Cover Reveal Time! The Fan Brothers Talk Barnaby Unboxed
I just can’t say no to a Fan brother.
If you were in my shoes and someone came up to you and offered you the chance to not only premiere the cover of the latest picture book by The Fan brothers AND interview them as well, could you possibly say no? No, my friend, it would be out of your hands by that point. Beyond your ken. Pointless to resist. And so, hearing that on September 3rd we will witness the glorious unveiling of Barnaby Unboxed! (a sequel to the horrendously talented The Barnabus Project) I wanted to know more. Here’s the book’s official description for starters:
“A stunning, standalone picture book set in the world of The Barnabus Project from international bestsellers The Fan Brothers, joined by their brother Devin Fan.
Meet Barnaby: he’s half mouse, half elephant, with a dash of flamingo . . . and fully trained!
When he’s brought home to be pampered and cared for by his very own little girl, life is perfect . . . until a new, even more perfect pet comes on the scene. Suddenly Barnaby is no longer the most perfect pet around, and his little girl doesn’t seem interested in him anymore. Feeling unappreciated, Barnaby runs away and finds himself swept up on a wild journey through the city and an emotional search for home in a tale of love found, lost and found again.
In a poignant follow-up to their award-winning, internationally bestselling picture book The Barnabus Project, The Fan Brothers and their brother Devin Fan have once again crafted a heartfelt and sweetly sensitive story full of adventure, friendship and family that will enchant readers of all ages.”
Not a bad start, but before we get into that cover reveal, let’s talk to Eric, Terry, and Devin first. And be sure to note my Electric Company reference at the beginning, fellow Gen Xers:
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Betsy Bird: Hey, you guys! Great getting a chance to talk to you again! And particularly when that talk involves the latest episode in the Barnabus/by series. So, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is the first sequel/companion picture book I’ve ever seen you do. What was it about the designer pet world of The Barnabus Project that drew you back in? Where did this book come from?

Eric Fan: Great to talk to you again, Betsy! Barnaby Unboxed is indeed our first sequel/companion book. I think there are a couple of reasons why we decided to work on a sequel; first of all, the world of Barnabus seemed rich enough to support another story; and secondly, we had so much fun working on the first book together, it was a wonderful chance to revisit that.
Terry Fan: The idea for a second book occurred to us when we were still working on the first book. It was inspired by one of the final spreads in The Barnabus Project, when Barnabus is in the park with all his friends. In that spread, a little girl is walking her pet Barnaby which got us thinking about the same story, but from the opposite side: what would life be like for one of the Perfect Pets? We find as the story progresses that life isn’t all roses, even for a Perfect Pet.
Devin Fan: I loved the idea of taking something that seems like an incidental image, like the little girl walking Barnaby in the park, and then writing backwards from that image. Who are they? How did they get there? And then we imagined what it would be like for children looking back and rereading Barnabus because now you see that image in a whole new way.
Betsy: We’ve seen storylines about pets or toys usurped by newer versions in books and media before, and after the beloved pet/toy leaves, the story can go in any number of directions. Did you always have a clear-cut sense of what would happen to Barnaby when he had to face the world on his own? Or did it surprise you?

Terry: Expanding on our previous answer, I think many of the story’s elements fell into place during that initial conversation. One of the primary themes of The Barnabus Project is: what does it mean to be “perfect” according to society’s standards? And what does success ultimately mean? Since Barnaby is already the epitome of those qualities, we decided to frame his story as a cautionary tale which was kind of based on the idea of the “child star”, and what happens when that star begins to fade or is supplanted by something new.
Eric: That also dovetails with the other primary focus of Barnaby Unboxed: a critique of rampant consumerism and disposability. There are many images of trash in the book, and things carelessly tossed aside. Perfection is not a fixed destination; it’s a moving target that can always be supplanted by the latest and the greatest. Barnaby isn’t the only victim of this in the book since the whole business model of Perfect Pets is premised upon disposability.
Devin: I think we always had a pretty clear idea of the sorts of things that would happen to Barnaby out in the wild, and we let the underlying themes that Terry and Eric mentioned guide us. We all wanted Barnaby to go on a hero’s journey: facing disillusionment, obstacles, and various ordeals, but in the end coming back to his home, transformed for the better by his experiences.
Betsy: Tell us a little bit about your collaborative process. Folks have a hard enough time wrapping their heads around the idea of two people writing a book together, let alone three. When you’re sketching out the idea for a book together, what does that look like? And is it the same with each book you do?

Devin: I love brainstorming! It’s one of my favourite things to do. What I love most is how it’s possible to build on each other’s ideas. A great brainstorming session is like building a fire: little flames spring up and die out, and if you’re lucky, something catches and then takes on a life of its own; I felt Barnaby was like that.
Terry: Any collaboration has its challenges, but there are also some big advantages to having three brains working on the same project. I love Devin’s metaphor of building a fire together. As far as working on the artwork together, modern technology has been pretty instrumental for us, both file sharing and Photoshop. DropBox enables us to work on the same files simultaneously, so whenever someone makes a change or adds something, it’s visible to all of us.
Eric: We already had some practice with The Barnabus Project, so it was easy to slip back into the same collaborative process for Barnaby Unboxed. At this point, it’s fairly intuitive for us, and we’ve streamlined a lot of the technical hurdles. The real challenge was keeping the style of Barnaby Unboxed mostly consistent with The Barnabus Project.
Betsy: Not to spoil it but Barnaby ends up with his owner again by the story’s end. Was there ever any thought of leaving him independent in the wild as an ending, or did you always know he’d go back home?
Eric: For us, it was vital for him to return home, because in addition to being Barnaby’s story, the book is also the little girl’s story. Her arc is learning the true importance of her relationship with Barnaby beyond the commercial aspect of him as a manufactured product. It’s coming to an understanding that their relationship is defined by love. Love defeats disposability, and that goes for relationships as well as inanimate things; it’s why you hold on to a sweater with holes in it, or a teddy bear that’s missing an eye.

Terry: Eric summed it up nicely. The heart of the story is the relationship between the little girl and Barnaby. Her neglect of Barnaby in the beginning, due to the distraction of the new Rainbow Barnaby, is painful to witness but rings very true. She doesn’t realize how much she loves Barnaby and how irreplaceable he is until he goes missing. By the time they’re finally reunited, they’ve both grown so much; Barnaby has also learned what is truly important and is more empathetic and less egocentric.
Devin: This is all absolutely true, but there was a tiny part of me that wanted him to stay in the wild and get wilder and wilder.
Betsy: I’m with you, Devin. You know, generally, I’d say your books in the past have been dreamlike fantasy titles. Barnabus and Barnaby are interesting because, technically, they’re science fiction (a rarity in the picture book world). Are you fans of the genre at all?
Terry: Yes, we are all big science fiction fans, and in a way, Barnabus comes directly from that interest. When we were much younger, we wrote a science fiction screenplay that we sent out to a bunch of agents in Hollywood. We eventually found an agent who wanted to represent us. What followed was a rollercoaster decade where it was rewritten and pitched to various studios. Ultimately, it never got optioned, despite a few exciting meetings and close calls.
Eric: We even got to work with one of our science fiction heroes, Dan O’Bannon. He read the script, liked it, and then offered to work with us on a rewrite. The screenplay involved a lot of bioengineering, and at some point, Devin did the very first drawing of Barnabus as a side project when he was imagining what it would be like to own his perfect pet.
Devin: Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve always wanted a miniature pet elephant. I decided that to make one, you would have to combine an elephant’s DNA with something tiny, like a mouse; and so, Barnabus was born. As Eric said, we grew up watching a lot of science fiction: Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Blade Runner, and all the rest of it. When we were very young, we would play Star Trek using empty Tic Tac boxes as Communicators. As you might expect, Eric got to be Captain Kirk, Terry was Spock, and I got… Scotty.

Betsy: Oof! That’s rough. Not even Bones. Okay, so since this is an entire book about pets, what pets do you all own?
Devin: I have had pets my whole life. My dad always told me I could have whatever I wanted as long as I took care of it; that led to newts, mud puppies, eels, shrimp, hermit crabs, puffer fish. I could go on forever. My room was always full of aquariums. Now we have our beautiful Wheaten Terrier Rosie and our cats Dumpling and Honey-Pie. There is a stream outside my house with little fish and frogs in it, and one of my greatest joys is feeding the birds outside. It’s amazing to see what shows up at the feeder!
Eric: Ironically, I’m currently pet-free. That’s mostly a consequence of living in a very small condo. The closest thing I have to a pet is a snake plant which I’ve somehow managed to keep alive despite not having a green thumb.
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Terry: I’m also currently pet-free, but not by choice. I would seriously consider having a small dog like a pug as a companion, but alas, my condo building doesn’t allow pets. I do have a lot of plants, though.
Betsy: That’s a book right there, y’know. Now one of the Perfect Pets you can buy in this book is called “Calvino”. I have to ask these two questions. Question One: Is that an Italo Calvino reference? Question Two: What is a Calvino?

Eric: Yes, Calvino was named after Italo Calvino, for no other reason than we love his books.
Devin: As for what he is, I’d say the starting point was a hopping mouse, along with some drops of exotic DNA, to give him his unique color since purple and green are never actually seen in mammals.
Terry: Maybe a little bit of purple marlin and some green caterpillar; it’s all very scientific.
Betsy: Indubitably. Finally, can you tell us what you’re working on next?
Terry: Eric and I just started working on our next two picture books which are still in their early stages—nothing we can quite divulge at the moment.
Eric: We also just signed on to do the cover and some interior illustrations for Beth Ferry’s new middle grade novel Growing Home which we’re very excited about.
Devin: I’m working on a couple of mysteries but whether they materialize or not is also a mystery!
Is it just me, or do you come away from this interview really wanting to just hang out with these guys sometime?
In lieu of that, though, let’s take a nice deep dive into the gorgeous cover of their latest book:

Big thanks to Terry, Eric, and Devin for taking the time to answer my questions today. Thanks too to Evan Munday and the folks at Penguian Random House Canada for helping to put this all together. Barnaby Unboxed! is out September 3rd in bookstores and libraries everywhere. Look for his fuzzy little face then!
Filed under: Cover Reveal, Interviews

About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.
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