Two great new bits about Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid, which is now already in it’s third printing. First, from the local Maplewood section of the New York Times:
Rick Parker’s Macabre (But Funny) Mind
And this great write-up in the esteemed Publisher’s Weekly:
Wimpy Kid Becomes Hit Zombie Parody for Papercutz!
Couldn’t be more tickled!
Seems like it, anyway. Pictured above, Papercutz Tales from the Crypt #8, featuring Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid, by yours truly and Rick Parker, and Twilight satire, Die-Light, by yours truly, daughter Maia Kinney-Petrucha and artist Miran Kim has been breaking records and making news!
Not only has the graphic story collection been in the top ten Children’s Books at B&N online (where some reviewers have been giving it low marks without even reading the darn thing! Sheesh!) and sundry top ten lists at Amazon, the press has been terrific.
Just yesterday, Maia and I did a brief interview with Monica Garske at Flash News and it’s already being picked up by sundry media. Next week, Maia will be on radio, talking Die-Light with Kathy Vogel for Ohio’s WHBC-FM, aka Mix 94.1. The interview will be taped at 5:45 AM, so I’m sure we’ll be groggy, but at least we’ll get to listen to it afterwards! I’ll post the link as soon as it’s available.
Meanwhile, a neat article spotlighting Rick Parker’s great work on Stinky Dead Kid appeared in The Maplewood Patch. Last but not least, Amazon top 10 Reviewer Grady Harp gave us a glowing 4 stars.
Add to that the fact that the book is already in its second printing, could a sequel be far behind? Pax.
It’s family week on the 4:30 movie -- an interview with myself and co-writer/significant other Sarah Kinney is now up at the blog of the talented and delightful Cynthia Leitich Smith, in which we discuss all things Nancy Drew.
If that’s not enough, yesterday my agent, Joe Veltre, finalized an agreement with a major publisher for a new YA book to be written by yours truly. I am completely jazzed about this project, though I’ve been instructed not to discuss the details just yet. The powers that be want to spring the full news when it will have maximum impact. But, leave it to say, I can’t wait to get started on this one.
Hope everyone has a good three day weekend!
Next Tuesday, October 13, will see the release of the collected Tales from the Crypt #8. The featured story, Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid, a “Wimpy Kid” satire by myself and the terrific madcap artist Rick Parker has already received a lot of attention, breaking into the Top Ten Children’s Books online at B&N. Here’s a gander at the groovy cover:
Beyond that hot-zombie excitement, in the midst of the book, you’ll also find a knee-slapping spoof of the little-known Twilight series, called Die-Light, which is particularly exciting to me on several counts. First, it represents the premiere publishing work by my incredibly talented daughter (if I do say so myself), Maia Kinney-Petrucha.
Just in high school, Maia’s not only an excellent writer, but also a big Twilight fan. Me, not so much, so who better to turn to when editor Jim Salicrup asked for a script? Again noting my bias, I was very impressed and proud with how much work she put into it (I practically only proof-read) and how much fun the results are.
Secondly, with artwork by Miran Kim, Die-Light represents not one, but two creative reunions. This is the first time I’ve collaborated with Miran since her great work on both the X-Files comic and her interior work for The Bandy Man, back in the nineties.
It is also, interestingly enough, the second “collaboration” between Miran and Maia – though Maia didn’t have much creative control the first time around, being a fetus.
Miran works in a process that involves collage, creating, collecting and pasting clips and photos into her art. Back when she was designing the cover for X-Files #10: Feelings of Unreality, she asked myself and Sarah for a copy of Maia’s sonogram. Lo and behold, it became a part of the cover. You can see Maia just about at the center of the image below:
Of course, she’s changed a lot in the intervening years, having acquired the ability to walk, the power of speech, and so on, but there you have it; a blast from the past and a look to the future. So rush out and buy the darn thing next week!
As for me, I’m still waiting on word for a few projects, but the glaciers seem to be moving. I’m putting the finishing touches on a very unusual vampire novel that will be coming out from Grand Central Books next year. How unusual, you ask? Well, it’s set during Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and doesn’t actually mention the word vampire, for starters.
Contracts have also recently been signed on another project that’s been stagnant for a while, so I’ve hopes that will be moving again. And lastly, I’m in negotiations with a major publisher for an exciting new YA series. So, like I said, still waiting, but I think I see the traffic clearing up ahead.
Pax.
Not much to report. These days I’m mostly I’m sitting around waiting for responses to a few proposals, playing a bit of my favorite addiction Civ4 and working on a few new ideas.
I did see two movies recently that reminded me how I’m often out of synch with critics and movie-goers. 9 for instance has received a ton of raves from sundry quarters. The story of a group of post-human inventions that look a but like sock-puppets is a pretty movie, I’ll give it that, but the characters (aside from twin librarians whose eyes fluttered in an exciting way) were flat, and the story of the cookie-cutter variety, up until an ending that creaked and groan to make any sense whatsoever. But… show some people your cigarette lighter and they’ll worship you as a god. Go figure.
On the flipside, Taking Woodstock received pretty banal reviews and has been dying in the box office. I don’t particularly like Ang Lee (hated his Hulk for instance) and more often than not I find Demetri Martin annoying. All things considered I was expecting to dislike the movie. Instead, I was very happy for its entire two hour length. It’s a terrific look at the sixties with incredible acting, great characters and a brilliant knack for combining the truly intimate with the explosively cosmic. Imelda Staunton deserves an Oscar for her crazed portrayal of the mother, and Demetri even shows some fine acting chops. I was particularly impressed by the way the movie manages to capture both the light and dark side of the hippie movement, giving it it’s credence but also pointing to the downside of giddy idealism (especially in a final reference to Woodstock’s dark brother, Altamount.) Ant’s making thunder, as one acid-tripping fellow says.
Reading-wise, I’m enjoying the second part of MT Anderson’s Octavian Nothing, the story of an African American in 18th century America given a fantastic education by an early think-tank, then left homeless to experience the American Revolutionary War. It’s been on my shelf for months, but I’d been too busy reading non-fiction research for my own projects to give it a look. Took me a while to get into it. The intensely intellectual period language was off-putting at first, but it acquires weight if you stick with it long enough for a wonderfully rendered fictional reality to take hold.
That’s about it for now. Pax.
So my sixth grader came home today with a list of “Character Traits” given out by her teacher to help with fiction writing. The full page was arranged in alphabetical order, starting with able and ending with young, all sorts of goodies in between, like alert, ambitious, industrious, innocent, hopeless, humorous and so on and so forth. What a handy thing, I thought, for creating incidental characters and such.
Instantly, I made a copy for myself, because I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I love lists. Particularly those that dissect the human spirit.
Back in college, my pal Doug Elkins once showed me a longer, more complicated list of traits he’d gotten as part of an acting improve class, organized by categories, like Introvert and Manipulator. Hot stuff.
Here I am, well over twenty years into my writing career, and still looking at things that might, to to others, seem basic. Reminded me of a panel I once sat on with a group of terribly famous and smart comic book writers, Chris Claremont, J. M. DeMatteis, Tom DeFalco and the like.
The question came up, “Are there any “how-to” books you’d suggest for aspiring writers?” The gist of the responses was, “No, of course not, you can’t really get a magical skill like writing out of a book. It’s about soul and trial and error. Finding out who you are and what you want to write…” Yadda-yadda.
I wanted to disagree at the time, but was feeling a bit out of my league. Fact is, though, like that list of traits, I think any book on writing can be a handy, helpful thing, even if the book isn’t any good, or totally wrong.
Stephen King for instance, has written a few pieces on writing, and he’ll occasionally throw in rules like, “never use adverbs when describing character dialogue” and such. I got the idea, the dialogue should stand on it’s own, but the “never” part always bugged me, so I like to (slyly) sneak ‘em in whenever I think they’re appropriate.
Thing is, even the rules/books I’ve disagreed with are useful, because they made me think about writing, they opened up a dialogue about what works and doesn’t, and whenever I’ve engaged in that dialogue in an honest way, my writing’s always improved.
So in that sense, the lists, the books, the rules, are all useful, provided they’re part of a process and not an end unto themselves. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.
And yeah, writing is a magical, soul-searching thing, like any art, and we all have our muses, but I’ve found that a close examination of the pieces of that castle in the sky make it easier to invoke the spirit that brings it to life. If that makes sense.
Btw – I wrote my previous post in MS Word, then cut and pasted it in LiveWriter. I was totally shocked to see that tons of punctuation, from apostrophe’s to quotes and semi-colons, disappeared in the process. Make it look like I wrote it in an emotional flurry rather than my usual cool, deliberate style. :) Anyway, will write directly in LW from now on, so my typos are my own. Pax.
After seventeen years and over 200 comic stories featuring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and co, back in May, I handed in my final script to Egmont Publishing.
Like the rest of the print world, magazine circulation has been in decline and Egmont hard hit. I survived a few cuts, but it was my turn, and I follow a number of highly talented people into the great unknown. No regrets, it’s been a great ride and a solid source of income in a profession that seldom provides such things.
I was first hired by Egmont by Anina Bennett in 1992. She’d been the editor on one of my creator-owned series at First Publishing, Meta-4 during the indie-boom of the eighties.
After First folded, another editor there, Byron Erickson, returned to his native Denmark, found work at Egmont and invited Anina along. Looking for new writers, she gave me a call.
I was incredibly dubious – Mickey Mouse? Disney? As a young rebel writer wanting to push the edges of the medium, it felt more like entering the belly of the beast. But I needed the money, and it seemed better than typing for a living.
Looking back, my fears were unfounded. Aside from supporting me, writing for Egmont never robbed me of an opportunity (The X-Files and The Bandy Man for instance, came while I wrote Mickey). At the same time, writing in such a structured fashion (plot, synopsis, and then script, strict panel guides, etc.) added some greats skills to my toolbox.
For instance, having to come up with several beginning/middle/end stories per month gave me (for fans of The Karate Kid) a wax-on/wax-off instinct for plotting. That instinct continues to serve me well in whatever medium I’m involved in. Beyond that, I look back at a large body of work of which I’m pretty proud.
To be completely honest, Mickey always puzzled me as a character. For me, the best characters have an internal battery propelling them forward. Nancy Drew needs to solve mysteries. Fox Mulder needs to stick his face into the unknown. If you look at the rest of the Egmont/Disney lineup, those batteries are easy to see – Scrooge has his greed, Donald a desire to cut corners, Goofy a skewed way of looking at things and Horace, my favorite, an ego so strong it pushes the line of his moral compass around like a kite-string in the wind.
What’s Mickey got? Well… he’s kind of an everyman – he likes adventure, tries to do the right thing, doesn’t like being bored. Uh…. oh yeah, he’s a mouse. Wow – are you excited yet?
As a result, I tended to either craft stories about things that happened to him (mysteries he stumbled onto) or that played with another aspect of his being – the fact that he’s a huge cultural icon. Not that he was famous in the stories, more like I often took the opportunity to mess with his physical aspects, sort of the way Andy Warhol did with Marilyn Monroe.
My very first story, for instance, Jurassic Mouse featured a caveman Mickey that had fallen in love with Clarabelle’s hat. In others, I’d make a point of showing Mick’s face distorted as he rockets away from earth, or dress him as a woman to catch a bad guy, or turn him into one thing or another (like Superman with Red Kryptonite), or otherwise double and distort him.
One fave along those lines was All of Me, where scores of Mickey clones eventually had to leave earth and start their own planet. Always wanted to do a sequel on Mickey-world, but never had the plot approved. Oh, well.
The Warhol/Mickey concept probably peaked when, to my surprise, I did have a plot approved that was a satire of a novel by the great Phillip K. Dick. The result was Through a Mickey Darkly, where Mickey goes undercover to join an entire gang that looks like him, only to be tasked by the mob bosses to spy on himself.
Surrealism was also fun to play around with. If I had to pick a single favorite, it’d have to be a short story where a piece of the wall behind Mickey’s couch, in the shape of a puzzle piece, comes loose. When Mickey tugs it free, he and Goofy see a vast abyss of swirling stars beyond the hole.
Mick tries to find something to plug up the hole, only to return and find that Goofy has pulled out half a dozen more pieces. He just couldn’t help himself.
They try to put the pieces back, but fail. The wall, the house itself, crumble into puzzle pieces. Mickey and Goofy flee as all Duckburg behind them collapses into thousands of puzzle pieces, revealing the deep, infinite void of uncaring space.
Hee-hee! (I would’ve loved to end it there, but of course I had to stick on some sort of explanation. It turned out Mickey was actually playing some new immersive video game designed by Doc Static. Yadda-yadda-yadda.)
Clearly, though, with a character as popular as Mickey, I figured there had to be something to him I was missing, so I kept at it. And yes, there were times when I did feel like I was getting close to his essence, particularly in a 35-pager that was approved, but will most likely never be published, The Death of Mickey Mouse.
That story had its genesis a few years back at an Egmont conference, which was in itself a fantastic experience. Sarah and I were flown to Barcelona, thrilled to spend time with our fellow writers, the artists who brought our stories to life, and the wondrous editors who broke their butts making everything happen. Not only that, we were given a series of tutorials by none other than Scott McCloud, a brilliant gentleman I’ve admired ever since the release of his seminal book, Understanding Comics.
But to stick with Mick, while Scott was talking about the unlimited possibilities of sequential art (aka comics), a number of us groused that Egmont’s rigid format didn’t allow us that kind of freedom. An energetic Byron insisted otherwise, saying we could in fact do anything, if we did it the right way.
So, said I, “Can I do a story called The Death of Mickey Mouse?”
“Yes,” Byron said. “If you do it the right way.”
I came up with a sort of DOA plot, where Mickey learned that someone disguised as one of his friends had shot him with a paint-ball filled with poison. The poison gave him only two days to live and solve his own murder.
Of course, Mickey had avoided the poison (even I knew I couldn’t really kill him…), but he pretended to be dying to draw out the crook. As he visits his friends, they go through various stages of grief, from anger to acceptance. They even build him a big memorial statue in the park and Mickey learns just how important he is to them.
In the end, when his pals think he’s dead, The Blot reveals he’s been disguised as Goofy. Before Mickey can let everyone know he’s still alive, his pals beat the crap out of the villain.
In the final scene, Mickey and the real Goofy wander by the memorial statue. Goofy asks if Mickey ever thinks about dying, and Mickey says, “Nah. I’m too busy thinking about living!”
Despite Byron’s optimistic insistence, between the subject and the title, the script was shelved. But I think it was the moment where I came closest to the heart of the Mouse.
Likewise, it seems like a good place to end this meditation on the past. Much as I enjoyed working for Egmont, I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes next.
Pax.
Got a lovely note this morning from Regina Forrester, an English teacher in Australia. She sent a copy of her glowing review of Teen, Inc., saying it was posted over at the publisher’s site, Allen and Unwin.
After poking around a bit, I discovered an entire PDF of teacher reviews for the book. Having spent an hour today struggling to get my wife’s Mac to print (I hate Macs) these put a real smile on my face. A few excerpts:
This book did it for me. It is quirky, fast paced, funny and fun. It will grab the modern reader by the arm and drag them in. It has it all - which reminds me of the line in The Princess Bride, “Passion. Duels. Miracles. Giants. True love” - but in a modern context. Perhaps with our current financial status and the media so caught up in big business this has opened the audience even further. Students in Years 8 and 9 would find the characters and the plot very appealing and find true connection to them. Regina Forrester, Wyndham College, NSW
After reading an extract of Teen, Inc. on the Allen and Unwin website, I was hooked and was inspired to purchase a copy for the library. I am hoping to recommend Teen, Inc. to my school as a novel set. It is an easy read and there is plenty to discuss. Kimbra Weeks, New Town High School, TAS
I thought this book was very enjoyable, and it took quite a different approach to the usual problems of growing up. Jaiden was genuinely amusing at times and his beliefs, observations as well as his occasional humiliation at the hands of the Company seemed believable and could easily be related to. Anne Sim, Dromana Secondary College, VIC
This was a really good book. I really enjoyed reading the story of Jaiden, the boy brought up by a Corporation. It is told in the first person, and Jaiden Beale is an extraordinary teenager. Pauline Dunn, Mountain District Christian School, VIC
Teen, Inc, written by Stefan Petrucha, is a book that you can not put down. This is a well written book with a great story line. I would recommend this to anyone going through high school. William Knight, VIC
I’m particularly pleased to have all these comments coming from teachers. Thanks all!
And remember folks, the US paperback of Teen, Inc. will be released this coming March, in conjunction with my new hardcover, SPLIT. Pax.
Just got the Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs to those in the know) of my upcoming book from Walker, SPLIT, and they look totally fantastic! This puppy won’t be out until March of 2010, but above is a sneak peak at the cover. This will be my third hardcover from Walker Books for Young Readers, following Teen,Inc, and Rule of Won.
SPLIT takes a slighter darker tone gearing it more toward the older end of the teen readership. It’s similar, in some ways to my first YA effort, the TimeTripper series from Razorbill.
The back cover copy puts it nicely:
Wade Jackson had always felt split, his love for playing and writing music versus his ambition to do well in school. But when his mother dies, this need for order competes with his desire to leave it all behind. What follows is a split in consciousness that takes him to two very different worlds.
Told in alternating chapters that uniquely explore the butterfly effect of these two choices, SPLIT follows each Wade as he pursues what he thinks is the correct path. One Wade continues working hard in school, pulling all-nighters to write a computer code he believes will save the world. The other Wade pursues the dream of being a dive-bar singer, pulling all-nighters to party, gamble, and live on the edge.
But when these worlds begin to collide, each Wade will need to find a balance between control and abandon, order and chaos, life missed and life lost, in order to save himself.
That’s SPLIT in a nutshell! More to come in 2010, which, by the way is shaping up to be a big year for me, publishing-wise. In addition to SPLIT, I’ll have two other books out from major publishers. Later.
A brief recommendation for the science fiction fans among us. I just finished watching the mini-series, Torchwood: Children of Earth, based on the BBC series of the same name and found it to be a real treat.
It’s meant to be a “serious” version of Doctor Who, a show which I only enjoy on occasion because of the rampant campiness – I can personally only take so much of it at a time.
While some hint of the aforementioned campiness remains, the story is so nicely driven that in short order it becomes riveting. The dramatic battery isn’t based so much on clever ideas for neat aliens or futuristic technology (though those are pleasantly present) but in a series of incredibly difficult decisions regarding the sacrifice of children.
Said decisions are not only made by our inhuman elected officials, but also by the main characters.
Can’t speak for the Torchwood series, since I haven’t seen it, but I can tell you that this mini-series had made me put it on my Netflix queue. Pax!
I’ve just finally figured out how to cross-post to a variety of blogs at the same time. After two days of trying various thing, I’ve settled on using Windows Live Writer, a free blogging program from Bill Gates and friends, combined with a plug-in called xPollinate. Basically, I write in Live Writer, then use the plug-in to post at sundry places around the Net. Sounds easy? Let’s see if it works!
I’ve also decided to use the opportunity to give my blog a snazzier name, hence Peter’s Ear, which, I suppose, requires some explanation.
Back when my Dad, Martin, was alive and I was but a teen, we’d chat about this and that and everything. At some point the meaning of our last name, Petrucha, came up. He was born in a small town called Knezdub in what was then Czechoslovakia. A few generations before that, the family was Russian.
He was never exactly sure what Petrucha meant, but to him it sounded roughly like the Russian for “Peter’s Ear.” An online phonetic Russian dictionary tells me “ear” is “ooshnoy” in Russian. Peter, I assume is roughly the same, so “Peterooshnoy.” Close enough, but what does Peter’s ear mean?
I don’t count myself a member of any organized religion, but I’ve spent time studying as many as possible. I’ve found many beautiful and moving things in all the sacred books I’ve encountered, as well as things that didn’t sit well with me. In the end I prefer not to label my beliefs, but that’s another story.
As for the name, Dad felt it was in reference to Chapter 18 of the Gospel according to John. When Jesus is about to be arrested thanks to the betrayal of Judas, one of his disciples, Simon Peter, draws his sword and slices an ear off Malchus, a servant of the high priests. Jesus tells Peter to put the sword away, and in some variations on the story, graciously spits on the ear and sticks it back on Malchus.
I could never figure out if we were named after the ear or Peter. Better yet, maybe we’re named after the concept of non-violence.
Is the translation accurate? Does it relate to the biblical story? I dunno, but that’s what my Dad said, and I like the sound of it, so, Peter’s Ear.
