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In 2010 I finished the first draft of a novel called Cold Cereal. It’s the first of a trilogy about a kid who discovers that a breakfast cereal company is stealing glamour from leprechauns and fairies and magical beasts, and slipping this stolen glamour into their magically delicious cereals, and using these cereals to raise an army of sugar zombies and conquer mankind.
It’s meant to be funny. Whether you find it funny will have a lot to do with your tolerance for this sort of thing.
I went through the usual battery of sketches for the cover of this novel:
Many of them eventually focused on my main kid (Scott) drawing a sword Excalibur-style out of a box of cereal, as if it were the prize inside. This was an idea that my editor kept pushing, and which she kept insisting was mine. I think I probably had originated it during some spitballing phone conversation, but the truth was that it made me uncomfortable–Scott doesn’t have a sword at any point in the book, and it’s exactly the sort of conceptual image that we accept as adults but which would have struck me as dishonest as a kid. I’d be waiting the whole book for the sword scene.
Well, it did make for an okay cover image. Painted in Photoshop, type design mine.
I ended up liking it. My wife liked it. My agent liked it. My editor liked it. She showed it to the Sales department, and they didn’t like it.
So we reeled back to an older idea: that of Scott approaching the cereal factory at night, seen only by the plaster eyes of mascots that overlook the entrance.
Now everybody was happy but me. I was on the faculty of the Illustration Master Class in Amherst that summer (2011), so at the end of my keynote I put this cover up on screen. I suggested that the students might enjoy critiquing one of my pieces after several grueling days of listening to the faculty critique theirs. I remember being concerned that no one would feel comfortable digging in. Instead, several students may have dislocated their shoulders from so much vigorous hand-raising.
They had, in fact, much better ideas than I could execute before the book went to print. But I took as much as I could to heart and turned in this revision.
Then I got to work on the 40-some pages of interior B&W illustrations, and started writing the sequel.
The sequel, Unlucky Charms, had its own cover struggles. I thought I’d knocked it out of the park right away with a dreamy image of two of my heroes approaching a giant raven:
Turns out someone at HarperCollins is afraid of birds? Or something? Anyway, they said it was “too scary.”
The third idea turned into one of my favorite digital paintings.
Everything just kind of came together–or at least, it did after I made a 3D staircase model in SketchUp to help me draw the vines.
I REALLY like this painting, which is why it pains me a little to tell you that it isn’t the cover of Unlucky Charms.
I believe Cold Cereal has been selling only modestly (I’m not sure because I only get sales figures twice a year, and it hasn’t been in stores all that long). When a book isn’t performing to expectations the only thing you can really change about it is the cover. So may I present the cover of the paperback edition of Cold Cereal:
And the redesigned Unlucky Charms, out this week:
I like them. Again–Photoshop, dodgy type design mine.
I’m writing the third book, Champions of Breakfast, as you read this. I already have an approved cover sketch. They went along with the first idea I pitched. It’s TERRIFYING.
By: Editpus Rex,
on 1/28/2013
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Just occurred to me that I've never posted the NEW! cover of Cold Cereal, which graces the paperback edition. Tada.
By: Editpus Rex,
on 9/27/2012
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By: Editpus Rex,
on 9/25/2012
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Piece I just finished for the sequel to Cold Cereal.
Dear Abraham Superlincoln (again),
My two through four favorite books are these: Wonderstruck (Brian Selznick), The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Brian Selznick), and The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien). Although, I do very much like Frankenstein Makes A Sandwich and Other Stories You’re Sure to Like Because They’re All About Monsters and Some of Them are Also About Food. You Like Food Don’t You? Well All Right Then.
We love the Dracula with spinach between his teeth and the Phantom of the Opera.
In fact, my two friends Adam and Ian K. are writing a book of short stories inspired by your Frankenstein Makes A Sandwich and Other Stories You’re Sure to Like Because They’re All About Monsters and Some of Them are Also About Food. You Like Food Don’t You? Well All Right Then.. They’re short stories not poems, mind you. Sorry. So far, I’ve written one called When the Man in the Moon Had to Blink. It was written by guub in co-op with Equivalent Fractions. Ian K. wrote a sequel to Godzilla Pooped on my Honda. It was written by Ian K. in co-op with Miss Prime Minister. Adam wrote a story about why Medusa cut her hair.
I’ll try and send the stories once we finish them.
Your most likely #1 fan (I don’t think anybody is more fanly then me),
Gargantuan Space Scum
Well,
Cold Cereal by Adam Rex was a roller coaster of a tongue-in-cheek fantasy/sci-fi/conspiracy novel that better be the beginning of a series because:
1. The Mom is stuck in Antarctica doing heaven knows what!
2. The bad guys didn't really get stopped.
3. There is something about the sudden re-appearance of the Dad. I'm just saying. That guy has some 'splainin' to do.
4. And what about all those gryphons and unicorns and what all, huh?
5. So how does the King Arthur connection pan out?
6. And where is Mr. Wilson? Talk about 'splainin'!
So, expect a continuation soon. OR expect to be frustrated for the rest of your lives.
Adam Rex, Sir,
You wouldn't really leave us dangling at the edge of this cliff, wondering just exactly what Goodco has cooking down there at the bottom of the world. Would you? No. I didn't think so. Please let us know - as soon as you can - within reason, of course - like maybe next month? - what is going on with Emily and Erno and Scott and the pooka and the leprechaun and.... Please.
Thank you,
Us
PS No pressure - honest - We'll just wait patiently, flipping through the pages looking for clues and chewing our nails to the quick. But, really, it's ok. Ow! My fingertip is bleeding.
Everybody can stop writing fan letters now. We've summited:
Hello Abraham Superlincoln,
My name is Gargantuan Space Scum. No. Actually, it’s Ian. Ian O. You can’t forget the O. Because I’m Ian O. and my friend is Ian K.. So we don’t get called Ian. We get called either Ian O. or Ian K.. Anyway. I am a 4th grader and I live in Seattle, Washington. After I read your book Cold Cereal, my friends Adam and Kate read it. Then we started talking about Gorn, Weet, Noats, and Gorn-free, the Gornless Gorn substitute. Then we came up with a new type of Weet. Hole Weet. We thought it could be a new, healthier, type of ingredient that Goodco puts in their cereal. That’s my suggestion for a new ingredient called Hole Weet. If you like it or don’t like it or whatever, please write back.
Then also, one day I was eating cereal. I was thinking about your book because I was eating cereal. I thought of some new book titles for your next two books (if you make the Cold Cereal Saga a trilogy).
Frozen Oatmeal (or Frozen Porridge)
Sub-Zero Museli (or Sub-Zero Granola)
Those are my suggestions for book titles. If you like them or don’t like them or whatever, please write back.
This letter has been written in crude handwriting by Gargantuan Space Scum.
2 Comments on Fan Letter Fan, last added: 5/6/2012
So for May Day, here's something appropriately pagan-ish from Cold Cereal:
Ever take a nap that makes you want to take a nap every day? That's what happened to me this week. I became enamored with (of?) pillows and fluffy quilts and dreams.
Yesterday, at work, I picked up Cold Cereal by Adam Rex. Since I usually read in bed, and this week, I am sleeping more, I haven't gotten too far into this already wacky fantasy. I mean, the book opens with a little man in a pet carrier - NOT a leprechaun - and the main character's name is Scottish Play Doe. Yep. I do wonder about the workings of some author's brains. Maybe Rex can make more sense of his dreams than I can make of mine.
I feel another nap coming on.
I mean, obviously. But my new book,
Cold Cereal, is also now available. I'm visiting schools in the midwest at the moment and couldn't make the time to really mark the occasion of its official on sale date earlier today, as I was too busy teaching children about the concept of the Uncanny Valley vis á vis pictures like the one to the right.
But
Cold Cereal is available! Now! I was super flattered today to see that its audiobook performer, Oliver Wyman, called it the best kid's book he's ever read. So.
Here are some Mick paper dolls for your amusement. If there's enough interest I'll put high-res versions up somewhere and people can use 'em for bookmarks.
By: Editpus Rex,
on 1/24/2012
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WARNING: Mild Spoilers Ahead
By: Editpus Rex,
on 11/30/2011
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Another nice review of my forthcoming novel Cold Cereal came to my inbox today. From the Horn Book:
"Rex takes his time mounting his preposterous edifice of a plot, but reader interest and suspension of disbelief never flag in this humorous, consistently entertaining, well-spun yarn."
Preposterous edifice of a plot. That sounds about right.
Here's another illustration from
CC. Regular visitors to my blog will be able to discern all the important plot points from these images, and will have no need to read the book.
By: Editpus Rex,
on 11/21/2011
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I craved little gold stars when I was a kid, and apparently not much has changed. Kirkus reviews recently gave a starred review to my next novel, Cold Cereal (coming Feb. 7th), and if they saw fit to send me an actual star in the mail I'd stick it right on my Trapper Keeper.
Kirkus said that
The author tucks in portrait illustrations and hilariously odd TV-commercial storyboards, along with a hooded Secret Society, figures from Arthurian legend, magical spells and potions, a certain amount of violence, many wonderful throwaway lines (“Yeh may have a tarnished glamour about yeh, sure. Like a celebrity’s daughter.”) and tests of character with often surprising outcomes.
I think their classification of the pictures in
Cold Cereal as "portrait illustrations" may have something to do with the character of those few images that were actually on display in the Advance Reader Edition. I'm afraid most of the illustrations were missing then. But I got the picture above done in time to include it. From the book:
He steered toward the local park, down the storm drain shortcut he’d discovered yesterday, dodging broken glass and a man with a rabbit head, up the embankment, toward the gap in the fence and was that a man with a rabbit head? Scott braked hard, grinding a black snaking skid behind him. The rabbit-man stopped, too, and looked back. Its tweed pants and white dress shirt were creased and dirty. Its necktie was askew. Its rabbit head was a rabbit head.
And, by way of signing off, here's a picture of two men dressed as a unicorn.
By: Editpus Rex,
on 7/23/2011
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So here's some. A preview image from my next novel, COLD CEREAL.
I spent the last week in Amherst, Mass, for the Illustration Master Class. It's an intensive weeklong illustration boot camp focusing on fantasy, sci-fi, and children's illustration. I was one of fifteen faculty members and guest speakers. Follow the link above to see more about it, and look at pictures from previous years. It's really kind of an amazing program. Faculty assistant Julia Griffin called it "Hogwarts for Illustrators," which could be more right.
I don't have any of my own photos from the week, but here are shots of me working on an assignment at the IMC courtesy of Kim Kincaid. Note that in the background there is original art by Dan Dos Santos, Rebecca Guay, Gregory Manchess, and Jeff Mack.
Anyway, during my lecture I tried something a little risky. I put up the cover to my next novel, COLD CEREAL, and asked the hundred-odd students to critique it. Here's what they saw:
They had a lot to say. It was unfocused. It was like "visual hopscotch," as one woman put it. The row of windows cut the composition in half in kind of an unappealing way. The door should be bigger. The hero should be bigger. They were right about everything.
That's what I ended up with after I'd processed their suggestions. It's a much stronger cover now, in my opinion.
I wouldn't normally show this cover so early, since the book doesn't come out until February, but I want the IMC alumni to see what I've done. Thanks again to the students, and to Rebecca Guay for putting the whole program together.
By: Editpus Rex,
on 5/11/2011
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But painted a bit this time. Yeah, I know–it's unsettling. Stupid uncanny valley.
By: Editpus Rex,
on 4/10/2011
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A couple minor characters from my next novel, which is written but not illustrated yet. It'll be the first volume of a new middle-grade trilogy (by which I mean it's for middle-grade readers, not that it's a mediocre, utility-grade trilogy), and will be in stores some time in the winter.
These guys are goblins, and are described in the manuscript thusly:
They were each perhaps just a half-foot taller than Mick, with milky-white bodies but startling red faces. Red as if they’d been dipped to their chins in blood and the stuff had dripped some foreign alphabet all over their necks and collars. From top to bottom they had: bald pates, all the worst features of both toad and bat, little wool grey suit jackets with ties, short pants, and chicken feet.
I really enjoyed the first, looking forward to the second, hotly anticipate the third.
I really dig the raven cover, but the revamp actually kinda works for me.
Thanks for posting all the versions you did for the covers. It's great to see how you worked your way through them. There's a lot great stuff in there!
I like all of the covers. I'd love to see a video of your digital painting process/technique!
My favorite is the raven one, but I didn't get to vote, so....the others are all good too, just not quite as cool. :) Thanks for sharing them!