Children’s Books
The E.T. LGB Is In The Beat Holiday Gift Guide!
Happy holidays, fellow earthlings! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I wrote The E.T. Little Golden Book, which is out now from Penguin Random House. The book was illustrated by the amazing Chris Fennell, and it’s a retelling of the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In fact, it was published to commemorate the 40th anniversary of that film. It’s also a Funko Pop Little Golden Book, so Chris Fennell drew all of the characters in the adorable Funko Pop style.
I first saw E.T. when I was a kid, and I remember thinking that it was the first time I’d seen a movie where the kids talked like REAL kids. The dialogue sounded authentic. Whenever Elliott, Michael, and Gertie spoke to each other they were saying things actual kids might say, rather than some adult’s not-very-accurate approximation of how they thought kids spoke. That’s a testament to the talent of screenwriter Melissa Mathison, who wrote E.T. * She was able to remember the thoughts and feelings she experienced when she was a kid, and she was able to accurately reproduce those thoughts and feelings on the page. That’s a rare gift.
And speaking of gifts…
Earlier this month, The E.T. LGB was mentioned in The Beat’s 2022 Holiday Gift Guide! If you scroll down to the section titled “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 40th Anniversary Gifts ‘N Things,” you’ll see that Beat writer Rebecca Oliver Kaplan was kind enough to name-check the book (and to name-check me as well). Thanks, Rebecca!
* And yes, it’s also a testament to the film’s director, Steven Spielberg, and the exceptional cast he assembled. I’m not trying to minimize their contributions to this movie at all. This was obviously a very personal film for Spielberg, and it shows. But when people talk about E.T. and how great it is, sometimes Melissa Mathison’s name gets left out of the conversation, which is absurd, because she was such a key component of that movie’s success.
My Favorite Kind of Vampires
Happy Halloween, everyone! As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I used to draw one-panel gag cartoons. Like, professionally. Only for a handful of magazines, and really just at the beginning of my writing career. These days I mostly work as a writer, and I don’t draw that much, unless you count the rough thumbnail sketches I draw for nearly every project I work on. Which definitely counts as drawing. But I don’t often show those sketches to the people I’m working with (although sometimes, I do).
Anyway, since it’s Halloween, I thought I’d post one of the gag cartoons I drew back in the day. It’s called “Vampire Nerds,” and it was originally published in the October 2006 issue of Nickelodeon Magazine. (That was the Halloween issue, as if you couldn’t tell by the cover date.) Check it out:
Obviously, vampire nerds are my favorite kind of bloodsuckers, because I myself am a massive geek. (Which you could probably tell by the fact that I write graphic novels about mythical creatures, children’s book adaptations of famous sci-fi movies, TV scripts about fairy tale characters, and scripts for uber-nerdy video games. But I digress…)
I may begin drawing cartoons again (like, professionally), because I really miss it. If that does indeed happen, I’ll definitely mention it on this blog. So keep checking this space!
Whose Yacht Is This Anyway?
It’s Batman Day! So I’m going to share a Batman story. Or more accurately, a story ABOUT a Batman story. See, I wrote a Batman children’s book called Swamped by Croc, which was published by Penguin Random House in January of this year. In Swamped by Croc,* Killer Croc robs a bank and escapes into the sewers. Batman chases him, and this leads to an epic showdown in the swamp, right in front of Killer Croc’s ramshackle house. But if you look at the last two pages of the story, you’ll see a yacht floating in the bog not far from Croc’s abode. Why is that boat there? Who does it belong to?
Well, in early drafts of the manuscript, the following words were written on the hull of the yacht: “Property of Bruce Wayne.” ** Yup, this was originally going to be Bruce Wayne’s yacht! The idea was going to be that Croc had stolen it at some point in the past, and as Batman apprehends Croc and tries to retrieve the money from the bank heist, he would acknowledge that his reptilian foe has his missing boat. This was going to be the final page of text:
“You’re going to Arkham, and this money’s going back to the bank,” the Caped Crusader said. Then he chuckled and added, “And this boat’s going back to its rightful owner.”
Anyway, that was supposed to add a nice little wrinkle at the end of the story; not only does Batman defeat Croc and intercept the money the venomous villain has stolen from the bank, the Dark Knight accidentally stumbles upon something Croc stole from him personally.
But in the final version of the book, there are no words written on the hull of the yacht. Why not? Well, there was just no room for verbiage or signage anywhere on that boat. Nothing that the reader would be able to see or make out with any clarity, anyway. The yacht was too far in the background for that. So the idea that the boat belonged to Bruce Wayne had to be dropped. And I changed the text on the final page of the book. Now, this is what it said on that page:
“The money’s going back to the bank,” said the Caped Crusader. “And the Gotham City Swamp is going to be a much safer place while you’re in jail.”
And please don’t misunderstand. I’m not complaining that the final page had to be changed. I think it was necessary in this case. I’m really happy with the final version of the book, even though the yacht is relegated to just a random piece of scenery in the background. Sometimes, that happens when you’re telling a story. You don’t always have the room for every little plot twist or ironic touch you originally wanted to include. And that’s okay, as long as the really important story beats and character moments make it into the narrative. In the end, the yacht belonging to Bruce Wayne is not that important to the telling of this tale. It’s a relatively minor detail, so it’s something I could live without.
Besides, Bruce Wayne’s so rich, if one of his yachts went missing, I don’t even know if he’d notice!
* I should mention that Swamped by Croc is not the first Batman children’s book I wrote. That would be Harley at Bat, which was also published by Penguin Random House. 
** The idea that the hull of the yacht is emblazoned with the words “Property of Bruce Wayne” is not something that ever appeared in the text for this book. Instead, it appeared in the manuscript’s art notes, which are the notes I always include alongside the text as instructions for what the illustrators should draw on each page of the story. The art notes for a book are like the stage directions or scene descriptions in a stage play or screenplay. They’re also like the art notes that appear in every panel of a comic book script.