Comic Related - If It's Comic Related, You'll Find It Here!

5 Q-Squared

Five Quick Questions with Mike Collins

1. What's the book, Mike?

The book is a children's book my wife, Deborah, wrote and I illustrated. It's about a little girl trying to figure out what she wants to be for Halloween. It's called The ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy. She uses every letter of the alphabet to imagine what costume she can be for the big night.

2. Where can we get it and how much is it?

It's available in my online store at www.tikimachine.com and costs $15 plus $7 Shipping/Handling for anyone in the US. The shipping goes up a little if it's outside of the US. Also in the store are some illustrated books that I collaborated on with other artists about folkoric monsters (Monster Mythos) and Deities from different cultures around the world (Deus Libris).

3. What's Really Cool about this book?

The Lucy book is a great all-ages book with easy to read rhymes and very fun illustrations. As the illustrator I added little "nerdisms" in every illustration to get the interest of the parents who might read it to their children. For example, the letter S is for Superhero so I have elements of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Jean Grey. When I was a kid, whatever costume, like Luke Skywalker, I was for Halloween, I was that person in my mind. And we wanted the book to be like that too. It's a light-hearted look into the wonderful imagination of little Lucy and how she sees herself Trick or Treating.

4. What did you enjoy about (working on) this?

Lucy was a creation my wife and I came up with when we were only dating. Working on this first adventure of hers was so fun in working alongside my wife. Her rhymes/verses not only inspired my illustrations but she was inspired to write based on my sketches. It was an exciting project to work on together. I think you can see and feel that while reading the book.

5. What's next for you?

I'm currently working on the this year's collaboration book again. (We're trying to do one book a year.) Plus little Lucy will show up in another children's book as well as in an illustrated cookbook. I have several one-shot comics and some graphic novel ideas that I'm trying to get off the ground. They are in various stages of production. A fantasy comic book called The Destiny Gauntlets is all pencilled but needing to be inked. The lettering is roughed out so once the inks are done... Another sci-fi action book called Burning Gods is only written with some concept art done. Other ideas are just outlines that I'm trying to finish writing before finding the right artist/friend to help me get it done. 2012 will be a whirlwind year and I hope to have several projects see the light of day. *finger crossed* I keep an online production blog of everything Tiki Machine (my self-publishing LLC) we're working on. We update once-a-week with news, events and artwork at tikimachine.blogspot.com and I also have a Twitter presence: @TikiMachine if anyone is interested in following.