First look at the cover for FALCON QUINN and the BLACK MIRROR

Okay, so check out the cover of FALCON QUINN and the BLACK MIRROR, coming from HarperCollins in summer of 2010. (Amazing to me what a long lead time there is in Young Adult Books.).  Anyway, this is by legendary illustrator Brandon Dorman, who’s done a ton of great work– most famously, perhaps, for the GOOSEBUMPS series.  I think he captured the feeling of the book pretty nicely– no small thing since it combines elements of humor and horror.  It IS about castles and monsters– and, most pointedly, about the search for identity. (And if you’re thinking, well, guess who’s favorite subject, then you are exactly correct.). But it’s also a comedy, in lots of places, and preserving the right balance between the serious and the comic is no small thing, as i have found out not only in my writing, but in my life as well.

This is the first, and most most important of the work Brandon’s doing, but there will be four or five black and white illustrations; I’ll put those up as they come in too.   In the meantime, hope you dig this.  Note the black “frames” in the upper left and right corners.  The next book, which will be Falcon Quinn and the Something Something (in which the first something will also be a color), will have that color frame in those corners.  Clever.

As one of the characters– Max, the Sasquatch–likes to say, “HEY EVERYBODY!  MONSTER OUT!”