SBBT Interview: Adam Rex

Fuse #8: So. First and foremost, word on the street has it that Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich is going to get a little baby brother soon.  What can we expect from everyone’s favorite green guy?

There are also poems about Dracula Jr. and Medusa and the Sphinx and aliens and a number of excerpts from the Headless Horseman’s blog, and more!  All your favorite monsters in one volume.  How much would you pay for a collection like this?  One hundred dollars?  No, it’s only sixteen.

Fuse #8: (The Headlesss Horseman’s blog?) Now your first novel The True Meaning of Smekday has, to my mind, disproven the commonly held publishing wisdom that children’s science fiction doesn’t sell.  Kudos to you, sir!  Now, the real question: Are we going to see more of J. Lo?  I want a J. Lo book.  Oh!  Or a J. Lo graphic novel.  Will we see any more of his many-legged self?

Adam Rex: I think there’s a good chance we’ll eventually see more of J.Lo in some format, but I can’t say for certain what that’s going to be yet.  Probably all I can say for now is that I’m working on a short story that’s set after the invasion, that I would like to include in the paperback edition of Smekday.  But first I have to finish it, and it has to be good enough to bother, so we’ll see.

Fuse #8: Let’s count it off. Poetry? Check. Picture books? Check. Novel? Check.  That leaves non-fiction on the list.  Any interest?

Adam Rex: Yes, actually.  More so since reading Kadir Nelson’s We Are the Ship.  I don’t know what my subject would be, though, and unfortunately I’m not real bright.  I do have a great interest in entirely made-up nonfiction.  Does that count?

Fuse #8: Sure.  We have no standards here.  On a different note you visited the Central Children’s Room once and gave me a chance to take a peek at your sketchbook.  This was simultaneously thrilling and frightening.  Thrilling because your art is, at all times, really jaw-droppingly splendid.  Frightening because as far as I can tell, when you draw something you draw it PERFECTLY the first time.  What’s your general technique in these cases?

It’s from 2004, and shows a few early attempts to nail down my version of Frankenstein, not to mention a few Kerrys and a Bush, as I was watching a Presidential debate on TV while sketching.  I think these are pretty lousy Frankensteins, and barely adequate Presidential candidates.

Having said that, I probably do a lot more preliminary sketching in my head than I used to, so some of my worst compositions never make it onto paper.

Fuse #8: One of your earlier jobs was doing cards for Magic the Gathering.  Do you still do these on the sly?

Adam Rex: I did as recently as last year, but I think I’m through with those now.  I just don’t have the time anymore.  But I guess that means that I’ve painted some Magic cards that still haven’t been released.  Wizards of the Coast (the Magic and D&D company) was a good client, and paid nearly all my bills when I was still looking for my big break into kids’ lit, so I have a soft spot for them, and have tried to fit in a job with them here and there.  But now I’m behind on all my books, and would have a hard time explaining to my editors why I’d set work aside for a few days so I could paint a 3/3 Black/Green Artifact Creature with Trample.

Fuse #8: Last one. The picture of you on your blog . . . . are you a superspy?

Adam Rex: Oh, that’s just great.  "Are you a superspy."  What kind of question is…this whole interview was just a set-up so you could Valerie Plame me, right?  Who sent you, the ALA?  I swear, you shoot one librarian in the back and they never…and we were this close to getting the goods on Ambassador Scieszka.  This close.  I have an agent in bed with him this very second.  Literally in bed with him.  Will you excuse me a moment?