What's up? Cat's up!

Working on a new style for an early graphic novel has been liberating. And frightening. After all, this style seems limited to the project. But none of my old methods fit for it, so . . ..

After months of work, everything had fallen into place except the main character’s face. The other characters? Check. The legs, tail, markings, claws, colors and even the butt of the main cat? Check. But the face remained just wrong somehow. I “finished” the dummy without knowing, just to get that at least worked out. There are nearly 64 pages of wrong-somehow faces for the main cat in it, revealing the struggle.

This long initial stage already had me feeling vulnerable, but knowing the character and not being able to catch his/her/their face was completely unsettling. Should I submit the dummy and say, well, someone else should illustrate the book? There are so few words, the manuscript would be mostly illustration notes to show what was happening.

No, who would want to trust that? I’m an author-illustrator at heart, thinking in scenes. All my stories for young children are spare with the words. Character shown visually is a big part of how I write. When you do that, words need to work extra hard with strong support from the pictures. It needed to be me.

Turned out, it was a good idea to complete the 64-page dummy. It gave me a certainty about the feel and pacing of its three stories. It also clarified what I needed in the missing face (which looks suspiciously like a certain rescue cat.)

Here’s part of a sketchbook page with a possible good one. I like the innocence and playfulness plus the potential to be very catlike—which is to say at the very least a teensy bit troublemaker-ish.

The main cat’s face is starting to feel right. I’m going to try it out and see if it works.

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Hopefully someone will love the whole cast and the stories in the book so we can get going on the next stage.

And maybe the style isn’t as limited as I initially thought. This sort of scribble might work well with one of my middle grade or chapter book projects, too. But that’s all ignored catnip toys for now.

It’s time for cats.