JakeBell.com

Scholastic Interviews

2010-07-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

When I was in New York a few months ago, Chris and I spent a morning at Scholastic's offices, doing an interview and eating sushi on the company's tab. Today, our answers went online. I guess it took them this long to make us look like we're not two babbling idiots.

Go check it out for the answers to burning questions like whether we have pets, what our favorite flavors of ice cream are, and what superpowers we'd most like to have.Chris looks pretty good. I'm a little upset that the fat guy next to him is blocking the shot of me. Who let him on the set?

Free Nate Banks Books (and other stuff)

2010-07-08T03:29:00.000-07:00

I've really struggled with THE COMIC CON, the 4th book in the Nate Banks series. I painted myself into a few corners plotwise, and had a few scenes that my editor just did not like no matter how loudly I yelled that they were brilliant and deserved a Newberry Medal on their own.

Fortunately, my editor has had the second draft for about a week and in that time I was able to chill out, work on a few other projects I'd been itching to try out, plot out Book 5 of the series, and sleep. The fact that my kids are visiting their grandparents in Florida for two weeks didn't hurt matters either. (Now if only they had taken the three dogs with them, too...) The break has been exactly what I needed. I'd like to say it was like a cool, refreshing dip in a mountain stream after a long day of hiking in the sun and heat, but it was more like getting to the bathroom after a 45 minute drive home from all-you-can-eat Buffalo wing night through heavy traffic on a bumpy road. I have some great ideas for changes I'll make in the third (and let's hope final) draft.

As for the first two books, did you know you can win a copy of both SECRET IDENTITY CRISIS and FREEZER BURNED over at KidsReads.com? That's volume 1 and 2 of the Nate Banks series of which reviewer Tony Isabella said:

"Hey, Hollywood...and I'll speak slowly so you dummies can understand me...Nate Banks could be the next huge kid movie franchise. The books are funny and exciting with positive values. There are a lot of opportunities for action figures both male and female. Check it out!"

How can you pass up that chance?

While I'm at it, let me mention a few other things that I've posted on Twitter, but might as well add here where it's a little more permanent:

1. Have you played the Coldsnap video game over at Scholastic.com? If not, go check it out.

2. Both of Chris Giarrusso's G-MAN books will be coming out in September. The first one already came out, but is being re-released with a new cover that matches the second one a little better. If you like Chris's art on Nate Banks, wait until you see what he does on his own. Plus, I'm in the second book!

3. A month after the G-MAN books, RED ALERT will be out in stores. I really had a blast writing this one and Chris's art on the comic insert is the best stuff I've ever seen him draw. Unfortunately, I can't share it... yet, but I soooo want to.

4. THE COMIC CON is already available for preorder at Amazon and Barnes and Noble... probably other places, too, but those were the only two I found.

5. I promise next blog post won't just be a list of ads like this. Instead, I'll complain about stuff that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Sound good?

Ultraviolet by Jim Hanna

2010-06-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

Jim Hanna promised he would draw me a picture of Ultraviolet as a Christmas present... in 2007. Better late than never.

For more of Jim's work, check out his site. And pick up the Pirate (heart) Ninja anthology comic I was talking about a month or two ago. Jim and his buddy Nathan did my favorite (after my own) story in there.

Beware My Venom

2010-05-30T02:08:00.001-07:00

Yikes... when I first saw this Google result, I thought I'd really upset someone at the Arizona Republic.

Pirate Heart Ninja Poster

2010-05-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder that in a little over a week, Pirate (heart) Ninja, an anthology of stories about ninjas and pirates falling in love, will be for sale exclusively at Phoenix Comic Con... at least for the weekend. After that, you can buy it online or at Atomic Comics locations.

If you're attending Phoenix Comic Con, though, there's a bonus feature. When you pick up your comic at the Fiction House Mafia booth, you'll be given a treasure map showing where all the creators' booths are around the con floor. Take your copy and get it autographed by all the creators and you'll get a jam poster featuring artwork from all the creators (though my tracing of Jim Lee's Cyclops and Rogue as a pirate and ninja was sadly left off... politics...)

Here's a sneak peak of 12.5% of the artwork, Joe's pin up of Hoshiko, Revoltin' Tom, and the disapproving father.

Good Morning Arizona

2010-05-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

Big thanks to Samurai Comics for letting me come out to promote Nate Banks and Free Comic Book Day. I'll be signing at Samurai later this month and once the date gets finalized I'll add it to the Appearances page.I can't figure out how to get the aspect ratio from my Tivo to my computer correct, but that's okay. I look thinner this way.

The Reviews Are In!

2010-04-30T02:19:00.000-07:00

The first two Nate Banks books hit stores this weekend... or at least hit Barnes and Noble. I'm not sure why Borders didn't have them in stock. Their computers said they'd be getting them in "April 2010" so I guess there's still 20 hours left to make good on that.

But now that the book is in stores, I thought I'd help promoted it with one of those posters full of quotes from reviews of the books, including some from my mom, sister, and grandmother (which will give you some insight into the family that raised me).Other quotes I considered:

"There's some people at my work who want to read it. Can you give me some free copies?"
"How much do you get paid a book?"
"Is there any way Scholastic can give us some promo copies we don't have to pay for in case no one wants to buy them at your signing?"
"I don't understand the story and the author uses a lot of big words. You can give this book to someone else, maybe somebody older who understands this boring stuff. One of the characters was really irritating and just dumb."
"Dear Mrs. Jake Bell, Have you done the book called Captain Under Pants?"
"Eh, you know, you're my friend so I figured I'd buy it and try to help support you or whatever. It was only six bucks."
"I'd rather get some more Puppy Place books."

Now that my friends and family have had their say, go ahead and tell me what you think.

Appearances

2010-04-23T23:43:00.000-07:00

Taking a little break for summer. Expect lots more appearances in September.

October 8-10
New York Comic Con
Jacob K. Javits Center

End Game

2010-04-04T23:32:00.000-07:00

All that's left is to look for typos.Meanwhile, Chris Giarrusso has been laying out the panels for the comic insert.He's been in San Francisco for Wondercon all weekend, but should have the roughs done by the time he gets back. Then once we get approval from Scholastic's art director, he can crank it out and RED ALERT will be off to the printer.

Monkey Business

2010-04-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

BIG NEWS!
I have a big announcement to make. My editor and agent have asked me to keep it under wraps, but I can't hold back any longer.

All of my books are actually written by a highly trained monkey with a 1950's-era manual typewriter.

His name is Gummo.
Ha, ha! Not really. It was all just a fantastic ruse I planned for April Fools Day! Oh, you should have seen the look on your face! Hilarious!

Red Alert

2010-03-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

I just got the news that the third book in the Nate Banks series is now available for preorder over at Amazon. That means I can finally reveal the cover!

Pirate Heart Ninja, Pages 1 & 2

2010-03-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

Today was the deadline for all the Pirate Heart Ninja stories. I've noticed that other guys, especially the ones in charge of this thing, are referring to it as "a top secret project" or "something I really wish I could tell you guys about" on their blogs and Twitters, so... maybe pretend like you didn't see this, okay?

Click to embiggenate
A few things you'll notice:

1. Joe's art is awesome throughout. I've been looking at his stuff for years and it's really amazing to see the improvement from his old WMU comics in the ASU newspaper to this while still being able to recognize his style throughout.

2. Hey, did you notice those captions are a haiku? That's how ninjas talk, ya know. On the last page, there's a caption where the dialog is kind of forced, but that's the struggle of being a ninja I guess.

3. Since the main pirate boy didn't look quite piratey enough, Joe gave him some piratey-er looking friends. Those are me and Joe.

This story will be part of an anthology that will debut at Phoenix Comic Con featuring lots of local Arizona talent, including Jim Hanna, Thomas Healy, Jeff Pina, Terry Tibke, and my favorite Jack Lemmon movie, Glen Garry Ben Glendenning.

Pirate Heart Ninja Preview

2010-03-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

I can't wait to show you guys the art from my upcoming story in the Pirate Heart Ninja anthology that will debut at Phoenix Comic Con in May. The book is a collection of love stories between pirates and ninjas, written and drawn by local talent, each with a different twist. At least I hope they're all different twists. We're not working together, so it's possible we could all be doing more or less the same story. I sure hope not.

Joe Bowen is doing the art, and every time Joe draws something for me, I'm surprised that it's even better than the last thing I saw him draw. Unfortunately, his scanner was stolen or borrowed or returned to its rightful owner (depending on who you ask) by one of his classmates, so I can't share the official art from the issue just yet. However, I'm so excited about the pages I've seen, I can't just let it go. Instead, I'll share Joe's initial character design sketch of Hoshiko, the ninja girl from the story.

Check back here and at Joe's site in a day or two for more!

Curse of the Third

2010-02-27T03:37:00.000-08:00

With RED ALERT, the third book of THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF NATE BANKS, off to copyediting, I am now plagued by an observation by another writer friend, David. In a movie series, he noted, the first film is good, the second is markedly better, and the third and beyond are terrible.

The rule is pretty solid. Spider-Man was fun, Spider-Man 2 was able to do much more, but Spider-Man 3 was unwatchable crap.

Star Wars was great, Empire Strikes Back helped define the lives of a generation of sci-fi nerds, but Return of the Jedi made Han Solo into a sissy and introduced the ewoks... and the less said about the prequels the better.

In the first series of Batman films, Batman and Batman Returns were cool thanks to the direction of Tim Burton, but with the third movie, Joel Schumacher came aboard and we got the travesties of Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. Now with the first two movies of the relaunched franchise following the same pattern, it remains to be seen what will happen with the third.

Superman, The Godfather, X-Men, Lethal Weapon, Aliens, and Terminator all lend support to the theory.

There are a few exceptions. The Matrix and Beverly Hills Cop both took a nosedive immediately with their second films. The third installment of The Lord of the Rings won a Best Picture Oscar. The best Star Trek movies were the second and fourth. I'd actually argue the Nightmare on Elm Street series fits the bill if you ignore the second film, which really doesn't fit the mythos of the rest of the series (Freddie was supposed to be targeting the children of the parents who burned him to death, not the residents of the house where Heather Langenkamp used to live!).

There's really not enough evidence to call it a rule, but one could certainly get away with "trend." It stands to reason, though, that the third installment of a series is ripe for failure. A idea has to be good to warrant producing a movie or a book in the first place--though I'm sure many film critics and literary agents will take issue with that statement--so the first installment should be good. A sequel is often just more of the same stuff that made the first one work without all the necessary set up. We don't have to spend 30-45 minute learning how Spider-Man got his powers or why a millionaire dresses up like a bat and beats up criminals in dark alleys, so that time can be spent watching cooler fight scenes, bigger explosions, and faster chases.

But the third movie/book is an important turning point for one of two reasons. If the story is being told as a trilogy, the third installment has to wrap everything up. Often this leads to truncated story arcs, forced conclusions, and glitches in continuity because when you wrote the first book three years earlier you had no idea it would really matter whether the best friend had a sister or brother so you just picked one, but now the plot insists it be the opposite of what you chose. If the story is an ongoing series, the third installment has to establish the pathway the series will follow. The first two books could stand on their own, but now everything has to build out of Book 3 going forward. The storytelling style differs from the previous books as is the ending.

I certainly hope RED ALERT proves an exception to this trend, but for the weeks leading up to the conclusion of my rewrites, David's comments stuck with me. All I could see was how much different the final product was that what I'd originally planned it to be. Of course, for it to be what I'd originally planned it to be, it would have to be about 400 pages long, so maybe that's not the best measure for it.

If nothing else, at least I don't have any ewoks.

Preorder at Comic Shops

2010-02-12T03:33:00.000-08:00

The first two books are listed in Previews this month. Previews is the catalog from which every comic book store in the country orders its products.

Now, on the plus side, pretty much every comic book store in the country is a locally-owned business without corporate overlords siphoning away profits to fund whatever evil schemes corporate overlords fund with siphoned profits. They are small businesses run by your neighbors and you can't go wrong supporting that.

The downside of their being small businesses is that they typically don't have a lot of extra money just laying around to try out new, unproven stuff. Sure, they'll order Batman and Spider-Man because people know those books and the store owners know they'll sell. But by the time they get to page 312 of Previews, they've already bought all the surefire stuff and everything in the back starts to look the same.

In short, what I'm saying is there's a very good chance your local comic book retailer won't be stocking SECRET IDENTITY CRISIS or FREEZER BURNED unless you bring it to their attention. If you want to support your local business, you've got to let them know.

To help you out, I've created the note below. Just click it, print it, fill in your name (and maybe your contact information) and enter the number of copies you'd like to purchase (or leave the suggested number), and take it to your local comic book shop. Need help finding a local comic book shop? Head over to the Comic Shop Locator.

Most shops will ask you to pay upfront for special orders like this, but if you ask nicely, many will give you a discount of 10-20%.

Thanks for supporting local comic shops and thanks for supporting me and Chris Giarrusso.

Ultraviolet by Joe Bowen

2010-01-28T20:03:00.001-08:00

Got a late Christmas present from Joe Bowen.

Arrow Forms Going Out

2010-01-18T22:03:00.000-08:00

These finally arrived at my kids' school... but for some reason didn't get sent home yet.I only know they got them because a teacher pulled my daughter out of class to show her the forms. My daughter then used the five dollars I'd given her to go to the book fair to order herself a copy... despite the fact she already owns a copy and I have a box of 15-20 more advance copies sitting in the corner of my office.

Maybe they didn't send them home because of something to do with parent-teacher conferences and the three half-days last week? I don't know. I got these from my editor.

The good news is that kids should be bringing them home this week. Remember, it's the Arrow form.So if your class is getting another form like Seesaw or Lucky, ask the teacher to go steal an Arrow from the fifth graders down the hall! They have more than they know what to do with anyway!

Ten Years Ago...

2009-12-31T13:04:00.000-08:00

I spent New Years' Eve 1999 in my apartment in Yuma. I was a sportscaster at KYMA, the NBC affiliate there. I'm not sure how I managed to get the night off. I know I had to work the next night and every other holiday during my entire stint of employment.The more I watch these videos, the more I notice that my cadence always sounds like a hungry tiger is being held loosely by a leash about five feet away. That's due to the fact that every piece of equipment in that place was handed down from Las Vegas to Reno to us and was all operated by high school kids making minimum wage. In short, something was going to go wrong every minute or so, whether it was a tape rolling a second or two late (as happens above) or the wrong tape rolling or the tape machine mangling the tape completely or someone in the control room swearing so loud that it comes through on a microphone and goes out over the air to the masses.

My cousin and I celebrated New Year's at midnight in the Mountain Time Zone in Yuma, then drove to Winterhaven, California two miles away about 45 minutes later to celebrate again.

Four months later, I made my first serious attempt at writing a novel (based on my experiences in television news--it's still on my hard drive!); eight months later, I'd get fired; nine months later, I'd get hired by WJHG in Panama City Beach; and two years later, I quit and vowed I would steal before I resorted to taking another job in TV.

Five months after that... I took a job writing for "Good Morning, Arizona" at KTVK and hated my life about as much as I ever possibly could.

Biggest accomplishment of the past ten years: Selling my first novel and completing two others, all three of which will be out in 2010. There's a part of me that's kind of happy that SECRET IDENTITY CRISIS doesn't come out until next year so I can jut bury the '00s and forget they ever happened.

Biggest mistakes of the past ten years: Getting an MBA that I've never used, have no desire to ever use, and will be paying for for the rest of my life.

10 years from now: My daughter will be 17 and my son will be almost 15? I'll probably have had a heart attack by then.

At the Bucs' Game

2009-12-24T15:51:00.000-08:00

It only took me four months, but I finally got the video transferred from my sister's Tivo to my computer to YouTube!

Back in September, my friend Ryan and I went to Tampa for the Buccaneers' season opener against the Dallas Cowboys. With about a minute and a half left in the game, we started getting calls and text messages telling us we'd just been on TV. Coming out of the two-minute warning, Fox cut to us because we wore our old school, tangerine gear.

Book Club Order Form

2009-12-18T16:25:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, my kids' school didn't receive the new Scholastic Book Club order form before the winter break, so I probably won't see a physical copy of it until January. However, you can download the PDF here.

Go to the very last page and look down to the very last item.

So... um... enjoy your time off from school and when you come back bring five bucks with you!

Galleys Are Here

2009-11-17T10:45:00.000-08:00

Lookie what came in the mail while I was out of town! My editor, AnnMarie, sent me five galley copies of the second book, FREEZER BURNED. Galleys are "almost done" copies printed up to send to book reviewers and for the Scholastic sales staff to take out to show the buyers for retailers like Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Powell's.Oddly enough, I still haven't seen the first book because they didn't bother making galleys for it. Since the Scholastic Book Fairs will be carrying it starting in January, the sales staff will just use actual printings rather than galleys, and word is those are expected to be in the warehouse before Thanksgiving.

Sneak Preview: The Origin of Ultraviolet

2009-11-10T23:40:00.000-08:00

I'm really looking forward to the reaction our comic inserts get when the books finally come out. Scholastic had a pretty cool idea and I really think we're using it well. Instead of illustrating scenes from the book throughout, we're doing an eight-page comic that will be included in each book.

This, however, posed a unique problem. If the comic was a depiction of something happening in the story or took place after the story, it would be a spoiler. You have to imagine that most people walking into a book store and checking out SECRET IDENTITY CRISIS are going to flip open to the comic and check it out first. If it begins with "The butler did it!" then why bother reading 170 pages of text? Put the book back on the shelf and go buy something that hasn't already tipped its hand. So after several vague plots, I struck upon the best use for the inserts.

Prologue.

Each comic will be a third-person perspective set up for the first-person perspective prose. The first book's comic tells the origin of Ultraviolet without revealing her true identity. I can't show you too much, but I will say there are a few panels that I think represent the best work Chris Giarrusso has ever published.

Until January or May (depending on whether your kids get the Arrow Scholastic Book Club form), I'll share two panels that are a little more subtle, but are perhaps my favorite set up and payoff in the story. They're from Ultraviolet's description of her powers manifesting during childhood.

Covers at Last!

2009-10-29T01:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much to say over here largely because my editor asked me to keep things under wraps until we got closer to publication. Last week, I was talking to her and asked how much longer until I could post some of the artwork and talk about the books on the blog, and her answer was: "Wait until Amazon posts the cover images."

Good news. Amazon posted the cover images.Borders has them as well. So does Barnes and Noble, though they only give credit to Chris Giarrusso as the illustrator and aren't set up to take preorders yet.

So, now that I can finally talk about the series... I'm not going to just yet. I'm hard at work on Book 3 and hoped to have it done by Halloween, though it's looking more likely it will be by my birthday (which is a week later). I'll pop up here periodically, but with deadlines, don't expect to hear too much from me until this first draft is completed.

I'm in G-Man #3!

2009-10-10T16:18:00.000-07:00

This coming Wednesday be sure to pick up G-MAN: CAPE CRISIS #3, not just because it's funny and a fun read, but because on page 3 you can see G-Man's buddies beat up yours truly.

And the Ultraviolet Artist Is...

2009-05-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've been sitting on this long enough. I promised a few weeks ago that I'd have an official announcement on the artist for the series, but I was waiting for both contracts to be finalized and to have some images to share. So, while I vamp a little more, I'll explain what the "Marvel and Image Comics veteran who had the #9 top selling graphic novel in the month of April" will be doing. Each book in the series will have an eight-page comic that reveals some back story that is only hinted at in the text. He'll be drawing those, as well as the covers.

All right, since you've probably already looked at the images below (and be sure to click them to get the enlargified versions), I'll make it official.

The artist for the Nate Banks series will be Chris Giarrusso, the creator of G-Man and Mini-Marvels! Check out his rough sketches for the cover:
Let it be known, Chris has a new G-Man graphic novel, G-Man: Learning to Fly, on the way from Image as well as a G-Man miniseries, G-Man: Cape Crisis.

What's interesting about this pairing is that Chris and I have been friends for about five years, we've even done a (yet-to-be-published) picture book together, but Scholastic didn't know this. The art director just loved Chris's stuff and suggested him for the job. I was on the phone with my editor, AnnMarie, discussing some revisions on the manuscript for SECRET IDENTITY CRISIS when I mustered up my courage to ask whether they had an artist in mind. For weeks I'd been fearing they would team me up with some random cover artist who had never done sequential art or whose chosen medium was chalk or watercolors or something else that might look okay on a cover, but wouldn't really work for a comic.

"We were leaning toward this guy--I don't know if you've ever heard of him but he's also a client of (our agent) Rachel's," AnnMarie said. "He's Chris... Giarruddo? Giarrusno?"

"Chris Giarrusso!?!?" I yelped in glee.

"Giarrusso? Is that how you say it? Yeah, have you ever heard of him?"

"He was supposed to be one of my groomsmen!"

So, yeah, Chris and I have heard of each other. He has attended my children's birthday parties. He is #4 on my phone's speed dial. He has been a sounding board for the Nate Banks series from about page 10 of the first draft, so I can't think of many artists who could be a better choice.

Needless to say, I'm very excited to be working with Chris for real, after spending countless hours discussing joint projects that we have no real intention of getting to in the next ten years.

Oh, and part of the reason this blog looks so plain right now is that Chris is designing me a header for it. It's just that the Nate Banks comic, two covers, and all the G-Man stuff is a little higher on the priority list. Hope you can live with that for the time being.