My new book, MARCH GRAND PRIX, is officially available in bookstores RIGHT NOW!
The quick elevator pitch of this new series: it’s Hello Kitty meets The Fast and the Furious. Cute anthropomorphic animals racing cars. March the Hare tries to become the greatest racing driver in the world, but quickly learns that he can't do it on his own without the help of his friends and family (pretty much a metaphor for creating any graphic novel, but I digress).
It's based on a story I had written years before my first book, Jellaby, that didn't really find any traction until I rewrote it as a story for kids. The original story was a confluence of a couple of things -- my interest in Hong Kong street racing via a documentary that was in production at the time (which was ultimately never completed, as far as I can tell), and the release of the first Fast and the Furious movie, way back in 2001. I saw that movie, and immediately thought, "Hey, I can do better than that."
The script I turned out was gritty and angsty (MUCH GRIT SO ANGST), had maybe one or two good ideas in it, but in the end, it just wasn't very good. It was written at a point where I had only just started writing and drawing my own comics, so it got put on the back burner for the better part of a decade while I went on to work on better things like FLIGHT and Jellaby.
It wasn't until 2012, while I had been struggling to come up with a new project for several years, that a trip to visit friends in Los Angeles was what MARCH really needed to come together. Standing in the Sanrio store in Little Tokyo while a friend's son ran through the store, clutching a toy car in one hand and a stuffed penguin in the other, everything tumbled into place: what if I took this story and turned it from an angsty Young Adult thing into something for kids?
So. MARCH GRAND PRIX. It's a thing I'm really proud of, a distillation of my love for all things car-related, from early picture books like Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, to manga series like Initial D, to the endless hours I spent playing games like Car Wars and Interstate '76, to hugely influential movies like The Road Warrior, and more recently, the incredible Senna documentary.
ANYWAY: The stories are fun, and a fast read. Good for kids and adults, I packed in as much action, adventure, heart, and stupid jokes as I could fit into each story. And beyond just a story about racing cars, under that hood lies the true beating heart of MARCH GRAND PRIX: Family. Friendship. Hopefully, it's earnest in all the ways I probably am not in person.
If you have any kids in your life, maybe your own, or maybe even a friend's kid, I'd love it if you picked up a copy for them. Sales are important to a book's launch, they let the publisher know there's a demand for these kinds of stories, and let me tell you, I've got way more stories to tell in the world of MARCH GRAND PRIX, and I would love to do more.
August 1st also happens to mark 5 years with my lady (who I married almost a whole year ago), and 2 years with this jerk of a dog (who also happens to have a cameo in the book). So yeah, there are some reasons to celebrate. Best way to celebrate with me? Help me make more MARCH GRAND PRIX. Buy my book. :)
Amazon | Indigo | Little Island Comics
Or if you're in the Toronto area, come to the book launch at Little Island Comics on the 15th, and pick up a copy in person! I'll even draw in it and stuff.