel like that's a big part of like comics as well, is like you and I both work with partners.

It's kind of like finding somebody who gets us. And, um, tell me, can you tell me a little bit about, you work with a guy named Dan. Yeah. And tell me a little bit about how that partnership began. Yeah. Um, that's a great question. Thank you. So Dan and I met in, um, Dan is totally part of my tribe for sure. We met in high school, sophomore year in high school, and our art room had, uh, a little closet attached to it which was called the advanced art room.

And we both love drawing, we both love being silly, we both love the same kind of music, um, and we ended up working in the independent art room, or the advanced art room, and we really got to know each other. And what's cool about our connection too is that we kind of came from different camps of of high school, like I was definitely like student council, kind of a little bit dorky, and Dan was like a skater, um, he loved skating, playing hacky sack, he had ripped jeans, really, you know, he was much cooler than me, um, but we really bonded through comics, like comics was just this shared love, and um, we have been working together.

Ever since, and we're, you know, we're making graphic novels together now and we work in a really cool way where we both write the stories and we both draw the stories. Um, and I'm really lucky to have found Dan and have somebody to kind of share all this with because, um, it's, it's so much more fun. Um, but Jorge, tell me how you, you got into comics.

Well, I got in through comics accidentally. I mean, I, I've always read comics and I love them. Love graphic novels. But I had this friend, Rafael Rosado, and I met him in college. And in college, Raf was like a animator artist. He had like a Salvador Dali mustache. And there was like this, they didn't really call it a contest, but it was a contest.

Where, in script writing class in college, I think three scripts got picked to be produced. And one of them was mine. Terrible, terrible script. That's awesome though. That's really cool. Well, thank you. And, uh, Raphael was picked to direct it. So we had to go, it all took place in a bar, and so we had to go every Saturday and Sunday morning to this bar that smelled like beer while Raphael was directing my, my film, my script.

Can you give us the story in a nutshell? It's so embarrassing, but it's basically two guys, two college age guys One's kind of a jerk and one's a little bit of a jerk. They play a game of pool to decide who can ask out another. Then she realizes that they're playing the game, and so she takes off. She's like, um, enough of these jerks, and she takes off.

That's awesome. Um, but it was like, I do remember, this is how bad the script was. Raphael was directing it, and this woman who's working as a production assistant, she was like, in one of the classes. She like, goes up to me, she doesn't know who wrote it, obviously, because she says, This is really bad.

And I was just like, eh, yeah, okay. But that's how Raf and I became friends. And he's Puerto Rican. He's also, I grew up in Ohio where there weren't a lot of Latinos and he was my first Latino friend and we just stayed friends and he went into animation. I went into animation eventually and fast forward, like 30 years later, And he was like, ah, I got this idea that's just, I can't stop drawing these three French street urchins, is what he called them.

And he was like, I got a little bit of a story, but you know, you want to take a crack at it? And I, I was like, sure. And so I took Raf's drawings and I built up the characters and the world and it became Claudette and became Giants Beware, Dragons Beware, Monsters Beware. And that, that was how it happened.

Um, and. I don't know how you sold your first graphic novel, but the way we did ours is we decided we were going to pitch it at Comic Con in San Diego. And what I've learned since then is you never pitch a comic book at Comic Con in San Diego. Nobody wants to hear it. But we did a lot of research and um, ours was done in rough, uh, draws in the French style.

 it's a, it's this French style, kind of like the Asterix comics. Yeah, and I know it's funny, uh, looking at the cover of your comic, I totally see the influence of Asterix. I love the, that style of drawing is amazing. It's like, I feel like Disney drew from that too, but anyway.

Yeah, and, and so we, we kind of went with, we targeted like seven companies that had, uh, French style comics and they did kids comics. And then my job was to do the opening. And then Roth was supposed to come in with the comic book knowledge. And we had this really sweet looking pitch document with all of the rough, rough drawings, some pages cleaned up and we just hit all seven places in Comicon.

And can you describe like, where were the meetings taking place? Were they like in offices? Were they at desks? No, at the booths. At the booths. So there's all these other people around you. There's tons of people. It was just so, yeah, I was, I was stressed out. But, um, and I'm, I'm kind of shy. So I would, I got a Corona, I chugged it and then we hit the list.

And I think like three people said, stop me before I could even start. And I had like this really quick 60 second pitch thing, you know, hello, my name is Jorge Aguirre. This is Raphael Rosado and I work in intermission. So does he, and he does storyboards and he's doing this book in a Just 60 seconds. And I think three people took our pitch and then of the three, Mark Siegel, who's our editor of First Second Books, who you've worked with as well.

He made us an offer the next day. And another one made an offer a few months later. And that's, that's how we got started. Mark is fond of saying that he's never done that since, and will never do it again. I don't know, he doesn't say he'll never do it again, but that was the first time and taking a pitch there.

Um, I love that story because, um, it captures everything that's so important about, um, taking a chance. Um, it's so important not to know the odds. I always think of Han Solo where he's like, never tell me the odds. And sometimes you just have to do that in life. Um, you have to take a chance and you just have to put yourself out there for rejection and, um, kind of Dan and I's story is very similar to yours in terms of, um, we got rejected so many times.

It sounds like you got your first pitch sold though, your first comic pitch. We did. Which is really cool. That's amazing. Um, so Dan and I, we, uh, we had a career before graphic novels, which was in animation. And we did commercial animation, which is great. It's really fun. You're working with teams. It's super collaborative.

Everything about animation is awesome, but it was commercials is really short and we always wanted to tell longer stories. Um, so we started off pitching animated TV show ideas. Which sounds similar to your stories, except instead of a crowded room, you're in this office with iridescent lighting. And there's a table, and you have about five minutes to make your case for why they should invest all this money in an idea from two random guys.

And so we would go out to LA, we would drive around to different studios. Disney, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon. Um, And we had a tiny little bit of a success, but mostly we crashed and burned. Um, and that's a time when it's really nice to have a partner, because like you said, it's like, people are really cruel and they're like, we don't like this.

And so Dan and I could huddle afterwards and kind of build each other back up and be like, maybe, maybe we're not all that bad. Maybe we are funny. Maybe we can tell stories. Um, but we kind of got frustrated with the animation, trying to pitch animation. So we decided, well, we'll do comics. And how hard can comics be?

Comics have to be easier than animation. So this is our foolish thinking, but we decided that we could at least, um, you know, we tried to contact different publishers and they didn't even want to take our pitches. They wouldn't give us the 60 seconds because we were animators and we had no experience in publishing whatsoever.

And it is a whole different continent with different rules and stuff. So we decided we'd make our own comic book and we called it our garage tape. And it was like 30 pages We printed it out at a local printer and we took it to MoCo, which is like an independent, um, uh, comic festival in Manhattan. And we got a table and we sold about 20.

comics for five dollars each. So we made like a hundred bucks and yeah, we're like, oh yeah, this is how we're going to make a living from now on. Um, but luckily one of the people that bought it was a publisher at Simon Schuster and they, they called us up and they were like, we love this. We want to turn it into a 250 page graphic novel.

Um, and it's going to be color. And the thing we submitted was black and white. And Dan and I, I have never had a phone call like that in our entire lives where someone is like, we want to make your idea. We don't want to change it. We don't want to do, we don't want to try to like add new characters or turn it into something for another market.

They're just like, make that. And it was amazing. It was totally, totally amazing. Don't you love that? I love that aspect of book publishing and graphic novels is that, well, all right, let me back up. I love animation that it's a collaborative process and there's a lot of voices in there, a lot of stakeholders.

And especially, I work in preschool animation, so there's also curriculum, and there's a lot of things you have to take into consideration, and I appreciate that, and love it. But I also love, in comics, it's like, it's just you, your partner, and your editor. Yeah. And either goes great, or it goes, you know, not great.

But, it's really interesting. Yeah, it is, it's um, It's creatively so freeing, um, which is terrifying. I think there's a lot of fear involved. Um, but there's also this idea that, um, you know, kind of going back to the thing that was driving us crazy about commercials was that we couldn't really tell the story.

You didn't get to live with your characters. Um, and maybe this is a time we can start talking about the actual writing process. Um, But for Dan and I, when we started telling a longer story, we realized that the characters were that we were creating started to kind of come to life in a way that was really exciting and really cool.

And there's this part in the first Bar of the Last Berserker book at the end where Barbara's fighting this big giant, this guy named Grom is a total jerk. And she ends up defeating him, kind of tricking him into falling in this giant mud pit. And And our idea that Giant was going to die and it was going to kind of be this sad part of the story where, you know, the kids or the readers would learn that, you know, actions have consequences and it's a little bit of a bummer, but you know, when we're looking at Barb on the page and we had this drawing of her looking over the cliff and there's bubbles coming out of the mud because Grom was sinking and we're like, Barb wouldn't just stand on the edge of the cliff and let somebody die.

Like part of the awesome thing about Barb, and we had to honor that, was that she would always try to save people. People no matter what. So she kind of ties her hair back and she jumps into the mud and her buddy Porkchop is like, don't do it, Barf, don't do it. And she pulls him out. And at that moment in the story, that wasn't part of Dan and I's plan, but it was.

honoring Barb as the character, and that's what she wanted to do. And, um, it was this really exciting part of creating the story where it kind of came to life. Um, but that, that, I don't know, that's something that I love getting to experience in writing something longer like a graphic novel. Um, how do you approach writing and what do you love about writing graphic novels?

Well, the thing I, I love storytelling. So whether it's preschool animation, graphic novels, A post that takes me a long time to write. I just love little stories or vignettes. And I just get a lot of joy. Uh, sorry, but what is it you love about stories? Man, I don't know. That's a good question. I, I, I often remember like, you know, I grew up in Columbus and we'd go to Florida, 20 hour drive, 20 hours in a station wagon with my four sisters and my mom and my dad.

Oh my gosh. My dad was a monster driver. Like he just wouldn't stop. And I just remember everybody would be sleeping in the car. And my dad. I'd be without my seatbelt on because it was the 80s and 70s and I just kind of crawl to the front and listen to my dad tell me Greek myths. Oh, that's cool. And I wonder if that's why I really like those stories.

And in retrospect, I don't think my dad got all the Greek myths correct, but that's okay. Um, it was still a lot of fun. And I think that's what I really like about it. And I find like I'm plotting a new graphic novel right now. And it's the hardest part. It's also just because there's so many decisions.

I'm, I don't know how. When you and Dan are working, like, do you ever think about, since you draw it, Oh my god, I'm gonna have to draw this later. Yeah. Yes, totally. Sometimes, um, sometimes when you're writing a scene, you're like, we're gonna have a battle where all these wizards are gonna fight all these monsters.

Like, you draw that. I'm not gonna draw this. Yeah, that's gonna be exhausting. Or all the crowds, people react. Like, that's just a line of You know, that's just a sentence that you can type out, but then someone's going to have to draw the crowd of village people. Um, but, honestly, coming from animation, like, animating all those people would be so much harder.

Um, that I feel like comics, comics is much easier in a lot of ways than animation, only in that when you're animating something, it's 12 drawings per second. Yeah. And when you're drawing something, it's basically 12 drawings per page, and a page is like a minute of story, so Right there, you're like way ahead of the animators.

Like, if we animated Barb, it would take us like 20 years, just the two of us. Yeah, but don't you think it's so hard? You're doing a panel with Barb, and you have to think about, you've got the line of action in your script, and then you've got to think about what's the angle, who's going to be in there.

Like, I think it's less drawings, but every drawing, I think, takes a lot more time to think about what it's going to, what's it going to contain. Yeah, well, no, I mean, so, it is interesting, right? Because graphic novels It's a strange medium, and when I go to talk to schools, it's so much fun to talk to kids about graphic novels, but one thing I start Graphic is another word for picture, and novel is another word for story.

And basically, a graphic novel is a combination of stories and pictures. I remember sometimes kids would be like, well you're drawing the same character over and over, isn't it boring? And you are drawing the same character over and over, but at different moments in the story. So the character, and this kind of goes back to what you were saying, those moments, those drawings in a graphic novel, The character is feeling something different.

It's a different moment in time. It's a different moment in the story and there's different stakes. So it is kind of like you're drawing the same character, but you're going through these different moments of the story with the character and they're feeling different things. So the drawing should feel different too.

Um, I don't know if that totally makes sense, but I think it, you know, and you're conveying you're to the direct, if it was a film, you're the director of the film, although you're the writer director in your case. And I also find that like those. Some of the limitations, you know, like, I don't know if you ever made short films, but sometimes you'd have these limitations.

I can't afford to do this, so I'll do that. Like, I remember I made a short film once and I wanted a scene in Columbia. Obviously, I can't afford to go to Columbia, so we went to Prospect Park and found the, like, the leafiest parts. And I dressed up some people and we made it look like Columbia a little bit.

And I find those same limitations that give you creative solutions happen in comics too. Like I wrote a script line in the first Claudette book where it was like, you know, the marquee heads out with all his people and horses and Rothwood writes me a note, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope. Horses are hard to draw.

He's like, you can have one horse. And then it turned out great because it was like the snobbiest kind of high fluting guy is on a horse and all the people helping him are like, you know, like running behind him and stuff. And, and I love those, like, I love creative solutions based on limitations. Um, yeah, it's funny when you're telling me that I was remembering, um, this moment in a Dave Pilkey comic, Dogman, um, Classic.

Classic. My kids, my kids love these. Yeah, they're really fun. They're, there's so much heart, there's so much humor and they're so simple. And I think that's really hard. It's really hard to achieve that simplicity that Dave Pilkey is able to capture. But I remember, I think it's the first book, there's a part where, um, the cat character, Petey is going to escape from jail.

So he sprays himself with. Invisible spray. And so then the next page of panels is there's no drawings, but I'd be like, Dave Pilkey draws it too. And I was like, Oh yeah, that's a great way to get through two pages without having to really do any drawings. Um, but I love that. I love like creative solutions that advance the story.

And also they don't, you know, I think sometimes when you have the resources to draw all the horses, it doesn't necessarily make the story a better story. A lot of horses, I find, like, I'll do a pass at the script, and then my next pass, usually with Roth or with my editor, tends to be cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, because I feel like, coming from animation, I'm always, like, writing, this happens, and that happens, and that happens, because we can film it all.

But in graphic novels, what is it, like, Scott McCloud, or, we've talked about, like, non sequential panels where you're kind of filling in the gaps, and there's a lot you can leave out. Even with dialogue, I find that I write too much dialogue, and I tend to cut a lot of that out. Yeah, it's interesting. We do the same thing where we overwrite when we're in the, you know, word doc.

And then when you get it on the page, And I think this is the difference between graphic novels and animation. In animation, you never actually see the words on the page, right? Because it's all happening visually and the characters are reading their lines. And I often think of, like, Darth Vader. Like, if you were writing Darth Vader in a comic book, all of his lines are so wooden and stilted, it wouldn't be any fun to read it.

But James Earl Jones is able to make Darth Vader so menacing just with his voice. Voice. That it totally works. Um, but like, you know, a character in a, in a graphic novel or a book that works so well that's similar to Darth Vader, I was thinking is Smaug. Smaug from Hobbit. There's this great interchange between Smaug and Bilbo, you know, and Bilbo's cowering in the end of that long shaft.

And he, they are playing this game of cat and mouse that is just dialogue. But Smaug is trying to manipulate and trick Bilbo into getting information to figure out where he's from, right? Cause he doesn't know who this character is. He doesn't know how powerful he is. He doesn't know anything about him.

So Smaug is using all of these kind of, they're kind of playing this great game of cat and mouse. It's echoed earlier with. It's with Sneagle and Bilbo where he's like, they're playing this riddle game. But I feel like those literary moments are great in a comic book too. They really work in a graphic novel because you're seeing the words on the page and you're getting to read them and you get to see how the words kind of look on the page too, which I think is really something different than, than animation.

I feel also like those, like those silent panels can be really powerful. I mean, I have no control over how the art is. draws it and I love control and so it's hard for me but sometimes I'll just throw the adverb in there and it'd be like Darth Vader looks at this menacingly or something like that.

Right. Whatever and then hope that Raph draws it. He always does. He always nails it. Yeah. And as a writer that doesn't draw I rely a lot on the artist to bring, bring all their own skills and I think you know I've worked with Rafael and then I'm working on Monster Locker with a guy named Andres Vera Martinez.

And just seeing what artists bring to the table and how they just elevate what you write is just, it's pretty incredible. I mean, Can you, uh, talk a little bit about Monster Locker? Can you tell us what it's about? Sure. Monster Locker comes out in October of 24 and it's going to be about a kid in Columbus, Ohio, whose locker is a portal to monster realms.

And he accidentally unleashes a monster into Columbus, Ohio, and she wrecks havoc and he's gotta face off with her. And then there's also some, you know, stories about, there's a subtext about the kid's, uh, cultural background. He's a Mexican American kid growing up in the Midwest. I think I've set four of my upcoming or recent graphic novels in Columbus, Ohio, where I'm from.

And, uh, I don't know why. Well, it's, it's like good to write what you know, I think. Um, and, uh, I feel like, um, I don't know how autobiographical that story is. It sounds like it's somewhat autobiographical. Um, but I feel like part of writing is kind of, you kind of climb back into your own brain a little bit and you find these moments, um, that you maybe had totally forgotten.

I think, I think part of writing is a, um, it's a little bit like an adventure, right? And it's a little bit like, um, you're going on a kind of a, a quest. Yeah. And you find things that you, you know, you'll have memories of your childhood that you maybe haven't thought about in, you know, 20 or 30 years. And it's kind of, it's a fun way to kind of go back in and find out what this stuff meant.

Like, why did this scare me so much as a kid? Or why did this make me so happy or something? I don't know if that's Yeah, in Monster Locker, there's a scene where the kid is told a scary story about, uh, he's at a sleepover. And the host, who's a jerk, is talking about how, where they live, where the house is, is an ancient, uh, Native American burial ground.

And, uh, Pablo, the main character, gets so scared at night that he pees in his pants in his sleeping bag and calls his parents to pick him up. And so that's his defining humiliating moment. For me, I was in Columbus, Ohio at a sleepover and basically the same thing happened except the pee. It was poop. But like, yes, poop.

I had this classic, uh, classic strict Colombian dad and he, I was like, I was like, Dad, I'm a little scared. Can you come pick me up? You know, and he's like, all right, he comes over, picks me up. And on the way home, he's like, you know, you're not going to have any sleepovers. He was right. I wasn't allowed to sleep over for years.

But, and like with, with Barb the Berserker, do you find that you're, are you referencing your childhood or your, the voice you had as a kid? Um, I, yeah, no, it's funny, Barb started, uh, Dan and I are constantly doodling and drawing and we drew this character with wild curly hair as a girl and she's holding this magic sword and that's all we knew, and we're like, She was really fun to draw, which is like always a good sign.

Um, and you mentioned this earlier when we were talking about, we couldn't get her out of our heads and I feel like ideas you can't get out of your head, they kind of drive you crazy. Like when you're trying to go to bed at night, it's just the idea comes back and it's like you're being haunted by it in a good way.

But also you're like, I've got to do something with this idea cause I can't get it out of my head. Um, so. And, uh, so we wanted to figure out, like, where did she live and what's her world like? And it was a really kind of organic writing process where, you know, we love fantasy worlds. Like, as a kid, I loved He Man.

I would watch He Man over and over after school. Um, I used to go in the backyard with a sword and suddenly the backyard would turn into this, you know, fantasy world. And, um, I don't, I mean, I think, uh, you know, fantasy as a genre genre. It's a great way to kind of talk about big ideas that are hard to talk about in the real world.

You know, things you're really scared about or not having any control. And when you're a kid, You know, a magic sword would be awesome because as a kid it's like, you don't have control of where you're going to school, you don't really have control of the clothes you're wearing, the household you grew up in, who your parents are, everything is out of your control.

And then as a grown up, you know, you've gotten to pick where you live, and who you're married to, and you have all of this control. And you kind of forget that, how scary it is to be a kid and kind of be out of control. So I think part of the inspiration for Barb was her dad. This is turning into a very long answer.

But it's like giving a kid the power of an adult, right? She has this magic sword that allows her to kind of go toe to toe with anybody in Ballywick, which is the fantasy world where it takes place, but um, it's kind of a fun fantasy to kind of go back in time and imagine yourself as a kid with these magic powers and see what happens.

Yeah, I do miss that, I remember playing, uh, Eelook and Evil. I don't know if you remember him. He was a stunt guy. Yeah. But he had like a toy where you'd pull it and he'd go. I had that toy. I think they called it an STP car. Like you'd pull the thing and the motorcycle would go across.

Yeah. He had a comic book. And I do remember, and I think his nemesis was like Dr. Some, one of those like Dr. Evil, Dr. Something, Dr. Danger. And I do remember going into the backyard and pretending I was like fighting him and I'm Eelook and Evil. Yeah, You know, the world of magic is so much closer to kids.

Um, there's this, I don't know, Jumping around by going when we, when we set up that table at MoCo with our barb garage tape, I remember that something, you know, it was mostly adults there, but some adults brought their kids and I remember a grown up like bought the comic and handed it to our kid who must have been like 10 or 11 and he started reading it and I was just mesmerized watching him read it and he was just like, he was really connecting to it and I suddenly realized like the The whole job of a graphic novelist is to make a story that really connects with the reader.

Um, and I, and I never really felt that before in animation, you know, you, and especially commercials, you just send it off at the end of the day and they're like, thanks, it's done. You hit your deadlines and it is broadcast on television somewhere and you never, there's never any sense that you're connecting with an audience.

And that was like a really special moment. Um, I think it's like, I mean, you connected with the kid cause you wrote something that spoke to the kid. Sometimes I think about how writing for younger audiences, we're kind of like time travelers. Like we have to travel back and kind of remember what it was like.

Like you said, when we didn't have as much control. When we had, when imagination and play was like the first thing on our minds. Yeah. And it's like we're, time traveling. it's like a superpower or magical ability that you get to play with as, you know, we're grown ups, we're adults, but we get to play in this world of um, fantasy and adventure and tap into that kind of, those magic, it's like a magical time in a kid's life where magic is totally real.

And I do school visits and I go from first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grade, Um, and one of the questions that I ask before I get started is here, who here likes to, to draw? And like, if it's first and second, third grade, everyone puts their hands up and I'm like, who here likes to tell stories?

Everyone puts their hands up. And then when I do it for fifth grade and ask the same question, like a third of the kids put their hands up, a third of the kids for each question. And I feel like, um, something happens. Either you lose touch with that magic or, um, I don't know. Kids get told that they're not creative.

They can't draw, they can't tell stories. It's like that story that you told earlier from your Ohio film shoot in the, in the bar where someone's like, who wrote this crap? And like, and the thing is, it's like, as a creative person, you have to, You have to maybe let a little bit of that in and maybe adjust things a little bit but you can't let that stop you.

And it's really a bummer that so many people are told that they can't draw and they can't write because it is such a fun thing to get to do. I think it's like you get really self conscious. Like I, I took, I took a class by this writer, graphic novelist, or cartoonist and Aubrey Hirsch. She was teaching a class called comics for people that can't draw and like week one.

I was like super shy You know, my drawings are crap. I can't believe I'm doing this. This is so embarrassing and by the end I was like, you know, this is it you could you can like it and I like it. I don't care. I like it It's fine. It's weird. It's not every partner. I've ever had in comics can draw way better than this I enjoyed it.

That's great. No, I think it totally 100 percent what you just said, Dan and I experienced too, because we always felt like we couldn't quite draw, um, draw good enough. Draw well enough. Probably well. Thank you. Yeah, I can't draw well enough. But then at a certain point we're like, this is how we draw, and it's just gonna have to work, and it's gotta be okay.

And we're okay with it, and the reader is okay with it. Um, I don't think it really matters as much to the reader as long as the story and the characters are resonating. Like, that's the most important part of a story. You know, the artwork, how many horses you have in the background, like all that stuff is all secondary, but you can get obsessed with that stuff and it can block you from telling your story, um, which is a bummer.

You should, you know, if there are any writers or artists listening, you should totally trust that your drawings are good enough and that your story is really important and you should tell your story. And not, not just drawing, but also writing. Like, I've met a lot of adults who will tell me that they enjoy writing, they like writing, But they don't write, you know, and it's sort of like, I think, like, if, if you like writing, you should write, I mean, doesn't mean, you know, you're going to go out and become a novelist or have to get it published, but it's something, you know, like I journal and You know, I have my journal set to self destruct for when I'm dead.

But, it's just really like, I never intended for anybody to read, but I think it's really, it's just a good way to just organize your thoughts and think about what you're grateful for, and what sucks in your life. And you're like, you know, it's a place to whine. But I feel like adults, like the drawing thing, they think that they can't write, or they think they're not good enough.

And, and, everybody should just do, just because you, you know, May or may not be good at something. Doesn't mean you don't do it. Like, I'm a terrible salsa dancer. Which is embarrassing because I'm Colombian. I'm the worst. But I enjoy it. And I still do it as long as nobody's watching. You know, I'll do it. It doesn't matter that I suck.

Yeah, it's like that old saying, it's like, dance like nobody's watching. Right? Yes. I think that's really good advice. And draw like nobody's gonna read it, or write like no one's gonna read it. I think the process itself is rewarding enough that, um, you don't have to do it. So that you share with all these people.

Yeah, not everybody's gotta be an influencer and show their best side to everybody. There's a lot of sides you can keep private. Yeah. And I think it's satisfying to keep stuff to yourself. Yeah. Um, Well, Jason, what are you working on next?

Um, so we're working on Barb 4, so Barb is part of a trilogy. It's part of a trilogy, but you're doing the fourth book. I know, which sounds like So 3A, 3B. Yeah, well, right, we're going to go back to the prequels and then No, we're, um, so it's funny. So the reason the first three are trilogy is a, we love Star Wars and we always think in trilogy, um, but it also was such a big story that we feel that we couldn't squeeze it into one book.

And then our, our publisher gave us the task. We have kind of plotted out the next three, but she wanted the next one to be self contained. So that was a really interesting, creative challenge. And we're super close to finishing it. We've finished the inks and we're just starting on color. So that's going to come out, um, in the fall of 2025.

Wow. That, that's not that far away. That's great. Yeah. Um, but Jorge, what, what are, what do you have coming out next? I have, what are you working on? I have Monster Locker Book one coming out in October. That looks totally awesome too, by the way. Thank you. I love that idea. Thanks. It's great. And then, uh, I finished the script for Monster Locker two and Andres is drawing it and, um, doing, I just turned in the script for Iggy Book two.

And Raphael is getting ready to draw it, which as you know, drawing is so intensive, they have a lot of work ahead of them, but there's no horses in either one. Nice, nice. No giant battle scenes between centaurs and uh, Manitores or something. Manitores. No, I have to save that for animation.

Yeah. Um, and also, what are you reading now?

I am on this, uh, Kik Kik Of, I don't know how, even how to pronounce his name. Amor Tolles. I don't know if that's how you say his name, but he wrote Gentleman in Moscow and Lincoln Highway. And then now I'm reading Rules of Civility. Cool. I just really, I really like his, his stuff. And then graphic novel wise, I just finished reading, uh, Courage to Dream by Neil Shusterman and Andres Vera Martinez, my partner on Monster Locker.

And it takes place during the Holocaust. And it's kind of like a, supernatural tale with the holocaust as a background and it's really fascinating. That sounds really cool. How about you? Um, so I am reading, for fun, I'm a huge history nut and I'm reading, um, this, uh, book about Teddy Roosevelt, who I don't know anything about, but he seems like this really pivotal character in American history and it's called Mornings on Horseback.

Um, by McCullough. And it's great. It's, it's so much fun to read it. And um, I love history when it fills in like these gray areas in my past, which there's lots and lots of gray areas, but this is like a, it seems like a really pivotal time in American history, which is awesome. I love it. It's taken me forever.

Cause I'm also reading with my son who's 11. I'm reading Harry Potter and we're reading it out loud to each other, which is really fun. That's a big book. It is. It's a huge book. We're on the fourth one. But I always forget how silly and playful JK Rowling is. I think I always think of the movies as being the books, but the books are so much more fun and silly and playful.

And I love, I've been really loving the humor. Um, and then with my daughter, she's been reading to me, she's been reading, reading me the Mr. Min books, which I don't know if, have you ever read those? They're really simple little books from Scotland or England. Um, by Hargreaves, uh, Roger Hargreaves. Um, but they're kind of like comics in that they're basically single panels, and they're just about characters with problems.

Like, there's one about Mr. Bump, and he's got a bandage on his head, and wherever he goes, he falls down and hurts himself. And the book kind of shows Mr. Bump how to, like, not hurt himself. But they're really funny and silly, and I love reading, you know, history books to myself, but I also love reading with the kids.

That sounds great, except for Teddy Roosevelt because I'm Colombian and we have a beef with Teddy because of the whole Panama, taking Panama from Colombia thing. Right, that's so funny because I was reading the part, the path between the seas, and they're talking about how Panama used to be part of Colombia, and it's the U.

S. kind of tricked Colombia into, er, Panama. Yeah, I would use the word steel. Steel, yeah. But I'm sure the Panamanians are happy about it. Yeah. Um, yeah, there was this part in the book, and for the record, I don't care. Okay, yeah. I know, there's this part in the book where they were, Columbia was like a big fan of the United States, and they actually, they had a leader that they called the George Washington of Columbia, because Bolivar.

Yeah, yeah. But if you like history books, there's a really good Gabriel Garcia Marquez book about Simón Bolívar called The General and His Labyrinth. And it's about, you know, like, he's become suddenly unpopular, he's kind of dying, and he goes on the river Magdalena up to the coast, and it's just about him dying.

But it incorporates a lot of history in it, though, too. Oh, that sounds good. That sounds really cool. There's no Teddy Roosevelt in it, though. No, he doesn't get a mention. That's totally fine. There's probably enough about him, anyway. Yeah, well, this has been great. I'm glad we got to meet and chat. And chat on our favorite podcast.

Yeah, no, this is really great. It's really special that Watchung Books, invited us both and kind of hooked us up to get to chat. And it's, it's an amazing bookstore where it's it's kind of like the central spoke in our town of creative, , people. It's really a special, awesome place.

And lots of great authors go through there. I don't know if you've read Henry Neff's Witchstone. He just came out with that. Oh, cool. It's really great. I don't want to, uh, a demon who's a curse keeper. Oh, that's a cool idea. It's very funny. That's awesome. I really need humor in all my stories right now.

Yeah, it's a tough time. Yeah, it's nice to laugh. Feels really good to laugh. 

 Well it's been so great to hang out with you and it's so cool that we live in the same town because now I'm going to keep an eye out for you and I'm going to jump up and say, Hey, what's going on? I'll look for you in the shop, right, Jason? Yeah. That's great to meet you. That sounds great. 

Thank you, Jason and Jorge, for being on the show. Listeners, you can find their books and any they mentioned in our show notes and at watchungbooksellers. com. We're excited for a packed fall season of events. Here's a few that are coming up.

This Thursday, September 5th, Jenny Rosenstrack, author of The Weekday Vegetarians, is releasing her followup cookbook, The Weekday Vegetarians Get Simple. And next week, Tuesday, September 10th, we welcome back Ian Frazier for the launch of his newest book of essays, Paradise Bronx. He'll be in conversation with his New Yorker colleague, DT Max.

And on September 12th, the Montclair Public Library has Matthew Desmond, author of Poverty by America. And on Saturday, September 14th, we're excited to welcome best selling novelist Laura Dave for the release of her brand new novel, The Night We Lost Him.

Laura is the author of the New York Times number one best selling The Last Thing He Told Me. And as a bonus, this book will be available to ticket holders before the release date. And one last, , mention, September 19th, we welcome Joshua Leifer to talk about Tablets Shattered, with Jodi Rudoran, editor in chief of The Forward.

We have so many more great talks coming up, , too many to mention here, so be sure to check our newsletter And website for more details.