Slarknor: Teen Dragon
Plus: KAPTARA!!
I have been blessed with an unusual life. I mean, it’s fucking boring for the most part, but I’ve had a pretty good share of interesting jobs and experiences. One of those jobs was working for the National Post, a newspaper here in Canada. I started off as an infographic artist in 2001, doing things like stock charts and maps and explainer graphics on how to prevent 9/11. Not exactly my passion, but I enjoyed it. Once in a while they’d let me do an illustration—which is what I really loved doing—and soon I started pitching them things that I wrote and illustrated, which weirdly paved the way for me doing comics as a job.
One day I was asked by the Books Editor, Mark Medley, to do an illustration for a piece on the hot YA fiction trend and what could be the next The Hunger Games. He didn’t want to just use The Hunger Games cover or whatever, so did I have anything in mind?
I told him I could make a bunch of clearly fake YA books, like we’re looking at a book catalogue. He was good with this, so off I went.
A little while before this, a good friend of mine, Hadley Dyer, was named the Executive Editor for HarperCollins Canada in charge of books for kids and young adults. The day it was announced I took note of her Facebook page and all the congratulatory messages she was getting from author friends, all of whom were surely excited at the prospect of pitching to their pal with this amazing new “in.” So, as a joke, I posted on her Facebook wall congratulating her, and then proceeded to post excerpts of my hot new YA novel, Slarknor: Teen Dragon, a new one every few days.
He was just a teenager who was also a dragon, who had trouble fitting in to his human high school, and so that would clearly be my first “fake YA novel” for my newspaper illustration:
After that, they came easy. My personal favourite was a new take on Sweet Valley High:
Money in the bank! And then there were these two:
As you can see I even managed to slip a “Zdarsky” in there via “Tammy Zdarsky,” bestselling author of The Caveman’s Heart.
A fun gig! I did it, it saw print, there were some chuckles, I went on with my life making maps and stock charts.
And then the Books Editor, Mark, forwarded me an email that he’d received.
It was from a movie producer. The director he worked with was in Toronto shooting a movie—one of a popular series of dance movies, and he noticed an article in the paper about YA novels. And he was very intrigued with ALTERGEIST by Tammy Zdarsky. Were the rights still available?
Mark was stunned. I was stunned. This was absolutely hilarious. So I responded to the producer in one of my greatest emails ever. Why was it great? Because it had to somehow let the person know that this novel—and associated novels like Slarknor: Teen Dragon—did not exist, that they were wrong to assume they did, and I had to do it without making them feel stupid.
I sent the email and that was that, until I got an email back.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any other thoughts about Altergeist written down, would you?”
Thus began my film treatment for Altergeist, a movie adaptation from a novel that did not exist. I had a phone call with the producer, wrote up my ideas for the world of Altergeist, but, like with most things in Hollywood, nothing came of it. Though I shouldn’t say nothing came of it. The incredulous laughs I got from Book Editor Mark as I told him about each stage was truly enough for me.
I was thinking about this story recently as, since then, I’ve dealt a lot more with Hollywood and the people who work in the system. Nothing’s been made, maybe nothing will ever be made, but the purest Hollywood experience I may ever have will still be my work on Altergeist.
In other, sellable news: OK Comics in Leeds is doing pre-orders for PUBLIC DOMAIN VOL. 1, and each copy will come with an EXCLUSIVE signed bookplate by me! Chip! While quantities last!
You should get one!
And now, I’m SUPER EXCITED to present the opening chapter of our penultimate issue of … KAPTARA!
