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Spookiness abounds in this graphic retelling of the classic Washington Irving story (put out by Stone Arch) in which a timid schoolhouse teacher runs up against fanciful tales and terror in a small town. Blake Hoena retells this story (with illustrator Tod Smith) with attention to details. The wiry schoolmaster – Ichabod Crane – is portrayed like a scared rat with something devious up his sleeve (that something being the affection of the lovely Katrina, whom Ichabod attempts to woo away from the juvenile prankster Brom Bones).

The story is layered with ghost stories from the town’s history, including the tragic tale of the Woman in White who was caught in the ice storm near Raven Rock, the story of the traitor spy who was hung from the tree along Sleepy Hollow Road by the townspeople, and, of course, the saga of The Headless Horseman who seems to prey on the town’s schoolteachers in the dead of the night.

The two main plot developments of Bones’ jealousy over Ichabod’s interest in Katrina and the culmination of the ghost stories on Ichabod’s imagination merge one night as Ichabod is returning home from a party at Katrina’s house by way of the shadowy terrain of Sleepy Hollow and is confronted by The Headless Horseman himself. The reader is never quite certain whether it is Ichabod’s own fertile mind, a Brom Bones’ prank, or a real ghost that confronts and chases him through the night. Nor is it explained what happened to Ichabod in the aftermath of the attack. All that is left for the townspeople to find the next day along with some tracks from Ichabod’s horse and a smashed pumpkin. The story ends with a new schoolteacher in town and a child, holding up a horse shoe, asking the innocent question of Ichabod’s replacement in the classroom: “Sir, have you never heard the legend of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow?”
          — The Graphic Classroom

“Frequent children’s graphic novelist Blake A. Hoena (Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 2008; Ooze Slingers from Outer Space, 2007) offers this new version of the oft-told classic. He elegantly simplifies and streamlines an already fast-paced tale, producing a very crisp version. This allows Ricardo Tercio (Spider-Man Fairy Tales, 2007) to imbue the story with multiple levels through his flexible figures and somber palette. The giant, with his blazing orange eyes and angry, malleable face, presents an age-appropriate sense of menace, and Jack exudes the energy of a young boy, always poised for action even when sitting still. With just a dash of slapstick humor and the tale’s inherent suspense, this is a grand opportunity to introduce young kids to the graphic format through a story they are already familiar with; those who already follow their favorite superheroes in comics will see the vast range of possibilities in sequential art.”
          — Booklist

With this busy fall, I’m not sure I will meet my pace of a chapter every other week, but Chapter Two is now available.

Chapter 1 of book 1, The Grey Mist, in my Modern Day Wizard serial novel has been posted.

In this initial chapter, I wanted to jump right into the action, which is why it starts with a fight. It also sets up Michael’s main real-life conflict, and his struggles with Darren will dominate the first several chapters.

I hope to have chapter two ready by mid-September.

Having already worked on stories about Poison Ivy and Livewire, I’m sticking with the villainesses for my next Batman title in Stone Arch Books’ DC Super Heroes series.

It’s Mr. J’s birthday, and Harley Quinn wants to get him something special. After trapping Robin, she sets a trail of clues for Batman to follow in order to rescue the other half of the Dynamic Duo. Harley Quinn plans for his appearance and demise to be the entertainment at Mr. J’s surprise party.

The working title is Robin on a Stick, and it will be available next summer. 

My graphic novel retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk is now on bookshelves!

As with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, I had a few things to mull over and resolve before writing my retelling. Jack and the Beanstalk was originally told orally, and over the generations, several versions of the fairy tale had come into existence as storytellers changed details of the story to suit their needs. Which one was I to base my retelling on?

• The History of Mother Twaddle, and the Marvellous Atchievements of Her Son Jack by B. A. T., appeared in the early 1800s. In this version, a servant girl, not the giant’s wife, lets Jack into the castle. Also, Jack kills the giant by beheading him.

• Another version printed in the early 1800s was by Benjamin Tabart. In his retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk, a fairy tells Jack that the giant had killed and stolen from his father. Tabart added this detail, moralizing the story, to give Jack a reason for stealing from the giant.

• In 1890, Joseph Jacobs published a different retelling of the fairy tale. He based it on a version of the story he remembered from his childhood. In his retelling, Jack steals from the giant because he is a trickster and a misbehaving boy. There is no mention of Jack’s father at all.

Today, Jacobs’ Jack and the Beanstalk is thought to be closest to the original, orally told version, though no one knows for sure. I actually based my retelling more on Tabart’s take of the fairy tale because it didn’t feel right when I was writing to have Jack steal from the giant without a good reason. But even in my retelling, I have changed some details. For example: Jack’s mother, not a fairy, tells Jack that the giant has the family treasure..

I will be writing a Livewire origin story for Stone Arch Book’s DC Super Heroes series.

Livewire (a.k.a Leslie Willis) was once a popular shock jock whose rants often involved bashing Superman for being too-good-to-be-true. While hosting a celebration, and ignoring severe weather warnings despite Superman’s presence, lightning struck the stage she was on, leaping from Superman to her and transferring some of the Man of Steel’s powers to Leslie. The accident transformed her into Livewire, a creature of pure energy, and exacerbated the grudge she had with Superman.

The working title is Electric Lady, and it will be released next summer.

Book four, Beyond the Black Hole, in my Eek and Ack series is now available.

Steve Harpster has been illustrating Eek and Ack since book one, and similar to how my scripts and writing have evolved with the continuation of the series, so have his illustrations. I’ve noticed a big change in Beyond the Black Hole. While the first three books are fun and well drawn, they look flat compared to the style Steve has now adopted. The coloring is much richer, and there’s a depth to the illustrations that didn’t exist in the series’ initial titles.

Steve has also put together a fun movie clip, using art from Beyond the Black Hole, that provides a sample of the new art style as well as shows how the art progresses, from storyboards to color, as a graphic novel is developed. To view it, click here. The steps he illustrates are similar to those the I discuss in my presentation “Creating Graphic” novels, though I cover the writing of as well. That’s my expertise after all.

If you read Publishers Weekly, you may have recently come across some interesting news: DC Comics and Stone Arch Plan Chapter Books. It only seems natural that if popular genre-fiction novels, such as Dark Tower by Stephen King and Red Prophet by Orson Scott Card, are being turned into comics, that popular comic book characters, like Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, find their way into novels. And the exciting news is that Stone Arch’s DC Super Heroes series will be for kids.

Stone Arch is creating short, 56-page, novels using Batman, Superman, and eventually Wonder Woman. The books will contain color art by DC illustrators, but not the sequential art that we normally associate with these characters. The assumption is that their popularity will translate into books other than comics. At least, I hope that is the case because I’ve been asked to write two of the first twelve titles in this series:

Batman vs Poison Ivy—A rash of disappearances centered around Gotham’s new arboretum has Batman accusing Poison Ivy of wrong doing. But she’s locked away in Arkham Asylum and says she’s innocent. Batman needs to get to the root of the mystery before the annual mayoral convention at the arboretum.

Superman vs Kalibak—A strange spaceship is hovering between Earth and the sun, changing its empowering yellow rays to red, weakening the Superman. Without his superpowers, how will Superman stopped Kalibak from invading Earth?

For the past several years, I’ve presented at the Young Authors, Young Artists Conference in Rochester, MN. The event, sponsored by the Southeast Service Cooperative, is a gathering of 800 talented, energetic, and artistic fourth through sixth graders from schools in southeastern Minnesota. My presentations, “Creating Graphic Novels,” discuss the steps involved in creating comics and graphic novels.

Initially, when the event was called the Southeast Young Writers Conference, my presentations were about poetry. But after I wrote my first graphic novel, Matthew Henson: Arctic Explorer, on the cusp of the recent graphic novel boom, I made the switch. After all, the students in attendance are of the same age that I was when I first delved into comics. For my new presentations, I brought in samples of each step involved in the creation of a graphic novel, from my outline and script to the storyboards, inks, and final colors, and discussed the importance of each of these steps. And I ended the presentation with an activity where we’d create and share a one-page comic. At first, few students really understood what a graphic novel was, and usually only a couple hands would raise when asked if they read graphic novels, but the final activity was always a hit.

A lot has changed, visually, over the years. I now show art from my Eek and Ack books. The name of the conference has evolved to include “Young Artists”, and there are nearly as many art sessions as there are writing ones. In each of my eight presentations this year, nearly all of the students raised theirs hands when asked if they read graphic novels. Young readers get the idea of telling a story through pictures, and understand the concept of sequential art. And they can’t get enough. They’re also excited to create their own comic stories and learn the art of storytelling through illustrations.

It thrills me, as an author of graphic novels, knowing that they are not only getting kids more excited about reading, but they are also animating their creative talents. Graphic novels can cultivate reading skills as well as energize artistic ones.