One of the biggest hits in the new wave of comics for all-ages is Babymouse.
The impatient, irrepressible rodent has won legions of fans as she’s
conquered the beach, summer camp, a school concert, and whatever
indignities life throws at her. No matter what the situation, Babymouse
has a plan…or at least a fantasy…to help her get through it.
With Babymouse’s latest adventure, Monster Mash, now in stores, we spoke with her creators: Newberry Honor recipient Jennifer Holm, and her brother Matthew.
The Holms were eager to speak about their unique collaborative process,
their favorite comics, and how they’d like to see comics getting into
the hands of kids.
Newsarama: Guys, how did you develop the character of Babymouse and her world?
Jennifer Holm: Well, we grew up together (they both laugh) as brother and sister, so that helped! He tortured me as a child, so…
Matthew Holm: No, we’re actually pretty far about, six years.
Growing up, she basically completed ignored me because I was the
youngest and she was off in her own little world. But once we were both
out of college and had moved to New York City for work, we reconnected
and became really good friends. And of course in New York City, it’s
hard to meet anyone, so we wound up hanging out quite a bit! (laughs)
One day, while we were in Jenny’s apartment in Brooklyn, she handed me
this scribble of a proto-Babymouse. And Jenny, you can tell the story
we’ve told a million times of how this came to be…
JH: I was just having a bad day – what I call a “Babymouse Day,”
the kind that starts off bad and just gets worse. You’re late for the
school bus, you leave your sneakers at home, there’s a pop quiz,
someone spills soup on you at lunch – I had one of those bad days and I
came home, and my husband said, “Wow, you look really irritable.”
And this image just came into my head of a really irritable, cranky
mouse, with crazy whiskers and an attitude problem. So I drew it on a
napkin, and I gave it to Matt, and that’s how Babymouse started!
NRAMA: Matt, what’s your background in artwork? Had you done any comic strips or comic books before Babymouse started?
MH: Yeah, in the sixth or seventh grade, I had started drawing a
comic strip about a little boy who was an alien, and he had a sidekick
who was basically a hairball with eyes. And I just drew that for my own
amusement. I was a total comic-strip junkie when I was a kid. We had
pretty much every collection of Peanuts that had been printed since the 1960s, and later on we had Calvin and Hobbes and Doonesbury and Bloom County and zillions of Garfields and everything else.
I was pretty well-versed in the comic-strip newspaper format, so I drew
some of those to amuse myself, and in high school, I took a bunch of
art courses. I actually had a mentorship one semester with Tony Auth,
who’s the political cartoonist at the Philadelphia Inquirer,
and saw how he worked as a political cartoonists…you basically have to
read newspapers all day long until you find something to be angry
about, and then draw a cartoon about it! (laughs)
When I went to college at Penn State, I became the political cartoonist
for the newspaper there for three years, and really honed my craft in
black-and-white – you have to get your ideas across in a pretty limited
space. While I was at school, I did a sort of double-major with English
and writing and art.
So when I got out into the world I had this background in art, and
ended up working in the magazine industry. I wound up working for Country Living
magazine for eight years. That was my “real” job while I was busy
doodling on the side doing stuff – some graphic design, and a webcomic
called Marty Gray, which is about a gray alien who gets trapped on Earth, and is a bit saltier than anything we do with Babymouse.
And that’s how I got the experience I needed when Jenny handed me a napkin with a drawing of a little irritated mouse. (laughs)
NRAMA: Jennifer, you mentioned having a “Babymouse Day,” but how much of Babymouse is drawn from your own experiences growing up?
JH: I would say a little…nope, make that a lot. Actually, the
majority of it. I’m working out some elementary school issues, you
know? I didn’t like getting up in the morning…I didn’t like getting on
the bus…I didn’t like dodge ball or math class…there was a mean girl at
school…I had a best friend who was a boy…I was always trying to figure
out my place in the world. So I definitely have a lot of material for Babymouse.
NRAMA: What’s your process of putting the books together? Are you in the same room, is there a full script…?
MH: Our process is usually to think of a general theme. For example, with Babymouse: Beach Babe,
we thought of the beach. So then we think back to what it was like to
take all those trips to the Jersey shore when we were kids, or what it
was like on the last day of school – cleaning the junk out of your
locker, not caring all day long, being bored in the car, fighting with
your brother or sister when you’re actually at the beach and getting
sunburned…
So we think of things we would do as kids, and boring things we would
have to endure, etc. etc. And then Jenny sits down and writes out a
full manuscript, which she does in a storyboard-style format, because
she came from the advertising world originally, she did TV commercials.
So she does it like a movie storyboard without the pictures – there’s
the narration, the action, and the dialogue for every single scene in
there.
Then she emails that to me, and I take a sketchbook and go through and
do pages and pages of thumbnail sketches for every scene she’s got in
there. I’ll think of angles for different scenes, and ways of depicting
certain parts, and I’ll cross out things I don’t like.
Then I’ll email the whole thing back to her, and then she goes through
and essentially picks and chooses from that and create the rough layout
for the book. So she’ll take the pages and lay them down on two-page
spreads for a mock-layout, and then she’ll send them back to me, and
then I go and do the final sketches, which I do straight in marker.
Unlike comic books, where the pencils are almost finished art in
themselves, we try to keep this a bit looser, so you don’t lose that
energy you have when you’re first doing sketches. So I go straight into
markers, I don’t try to overwork anything, and then we send that in to
our editors, and once all the changes are made, I’ll do the final-final
version on a tablet.
NRAMA: How long does it take you to put a book together?
MH: Time-wise, you’re probably talking a year from conception to
when I hand the final copies over to Random House. In actual work
hours, probably three solid months, I would say. And that usually comes
in chunks of time, so I usually spend two to two and a half months
doing the final sketches and final inks in the computers.
JH: It’s a lot of back and forth, where we have to turn it in, and then hear back from the editor, and the art director, so…
NRAMA: How long do you see the series going on?
MH: Well, we’re contracted through Book 12 at this point, and
frankly, as long as…they want them, we’ll keep wracking our brain for
anecdotes and things. (both laugh)
JH: Until Matt’s hand falls off!
MH: Yeah, until my hand’s in a cast, we’ll keep going! (both laugh)
NRAMA: You talked about drawing from your childhood
anecdotes…obviously, you both have a lot of stories on your own, but do
you ever talk to friends or kids for things that could happen to
Babymouse?
JH: I don’t talk to kids that much for ideas, but we do get a ton of fan mail suggesting what the next book should be!
MH: Oh yeah.
JH: I will say that some kids we know have seen their
personalities work their way into Babymouse. My own son…you never know,
he might end up there someday as some animal! (laughs)
NRAMA: How did you put together the black, white and pink look of the book?
MH: I think we knew from the start that it was going to be black
and white, partly because that was the style I was used to working in.
I had done some color when I was younger, but it was very
time-consuming, and this was already time-consuming enough! (laughs)
I was pretty confident working in black and white. We also knew that we
wanted to go with a traditional book publisher, because Jenny had a lot
of experience with that. Also, when she was in advertising, a lot of
their guys worked in comic books, and she had a lot of horror stories
about that…!
So we knew black and white would be an easier sell to the book
publishers – it’s cheaper than doing color for every page. And we also
knew – Jenny knew right from the start that the heart on Babymouse’s
dress had to be pink on every page.
We pitched it to Random House, they loved it, we were doing books one
and two at the same time. I was drawing it, we were laying out the
pages. And we were trying to figure out how to do these fantasy
sequences that Babymouse always lapses into. As I’m coloring in
everywhere, we get to Babymouse’s bedroom, which is of course covered
in pink hearts, because that’s her thing. (laughs) And as I looked at
that, I said, “There’s going to be a lot more pink in this book than we
thought!” (laughs)
So we got to the fantasy sequence, and I just threw a pink wash over the entire scene, and it was like, “Ohhhhh! That’s how we do it!” (laughs) So now, in retrospect, it seemed obvious to use pink as the transition to her fantasy world.
NRAMA: Jennifer, who did you know from the comic book world in your advertising work?
JH: My first job was at a place called Broadcast Arts, which was
an animation company back in the day when they hand-colored cell
animation, and they did the animation on Pee Wee’s Playhouse.
And they also produced a lot of animated commercials and things, so a
lot of freelancers they hired to ink the cells and things were
freelance comic book artists who did animation when they weren’t on a
gig. It was this big world of freelancers.
So I would just – and this is dating me – I would see these guys flow
through, and working on their comic books. A lot of them seemed to
publish them independently, and they worked so hard, but I think one
thing that stuck with me was that the whole distribution thing –
particularly when it came to younger children – was very hard.
I mean, Babymouse is geared toward younger children, sort
of first grade and up. And to get them in the hands of younger kids,
especially back then, was difficult. You weren’t going to have young
kids coming into comic book stores, which were the main outlet. Now, of
course, you have the Internet, and everything is everywhere. But I
wanted to get Babymouse into classrooms and libraries, and I
knew from my experience as a children’s book author that the best way
to do that was to go through a children’s book publisher.
NRAMA: What are some things you’ve been able to do with a graphic novel that you haven’t been able to do with prose?
JH: I think what’s so nice about graphic novels is that you can
use less text! (laughs) I’m kind of a wordy writer – my historical
fiction books are kind of thick books for third or fourth-graders and
up, and they’re always wordy and I’m always cutting myself.
Graphic novels are kind of a nice shorthand. And I love laying them out
– I can’t draw at all, but there’s a part of the process where I can
scribble a little image and describe it to Matt. And it’s fun!
MH: And Jenny obviously has a lot more history doing filmic sort
of things and seeing directors lay out storyboards and things from
working on commercials. And she reads a lot more comic books than I do
now – I don’t have the time!
She’s actually a lot more knowledgeable about current techniques than I
am - -she’ll send me a clip from a book with a note reading, “Make it
look like this! The monster is giant and coming over buildings this
way!” Or “the giant bird is swooping over the buildings this way!” and
there’s another clip, or…what are you reading right now?
JH: I’m kind of obsessed with The Goon at the moment. I love Franky! He’s like the best sidekick ever!
NRAMA: What are some other books you’re currently reading?
JH: I just read Sub-Mariner…I’m kind of a Marvel girl, I have a crush on Wolverine…I love waiting anxiously for the new Courtney Crumrin
– I did a book fair with Holly Black, and she said “Oh, I’m doing a
graphic novel with Ted Naifeh!” and I was like, “Noooooo! He needs to
do more Courtney Crumrin first!” (laughs) But Holly is pretty much the coolest girl ever, so it’s okay.
I really like Grant Morrison – I love We3, it’s such a
weeper, you know? And I kind of go through these manga stages – I read
far and wide and all over the place. My husband is a game designer, so
he reads all these comics too – he’ll come home with all these books
from the comic shop to “help me with my research.” (laughs) It’s a hard
life.
MH: Yeah, I tend to binge more when I do my comics. I don’t have
it in me to go every week or every month, but I tend to get everything
in collected graphic novel form. I just finished Y: The Last Man...just finished Death Note before that. And I’ve been reading a bunch of one-off graphic novels like Tales From Essex County.
JH: He keep sending me animals-in-space books like Laika...
MH: Yeah, animals in space! I also got First in Space
from Oni, and there’s a lot of interesting historical books. I like
that about graphic novels today, that there’s a lot of historical stuff
that’s being done in a cool way, rather than the confessional type of
stuff that people expect. I’m not interested in all those introverted
people out there writing about their horrible, horrible lives, I guess.
(laughs) I’d much rather learn something.
NRAMA: And you just had the latest Babymouse come out…
MH: Yeah, Babymouse: Monster Mash. It’s a
Halloween-themed, and there is no pink, all in orange and black! It’s
been very exciting, and kids have really been into it. And boys like
it, because they tell us they enjoy the series, but feel weird about
picking up a pink book. (laughs)
And then we have Babymouse: The Musical, which is of course a takeoff on High School Musical
and that whole craze. It’s a spoofing every big musical ever, because
Jenny grew up in the age of Broadway musicals, and our house was full
of Annie and Cats…
JH: We gave little recitals from Grease in the living room.
MH: That’s coming out around Christmas or so.
NRAMA: Sounds like you’re going for a new audience with these…
MH: Suits me! (laughs) I’m sure the dedicated fans will stick along, and that’s all right with me.
NRAMA: Do you have any plans to do comics outside of Babymouse?
JH: We’re under contract with Random House to do a graphic novel
series that’s…not in pink (both laugh), but it’s such an early stage
that there won’t be anything for years.
MH: It’s pretty much all Babymouse, all the time right now.
JH: But that’s okay with us. (both laugh)
NRAMA: Any final thoughts?
JH: We know you have a slightly more grown-up audience, but we do like to evangelize a bit about comics for kids. Comics are
good reading for kids! If you have a kid, and they don’t want to pick
up a book, but do want to read a graphic novel, that’s okay! There are
a lot of great graphic novels for kids, and in a lot of classrooms,
teachers are now picking up graphic novels, and using them as tools for
reading. That’s so great. So, go comics in the classroom!
MH: Growing up with the Comics Code, and there were things like The Superfriends. Right when I got into high school, you had Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns come out, and there was this backlash like, “No! Comics are not for kids!” And the last couple of years have been like, “Comics can be for kids! Please?”
JH: We’re kind of on the side of “Rah, rah, sis boom bah! Let
the kids read the comics!” And I think a lot of public librarians and
school librarians and even teachers are picking up the baton, and
that’s really cool. They’re really helping kids find the comics.
MH: The obstacle for educators isn’t getting kids to come into
the library, because they want to read, but the parents are like, “You
assigned my kid to read a comic book?!” One more thing to knock down,
and then we’ll conquer the world! (laughs)
Babymouse: Monster Mash is in stores now.
