Snazzy Cat Capers Book 2 Trailer!
Two months til launch!
The 2nd in the Snazzy Cat Capers book series, “The Fast and the Furriest” will be released September 17, 2019!
We had a lot of fun with book 2 because we had a bit more room to send Ophelia to a few international places. The stakes are high as the world’s #1 cat burglar needs to outsmart her ambitious, devious cousin Pierre AND the CCIA (Central Canine Intelligence Agency) to save cat-kind. We’ll do a few posts on the making of this middle grade novel. There are graphic novel pages throughout and about 100 illustrations.
Check out the trailer!
Snazzy New York Adventures
Our Snazzy Cat Capers publisher, Erin Stein, in her office—a cornucopia of glorious and wonderful trinkets and treasures. This is in the Flatiron building — Macmillan’s Imprint.
We just got back from a whirlwind trip to New York. It was our first time there! We did a lot of New York-ish things and fell in love with the city and its people. (Also its food, the Barnes and Noble bookstore, and a MAGICAL place called Eataly—but that’s a whole different post.)
The most thrilling thing we did was meet our publisher, Erin Stein, and a lot of the other people on the Macmillan Imprint team who are amazing—and making the Snazzy Cat Caper book series happen.
Macmillan’s Imprint Team in the Flatiron
Neil and I left our hotel really early and breathed in the Flatiron district before we met the team. We ooh-ed and aww-ed at the glorious architecture and spent some time in the Lego store there where Neil DROOLED over the James Bond car set.
Top Secret: The original FFBI (Furry Feline Burglary Institute) Headquarters is the NY Flatiron Building! You’ll discover more about the FFBI’s history in Snazzy Cat Capers book 2—the Fast and the Furriest.
The beautiful NY Flatiron Building!
The fabulous Erin Stein. Her office is glorious—a cornucopia of all the best, most fun things.
The whole visit with the Macmillan Imprint team is a bit blurry because we were so nervous to finally meet them. But we came away with a few things you might be interested to know:
Erin Stein’s office is as legendary as she is.
#teamworkmakesthedreamwork is so real in this industry. LOTS of people from different disciplines are involved in creating a book! And what I think this means for people who are publishing/want to publish a book is that you really, really want (and need) people who genuinely believe in your work to be championing for it.
Publishing teams sometimes appreciate help! For book 1, we’d offered to make a “toolkit” of assets for the marketing and sales team (something Neil and I learned how to do in our Disney days for different brands we worked on) and the Imprint team used them for some marketing. We’re going to do the same for book 2. If you’ve got a book coming out and if its within your means to help with creating assets, it doesn’t hurt to ask if they’d like extra stuff! And if you’re an artist and want to know more about making an asset toolkit, drop us a line and we'll try to help!
IF you have the opportunity to meet your publishing team in person (or if you don’t have a publishing team yet, but you have the chance to go to a conference and meet people you might want to be your publishing people one day), it’s so wonderful to actually see real faces.
One of the highlights of the trip was holding the Snazzy Cat Capes book 2 (The Fast and the Furriest!) Advanced Reading Copies. They’re real!! And they’re coming September 2019. Stay tuned to see those beauties unboxed.
Us! In front of the MET. This place was so amazing. The Egyptian stuff! The paintings! And a da Vinci sketch!
The things we loved about NYC: The architecture! The people! The energy! The art! The doorways and buildings and food!
Barnes and Noble bookstore at Union Square in NYC! It was BEAUTIFUL and we signed a few books.
Prepping for Snazzy Cat Capers art display at Kelowna's Innovation Centre! Laser cutting! A four floor animation! And a golden T-rex!
Deanna and Neil prep for the Kelowna Innovation Art Show in the atrium for September 2018—the month of the Snazzy Cat Capers book 1 launch!
Snazzy Cat Capers Art Show—Focus on the journey
When we first talked about doing a display in the Kelowna Innovation Centre atrium for the month of September 2018 (the month that Snazzy Cat Capers gets launched), we really wanted to make sure it was more than a 'snazzy' display.
People are always asking us about the whole mysterious journey—what happens when you want to write and publish a book, so we decided to try showcase the whole wacky, crazy process of how this Snazzy Cat Capers book series came to be—from the first glimmer of an idea in the middle of the night—through rejections and fatigue and rejuvination—to publication. (Book 1 publishes September 18, 2018!)
Planning for the Innovation Centre display! NEIL designed the art frames in Adobe Illustrator, and we had to figure out how we'd construct them so we could build and install overtop of the thrift store frames we'd purchased. The pic on the top right is the cool staircase in Kelowna's Innovation Centre. We're doing a custom animation using the fancy projector in the building!
Snazzy Cat Capers Art Show—Using the structure of the Innovation Centre space
We got the go-ahead for the book journey display from the gracious Kelowna Innovation Centre team. We also had (and have!) a LOT of support from the super-smart Accelerate Okanagan team. Our hope was to tell our book's story—idea to publication—in a linear way, so we considered how the physical building space might work with this. Since there's a left to right 'progression' that's pretty natural to the space (ending with a connection to the Kelowna Public Library!), we were really excited to make it work this way!
We'll start with wall #1 on the diagram and move left to write—just like how you'd read a book! the very last bit (hallway #6) leads right into the library.
On the left wall, we're starting with the first part of our Snazzy Cat Caper journey—which was the creation of a graphic novel about a fish! So, the first wall will be dedicated to Oscar Fishgerald Gold, the ever-enthusiastic fishy character who (eventually) shows up on Ophelia von Hairball's doorstep as an inventor. He wasn't always an inventor though! In the first rounds of our book, Oscar, the protagonist, was a superhero! The cat was his nemesis....
Oscar was the focus of the first iteration of this book series. Obviously, it's a whole different thing now! But you can see that sneaky, snazzy cat in the background? Eventually, that cat, Ophelia von Hairball, stole the show and became our protagonist—and Oscar F. Gold stepped into his role of fin-tastic sidekick.
This first phase in the development of our book took over a year. We've got a busy family and great jobs we love, so this was a passion project, and the creation took place during really early mornings, late nights, and ridiculous amounts of time stolen in school gyms and hallways while the kids were practicing their sports.
When we finally fleshed out the graphic novel, we reworked and revised, then choose a literary agent (the amazing Gemma Cooper of The Bent Agency) and sent it off! You'll get to see some of our first rejections. And if you haven't published before, creating books (or really anything at all) means you need SO MUCH resilience and a healthy pair of rose-colored glasses. (Also a spare pair for when you smash them. Or when they get soggy from tears and sweat.)
The first wall is about Oscar... but the rest of the Innovation Centre atrium walls will show the journey of the publication of Book 1 with Ophelia von Hairball V of Burglaria as the superstar. We're sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly. Some rough writing drafts, some post-it-note art, and a lot rough art. This part of the process took a couple of years. But in the end, we ended up with an absolutely stellar team at Macmillan's Imprint. We're SO GRATEFUL for the creativity, collaboration, and learnings that we've been lucky enough to experience with them. #teamworkmakesthedreamwork
Snazzy Cat Capers Art Show—Frames, animations, and the practical stuff
We're currently designing the animation for the Kelowna Innovation Centre staircase with the help of Jenny Weightman—a very talented animator friend (and old co-worker of ours at Disney). We have SO MUCH art in all kinds of stages to display that we decided we'd need to create custom frames to help us pull the look and feel of the space together. So we're getting help from our maker friend. (Ross Ladell is amazing—he's got a company of super-smart software engineers and developers and does he have the BEST TOOLS EVER in his shed.)
We used his laser cutter to cut out the unique designs that Neil created for our custom frames. We've done only one prototype and we'll put it together and paint it to see how it looks before we cut out the rest of it. We're using a total of ONE HUNDRED NINETY-TWO separate pieces of wood for our frames. And that's just for 12 frames! Our display will have approximately 23 framed pieces in total. (Neil just counted and almost fainted.)
We're gluing together the prototype this week! And then we've got a bit over a month to go before the show goes up. We hope you'll join us for the book launch September 21, 2018 in the Kelowna Innovation Centre from 5:30-6:30 pm. Kelowna's own Mosaic Books will be there with fresh copies of Snazzy Cat Capers! Please check out the journey on display during the month of September.
What's a good maker space without a GOLD T-REX?!
Snazzy Cat Capers at SDCC San Diego Comic Con 2018!
Snazzy Cat Capers at San Diego Comic Con! Ophelia von Hairball V loves a good con and this one was no exception.
If we tried to pretend we were all cool about Snazzy Cat Capers visiting the San Diego Comic Con 2018, it would be a big, fat, furry LIE.
We're so excited the Macmillan's Imprint will have Ophelia von Hairball (and crew) there. They'll be giving away Advanced Reading Copies (ARCs) to kids and also this fun "Create Your Own Purr-Fect Disguise" sheet so kids can make their own snazzy mask.
Also, we're lucky enough to be part of the "Action Packed Animals" book series in the great company of Spy Penguins and Thundercluck! All are there in San Diego for Comic Con.
Macmillan took a few pictures to show us how much Ophelia was loving that con!
If you couldn't go, here's a copy of the Mask Making page to print out so you can make your own Ophelia von Hairball mask! Because we all need a good disguise now and then. https://www.snazzycatcapers.com/fun-stuff/
Stay Snazzy,
Deanna & Neil
The Art of the Villain! Meet Pierre von Rascal, Ophelia's dastardly cousin.
Meet Ophelia’s archnemesis and cousin, Pierre von Rascal. He’s missing some class, manners and most of all snazziness!
From the desk of Neil Hooson, Snazzy Cat Caper co-creator and artist comes a less than purr-fect villain of the Snazzy Cat Caper book series: Pierre von Rascal!
Pierre is the opposite of Ophelia von Hairball V in character. While Ophelia (the world's number one cat burglar) is stealthy and filled with class (and sass) Pierre always forgets his manners and he's NOT known for his elegance. Since they're opposites in character description, Neil wanted to contrast the two of them in design:
- Ophelia is smaller, fuzzy, and short-limbed while Pierre is tall and lean.
- Ophelia has wide-set eyes and Pierre's eyes are so close together that they've joined to create one big eye!
- Ophelia loves dashing disguises and designer ensembles while Pierre adores his tacky suits, scarves and never goes anywhere without his signature unibrow!
Fun fact: Pierre's expression is inspired by Siamese cats.