It has been brought to our attention (thank you, Sam!) that some copies of our first real published book (one that wasn’t published by us) have officially hit the streets. Apparently, if you pre-ordered The Super Hero Squad Flips Out! from Amazon, you should have already gotten your copy. We did not pre-order, so we’re still waiting to see the real deal – but we did get our hands on a proof from the publisher.
I pretty much flipped out:
Matthew was able to contain himself, and perused the 216 different story combinations with a critical eye:
We were basically asked to do the book because we have some experience working with these mix and match/exquisite corpse-style books (see Ten Thousand Stories, After EverAfter), not because we are particularly well-known in the Marvel Universe. Basically, there are 6 stories along with 6 matching illustrations which are divided into three horizontal strips. Each of the strips can be turned as if it were its own page, thus mixing different parts of each story.
The trick to this kind of book lies in making the writing and the illustrations cross over the page breaks naturally (for the writing, this means grammatically, for the illustrations, it means that lines and colors have to line up nicely) – which, it turns out, is so much of a trick that LB Kids actually sought out little old us to do it for them. This was almost a year ago now, which is why it had to be brought to our attention that the books were out (not that we’re already so jaded about publishing our first book that we weren’t keeping tabs). In all fairness, we were told they weren’t being released until September.
Matthew’s father pointed out that he wasn’t even sure we had worked on the book, until he found our credit in miniscule type on the back:
Further evidence that our names really aren’t the big draw on this particular book. But we’re happy to ride the coattails (or are they called “capes”?) of the Super Hero Squad any day.
So happy, in fact, that we decided to celebrate with another piece of Hurricane Pie. We’re now calling it Super Pie, since it seems to be invincible.
We’re really not sure we’re going to be able to defeat it.
If you’d like to get your own copy of The Super Hero Squad Flips Out! CLICK HERE. Amazon will ship it directly to your house in a nice sturdy box in no time at all, unlike the shoddy manila envelope service you’d get if it were an Idiots’Book.
Congrats! Can’t wait to see it. I expect it’ll be rising to the tops of Amazon lists faster than a speeding bullet.
Jill: Thanks! We’re at #499,362 and counting!
Wow! You guys are dyn-o-mite!!!!
I’ve been saying for years that the Idiots should be on Amazon’s top 500,000 list–and here we are!
We have our copy! Its super-tastic! Really–its amazing, Robbi you are an amazing artist. And Matthew, your writing is..well..its ok. :-)
But really–if you keep showing pictures of the pie, I’m going to get a stomach ache. Enough already!
Hey Robbi,
it’s available at Amazon/Germany as well. Just ordered it! We will get it to the top 1000 in Europe!
Nina – they believe in Super Heroes in Germany? I thought you guys were smarter than that. Good news for us, I guess. Hooray!
Veronica – I admit, I can’t take all the credit. The dirty secret of this project is that I wasn’t actually allowed to draw the superheroes myself. I had to use Marvel-sanctioned clip art. Which actually made things even trickier in the line-these-different-pieces-up department, but much easier in the I-don’t-know-how-to-draw-superheroes department. The cat’s out of the bag. Not as amazing as you thought. :)
Shenk – so says the guy who’s #14 in Revolutionary History books, and #27 in Civil War Biographies. As soon as they get a Mix and Match Superhero Book category, I’m pretty sure we’ll have the prize.
Very cool, and big congrats! I will do my part in closing that gap between 100 and 499,362.
ahhh..the secret is out. Which makes a little more sense to me–I didn’t really recognize your style in the flip book characters. No matter, you are still a star artiste’ in my eyes.
Veronica: In Robbi’s defense, even though she used the Marvel clip art for the characters, this actually made her job harder, because she was forced to work with the limited available poses when coming up with the “cross-overs,” the places where the images transition from one panel to the next. This required feats of imagination and tinkering that should earn her a spot on the Super Hero Squad. She also drew all the backgrounds, castles, forks, pies, cakes, tornadoes, invisible cars, vats of ice cream, killer butterflies, etc.
Woody is getting a copy of this for his birthday. I’m getting ready to read it over and over and over and over. Can’t wait!