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Beasts, Boy Scouts, and a Kitty Named Jacko

Beasts, Boy Scouts, and a Kitty Named Jacko

Place holder  of - 60By Bill Willingham

Down the Mysterly River came about chiefly because of my love of talking animal stories: everything from the old French “beast tales” of Reynard and Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus stories, to the more modern tales like Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, C.S. Lewis’s tales of Narnia, Orwell’s Animal Farm and all the way to Richard Adams’s Watership Down. It was inevitable I’d try to do my own talking animal story someday.

No book has a single origin, though. I was thinking how long it had been since a story was done that casts the Boy Scouts in a favorable light, along the lines of James B. Garfield’s wonderful Follow My Leader. As so often is the case, two ideas that might not ordinarily fit together were combined, solely because they happened to both be on my mind at about the same time.

So, this story would be a talking animal tale that also had a Boy Scout in it.

Then of course, any good adventure book has to have good villains. In a fantasy setting the villain, or villains, have to be recognizable to readers. The frustrations they create for our heroes in the story also have to be frustrations that would bother the readers. Once again I drew upon things that were on my mind: in this case those who, for whatever reasons, can’t leave a good story alone. You know the type I’m talking about—the nameless, faceless studio bigwigs who decided their movie version of Moby Dick had to have a happy ending, with Ahab in a nice restaurant, with his wife, overlooking the harbor; or whoever decided Beowulf had to be stripped of his might and undaunted valor, and remade into a hero with feet of clay, who lies about his past deeds and forswears his oaths, thus sowing the seeds of his own doom.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a good happy ending, and I’m fine reading tales about heroes who turn out to be less than they claim, and thus bring about their own downfall. But I bristle at the need to change existing stories, wonderful and unique, to fit those tired old molds—to fit into the whims of the moment. Then there are the huge mega-media-entertainment corporations who strip-mine the works of others for stories, which are then homogenized, transmogrified, and rendered down into a tasteless pasty substance called, “valuable corporate properties.”

Thus, we had our villains for the book, the feared Blue Cutters.

But we weren’t done yet. In talking animal stories, just as in tales about real folks, it isn’t enough to have a selection of different types of animals. Each character, man or beast, has to have a different, distinct, and (one hopes) entertaining personality, and to act in ways true to that personality.

Because I like noble characters with an unshakable sense of honor and duty, we have Banderbrock the Badger. Because I like affable dunces with hidden depths, we have Walden the Bear. And because an unapologetic, rogue agent of chaos is always fun to throw into the mix, we have McTavish the Monster—the only one of our cast who was based on a real animal—our very first family cat.

When we first got him as a new, cute kitty, our littlest sister insisted he be named Jacko (pronounced Jaw-ko). But as he started to grow big and tough to the point where a cute kitty name simply wouldn’t do anymore, he turned into Jughead, who ruled all the other animals in our Newport Hills neighborhood with an iron hand. About the time Jughead killed his second of three local dogs, our next door neighbor, Scotty Givan, started calling him McTavish the Monster, which stuck. And so a legend was born.

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From the Tor/Forge September newsletter. Sign up to receive our newsletter via email.

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More from our September newsletter:

Tor, Forge, Starscape & Tor Teen take over BEA!

Tor/Forge Blog

Presenting our stellar list of authors and their events at BEA 2011!

An Editor’s Buzz Pick, a Ticketed Autographing and an two Author Spotlight Stages are just some of the highlights of the show this year. We have a table in the autographing area reserved exclusively for Tor/Forge authors this year; all signings will take place at Table 12 unless otherwise noted. Read on for show highlights and a day-by-day guide to this year’s BEA!

Highlights for Tuesday, May 24th

Ice-T & Coco Ticketed Autographed Signing! 175 tickets and copies of Kings of Vice and Angel will be available on a first come first serve basis.
1:30pm – 2:30pm

Bill Willingham’s Down the Mysterly River has been selected as an Editor’s Buzz Pick for Children! The book is only one of four chosen within all of the publishing houses; Editor Susan Chang will present.
2:00pm – 3:00pm
Room 1E15

New York Book Week Science Fiction & Fantasy Evening at the NYPL

Tor authors John Scalzi & Catherynne Valente along with Lev Grossman & Scott Westerfeld will read with improvisational music courtesy of our own Brian Slattery, followed by a Q&A.
6:00pm – 7:45pm
Stephen A. Schwarzman Bldg, South Court Auditorium
New York Public Library

 Other events on Tuesday:

Forge In-Booth signing

  • David Hagberg / Abyss / Macmillan Booth 3352 / 11:00am –11:30am

Tor In-Booth Giveaway

  • Card & Card / Laddertop / Macmillan Booth 3352 / 3:30pm – 4pm

Mystery Writers of America Booth Signings (#4482)

  • Hilary Davidson / The Damage Done / 9:30am – 10:30am
  • H.T. Narea / The Fund / 2:00pm – 2:30pm
  • David Black / The Extinction Event/ 2:45pm – 3:15pm
  • David Hagberg / Abyss/ 3:30pm – 4:00pm

Formal Autographings at the Tor & Forge Table (Table #12)

  • David Lubar / Attack of the Vampire Weenies / 9:30-10:30am
  • Edward Lazellari & Lev A. Rosen / Awakenings & All Men of Genius / 10:30am-11:30am / “A salute to debut authors from Tor”
  • Margaret McLean & H.T. Narea / Under Fire & The Fund / 11:30am-12:30pm/ “A salute to debut authors from Forge”
  • Lisa Desrochers & Kiki Hamilton / Original Sin & The Faerie Ring/ 2:30pm – 3:30pm / “A salute to debut authors from Tor Teen”
  • Bill Evans / Dry Ice / 3:30pm – 4:30pm

Highlights for Wednesday, May 25th

Author Spotlight Stage with Bill Willingham! Heidi MacDonald, Graphic Novel Editor, Publishers Weekly to moderate.
10:30pm – 11:00pm
Midtown Stage

SFF Author Insight Stage: Tor Authors with John Scalzi, Carrie Vaughn  & Vernor Vinge . Moderated by Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com and SFF reviewer for Shelf Awareness.
1:30pm – 2:10pm
Midtown Stage

Other events on Wednesday:

Tor In-Booth signing

  • Bill Willingham / Down the Mysterly River / Macmillan Booth 3352 / 11:30am –12:00am

Forge In-Booth Giveaway

  • Bruce Cameron / Emory’s Gift/ Macmillan Booth 3352 / 10:00am – 10:30am

Mystery Writers of America Booth Signing (#4482)

  • Bruce DeSilva / Rogue Island / 12:30pm – 1pm

Formal Autographings at the Tor & Forge Table (Table #12)

  • Carrie Vaughn & CJ Henderson / Kitty’s Greatest Hits & Central Park Knight / 9:30-10:30am “A salute to urban fantasy from Tor”
  • Jon Land / Strong at the Break / 10:30am – 11:30am / “Forge Books very own Energizer bunny!” (Just kidding, wanted to see if you’re still paying attention)
  • Ellen Datlow & F. Paul Wilson / The Dark at the End & Blood and other Cravings / 11:30 – 12:30 “A salute to horror legends from Tor”
  • Bob Gleason / End of Days / 1:30pm – 2:30pm /”A new thriller from Forge Executive Editor”
  • Bruce DeSilva /Rogue Island / 2:30pm – 3:30pm / “2011 Edgar Award winner”
  • Vernor Vinge & John Scalzi / 3:30pm – 4:30pm / “Science fiction legends from Tor”

Tor signs Bill Willingham to Starscape Imprint

Famed graphic novelist to debut middle grade fantasy novel

Tor Books is pleased to add Bill Willingham, New York Times bestselling author of the international Vertigo hit series, Fables, to their roster of award winning authors. Willingham makes his debut in Starscape, an imprint of Tor, with a new original fantasy novel for young readers.

“We are thrilled to be publishing the very talented Bill Willingham in our Starscape imprint. Bill’s first middle grade prose novel, Down the Mysterly River, is a spirited, by turns harrowing, occasionally laugh-out-loud, highly original fantasy that we are confident will enjoy every bit of success as his hugely popular Fables series,” says Kathleen Doherty, Publisher of Starscape/Tor Teen/Tor Kids.

In 2009, the Fables franchise vaulted Willingham into top position as the comics industry’s best selling international writer. Fables: War and Pieces was nominated for the first Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story and Willingham was awarded the prestigious Best Writer Eisner for his writing on both Fables and the DC Comics House of Mystery series. His first adult prose novel Peter & Max was recently included in School Library Journal’s “Best Adult Books for High School Students” and various Fables collections have been included on YALSA annual recommended lists in 2004 (YALSA: Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers) and 2007 (YALSA: Great Graphic Novels for Teens).

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