Speaker 1: It's actually a fun place to hang out. Ero dot
net A r r oe dot net. They always teach
us in radio one thought per break. Then why are
we shoving all of our podcasts into one episode? Not here,
it's seventeen different podcasts. Ero dot net, A r r
oe dot Net. Enjoy the exploration. Hello, good morning, Channon.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Absolutely what an exciting time for you, because I'll tell
you what I wish I could be in the same
room with a bunch of other readers discovering as well
as coming back to your writing. Because this right here,
when I hold Keeper of the Lost Cities Graphic Novel
number two in my hand, what's happening is I not
only feel younger, but I feel like that I'm part
of an evolution of amazing change. This book is so beautiful.
Speaker 2: It's gorgeous. I mean, I am such a happy, lucky
author here with the way that this came out, I
just want to hug it all the time.
Speaker 1: Well, you gotta tell me, how would he is that
you that you digested that as the author? Because you
go from writing words on a page in paragraphs and
then you've got several chapters. Well, now you've got pictures.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean this was like a bucket list thing
for me as an ad because I started out college
as an art major, and the reason I switched was
because I just I'm not good at drawing from my head.
I can't get I can't get what's in my head
to come out on the page nearly as cool as
I wanted to. And so I realized I was much
better at doing that with words, and so I switched
to writing words. But so to get to have an
artist take my words and come up with the art
that I wish I could have drawn myself but couldn't
is just the coolest thing, and it has I've been
lucky enough to get to work with two amazing elisators.
We had one work on book on Part one of
the adaptation, and then the reason we had a second
one is because graphic novels, especially ones this thick, are
a task, and we realized that the only way we
could have Part two come out within any sort of
reasonable schedule of Part one was if we had the
artists get started on it before part one was even done,
And obviously the only way to do that is to
have two artists. So I got to work with two
incredible illustrators who both What I love is their styles
like they match, but they're each individually their own two
which I think is so cool that we get to
see two different versions of their interpretation of my world
and my characters, and yet it's somehow all matches and fits.
And this current artist for this new one. One of
her absolute brilliant strengths is that she fits so much
detail into the panels, which was perfect for the second
half of the story because Sophie goes to some scenes
with like a million characters and tons of stuff going
on in the setting, and she fit the I'm like,
I don't know how she did this. I truly don't
know how she squeezed as much into each panel as
she did. She is a magician. Wow.
Speaker 1: So but how does that change? It's the layout of
the story when when you've got an illustrator that does
go into detail like that, because as as the writer,
does that really kind of reshape things.
Speaker 2: You know? I mine was a bit more of a
like high level. I realized that what I wanted to
do more than anything was I wanted to make sure
that these books captured the story, rather than trying to
micromanage everything and be like, oh, this isn't exactly like
my head. I just wanted to make sure that we
really captured the story. So I always tried to step
back from each scene and go, okay, so what was
the big like emotion and like reveals of this scene?
Are those coming through? And what was interesting was that
a lot of times it meant that I kind of
went in and rewrote certain parts of the text because
it just the joke that I had written that played
out well in pros. Especially when we didn't have Sophie's
interior monologue the same way that we do when we're
in the prose novels. A lot of times it was like, nope,
we're not like because she has a lot of like
banter and getting teased by her friends and stuff, and
when we're in her head, we know, yeah, she knows
she's being teased and all that, But without that insurior monologue,
it was like, wait, are her friends being mean to
her right now? So it was a lot of like no, wait,
we gotta go in and we gotta we gotta change
this to make sure we're capturing the right emotion, the
right feel of everything, and and the rest is kind
of letting the artists, you know, stepping back and letting
the artists do what they do best and and blow
me away with what they what they come at me with.
And it was just truly an incredible experience to be
a part of. Well.
Speaker 1: I've always loved the way that that Sophie is not
afraid to take on new challenges. I mean, fear and doubt.
We all face those, and now to see it in
pictures and to see the expressions on the face, it's like,
all of a sudden, everything that I had in my
imagination is now sitting in front of me, and it's like, oh,
I can participate with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I must say, you know, I always joke
about like, oh, my job as an author is to
make my life and make the lives of my characters
as difficult possible. And you know, my one of my
readers made assignment said like I am a villain, I
torture my characters or things like that. And you know,
it was very interesting seeing some of the like the
especially the big climactic scenes, the things that I put
those you do, like having the visuals of that I
was just like, oh, I really am mean to my characters, like,
I'm sorry, Sophie, You're gonna be okay. You know. It
was intense, It's very It's much more powerful in this format.
Speaker 1: I feel, Please do not move. There's more with a
Shannon Messenger coming up next. An unbelievable moment of being
and author Keeper of the Lost Cities Graphic Novel Parts
one and two from Shannon Messenger. Do you find yourself
going on comic con now because of the fact that
you're doing this with the graphic novels? Because now, I mean,
this puts you right in front of a brand new
collection of fans, and somewhere along the line, those that
didn't have the graphic novel beforehand are going to have
to meet those that do have the graphic novel. And God,
I would love to hear that conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. I still want to be in the
in the room for that. Now. It's been really fun.
I have got I did San Diego Comic Con this year,
and I got to do it a couple of years ago,
did the first graphic novel, and it's just been so
much fun. And what's really cool is to also hear
from the educators who are are finding that like a
reluctant reader who might have because the first book of
Keeper the Whole Theories, is quite sick. But even the
first book is I think it's like four hundred and
eighty something pages. So you know, a reluctant reader is
going to look at that and be like, wait, there's
no pictures. It's four hundred and eighty pages. Oh and
so having this, you know, a little bit less daunting
feeling version of it that they that might give them
a chance to kind of have that gateway into this world,
into this story. And I've been hearing a lot that
a lot goes straight from the graphic novels into the
pros novels because they want to know what's going to
happen next, and it's it's it's really fun, it's really cool.
Speaker 1: Your color choices are amazing. I would love to know
what kind of research went into that, because when you
pick up this book, I mean, it pops right away.
It's so inviting, but at the same time, it's very energetic.
Speaker 2: Shannon, I think that might be my art major days,
you know. And I just I love color. I love
you know, and the World of the Lost Cities is
incredibly vibrant, incredibly you know, colorful. It's a lot of
crystal and jewels and things like that, so there was
a lot for the artists to play with. But yeah,
I mean, it's such a beautiful book. I just I
want to hug it. I'll refrain, but every time I
hold it, I'm like, I want to hug this book. Okay,
now I'm hugging it.
Speaker 1: So are you are? Are you going to be doing
any merchandise or anything like that, because now that we
have pictures of what our characters look like, and now
that we have such a beautiful book that you could
turn into a poster and a heartbeat, are you going
to be doing any merchandise to where we can grow it,
such as a one piece and things. And what I'm
mean by that is is that it's it's got to
go into animation or it's got to go into real
actors bringing this book forward. That has got to be
the next step here.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, I agree with you. It gets a
little triggy. We put together a really amazing art print
that was part of the pre order campaign. What was
really fun. I took different panels from throughout the book
and rearranged them into and then rewrote all the text
and so it's like a scene that didn't exist, but
we but from existing art. It was really a fun
challenge to put that together. So we did do that.
But technically, Warner Brothers owns the merchandising right now, so
I'm a little bit limited and what I'm allowed to
put out there into the world without potentially angering the
Warner Brothers. But the flip side of that is they
are working on a movie. We are not in production yet.
It's the kind of movie where if it gets green light,
it would be you know green lighting like a two
hundred million dollar budget. They're being very you know, slow
and steady with this process. We're getting every single duck
in a row to see if we can get that
green light and go into production. But what's really cool
is that the team behind it, the producer that I've
been working with as she is like a force to
be reckoned with, and she is determined to get this made.
Warner Brothers, the team there are incredibly passionate about it.
We have a screenwriter who's working on it that she
gets the story in what like she talks to me
about and I'm like, wow, I hadn't even thought about this.
She gets the story in ways that she is perfect
for the job. So it feels very promising. It's just
you know, it's a slow process. It is a million
hurdles in the way and a lot of money that
has to come into it. So patience and the long
game and we hope for the best. Come on, Warner Brothers,
let's do this now.
Speaker 1: Now. I've always been pro writer because I've always believed
that on view from the writing instrument and unplaced can
totally uncut. I believe that there are people that are
sitting inside their homes or offices that are writers as well,
but they don't have the confidence that you do to
step forward. And so I want to know when your
stories change like this, when you go from storytelling to
now you've got the graphic novel, what does that do
to your personal memories? Because now it's like WHOA, You're
going in two completely different directions, but it's the same story.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I feel like the pep talk that
I have to have with myself is I have to
keep reminding myself that each format is different and signs
in its own way. And so the most important thing.
That's actually why I didn't write the overall adaptation of
the graphic novel. It was a Selena friend who did that,
and they had asked me if I wanted to, and
I said, well, a that takes me away from writing
the book, which is, you know, a huge, huge thing
to keep in mind. But more than that, you know,
I think we need somebody who can be objective and
who can look at this and say, you know, we
could combine these scenes and it would work better in
this format. And I don't know that I can be
that objective because it's like, when I look at it,
everything is exactly the way that I felt that it
should be, and so how can I change it. So
it's great to have people, same with having a screenwriter
who can come in and say, like, this is how
we change this into this format, and then I can
look at it and say, okay, cool, but this isn't
capturing this or that, and you all kind of work together,
and it's respecting the fact that each format has its
own way of telling the story and if you try
to fight that, you're going to end up with something
that people aren't happy with. You have to kind of
embrace it instead, even if it means letting things change.
Speaker 1: Wow, ten minutes with you is just not enough. Shannon.
My god, You've got to come back to this show
anytime in the future. You know, the door is always
going to be open for you.
Speaker 2: I would love to anytime.
Speaker 1: Well, you be brilliantly. By the way, before we even
go there, let's where can people go to find out
more about you, Shannon? Because I want them to have
your total experience because people, where as we go into
this holiday season, are going to find this novel and
it's going to be like a Paul McCartney moment he
was with the Beatles. What are you talking about? So
they got to know that there was more to you
than just this graphic novel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, Shannonmassenger dot com is a great place to start.
I'm also on social media, not as much as I
should be because deadlines, but Instagram, I'm at sw Underscore Messengers,
So yeah, at least to all that on my website
as well.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today? Okay, Shannon, I will try
my best