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.
SNAZZY CAT CAPERS BOOK DEAL ANNOUNCEMENT!
Snazzy Cat Capers, the book about the world's #1 cat burglar didn't start with a cat, but with a fish. Deanna Kent and Neil Hooson talk about Ophelia von Hairball V of Burglaria and how her idea was born... from behind a fish bowl.
SNAZZY CAT CAPERS didn't start out with a cat hero. (That's right—you heard it here first.) The Snazzy Cat Capers book series, starring Ophelia von Hairball—the stealthiest, sassiest, snazziest feline—actually started with our inventor fish, Oscar Fishgerald Gold.
In 2014 sometime in the middle of the night, I woke Neil up to tell him about a story idea. "What if there was this fish? What if he was a secret superhero? What if a villainous cat lived in his house?" The rest—well, the rest was a LOT of time and work and fun.
We wrote the whole graphic novel. Neil illustrated it, too. After more than a year of work on it and tons of revisions, our fin-tastic agent, the illustrious Gemma Cooper of the Bent Agency sent it out! Alas, even though it got to an acquisitions meeting and we had a phone meeting for a revision with a big US publisher, Oscar F. Gold, the superhero fish as the star of a graphic novel series didn't fly.
We were devastated for a bit. (MANY, MANY tears.) But after a while, we started talking about how THAT CAT BURGLAR was just so much fun. How her voice was super sassy and just deliciously evil. And THAT is how Ophelia von Hairball the fifth of Burglaria was born as a hero, emerging (with a dramatic tail fluff) from behind a fishbowl.