Character Sneak Peek

Here is a SNEAK PEEK at the characters from my graphic novel Page by Paige! Since I'll be drawing this out over the next year, it'll be interesting to see how the characters evolve. Each character was based on a couple different people, but some of their personalities have taken unexpected turns. This first panel shows my 16-year-old-alter-ego Paige with the Virginia-rooted characters: her parents and Diana. Diana is on the phone because in the book she is the friend left behind in Virginia when Paige and her family move to NYC. (Click on image to see full view)

This panel shows Paige with the friends she makes in NYC: Gabe (the writer), Longo (the cartoonist), and Jules (the songwriter). I'll be introducing you to these characters in more depth in the coming months, as I get to know them better myself!



Currently Reading: The Man in the Ceiling by Jules Feiffer

BOOK DEAL!

BIG. NEWS.

A lot of you folks probably already know this, but...I GOT A BOOK DEAL WITH ABRAMS! (I got the offer 2 months ago but I needed to wait until the contract was all done and signed before I could officially announce it.)

I'm writing and drawing a young adult graphic novel geared towards girls called PAGE BY PAIGE. It's about a redheaded 16-year old named Paige, who moves to NYC with her family from Virginia. (Sound familiar?) Feeling alone in this new city, she decides to cope by learning how to be an artist. But she finds that the lessons she learns on paper spill over into her real life. The more she becomes an artist, the more the line between her imaginary self and her real self begin to blur. The whole book is rooted in my own experiences, so it's quite a personal project for me. And I'm THRILLED to find a publisher brave enough to take on a new author like myself.

At a whopping 192 pages it'll take me the next year to draw, and it will be released in SPRING 2011 by Amulet Books. (The YA division of Abrams) This is why I recently joined a comic studio in Gowanus, so I won't have to spend the next year drawing this totally isolated in my apartment!

I must say THANK YOU to everyone who bought one of my little sketchbooks back in Virginia or picked up one of my zines here in NYC. And thanks to my editor Maggie Lehrman, my agent Maya Rock over at Writer's House, and my friend Chad Beckerman who passed along my name to Maggie in the first place. It's been 9 months since when I first started talking to Abrams, so I'm grateful for my friends and family who have put up with me rattling on about this project for so long. (And, um, sorry, but you'll have to keep hearing about it for a while! But I promise it will be amazing...)


Currently Listening: Camera Obscura...My Maudlin Career