JENNIFER L. HOLM and MATTHEW HOLM are the sister-and-brother team behind the Eisner Award–winning Babymouse graphic novel series and the New York Times bestseller Sunny Side Up. Jennifer is the author of many acclaimed novels, including three Newbery Honor winners, Our Only May Amelia, Penny from Heaven, and Turtle in Paradise. Matthew, when he isn’t creating best-selling books with his sister, is a graphic designer and freelance writer.
Coming September 27th, Jennifer and Matt have a brand new Babymouse graphic novel series. The BIG Adventures of Babymouse: Once Upon a Messy Whisker (Book 1) by Random House Books for Young Readers. Recently, we had the opportunity to sit down with Jennifer and Matt to learn a bit about their careers and their upcoming new book. So, let’s welcome Jennifer and Matthew Holm to GVN’s Talking Comics Interview.
Starting Out
GVN: Thank you both for giving some of your time. It is always an honor to speak to Eisner Award Winners.
So, let’s start in the beginning and since Mother raised a gentleman, let’s start with Jennifer first. What first made you decide that writing was a career you wanted to pursue and whose work was it that inspired such ambitions?
JENNI: Your mother raised you right! I was a huge bookworm as a child. I began writing my first book, Our Only May Amelia, when I was twenty-three. It took three years to write it, then a year of rejections, and then several more years until it was published in 1999. (It didn’t happen overnight!) My main inspirations were The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander and Prince Valiant by Hal Foster.
GVN: Same question for you, Matthew. When did you take an interest in illustration and whose work inspired your love for art?
MATT: We had a lot of comic strip collections in our house, many dating back to the 1950s (when our eldest brother was reading them). So, I was always reading comics like Peanuts, B.C., Wizard of Id, Ziggy, and Hagar the Horrible (our dad’s favorite). It was Jim Davis’s work in Garfield (and especially a behind-the-scenes video in one Garfield TV special where he showed his work process) that made me feel like I could draw comics, too—and then comics like Bloom County, Calvin & Hobbes, and The Far Side made me realize that my comics could be weird and funny but still approachable. With all of that prep work and encouragement, I started drawing my own comic strips when I was in about 7th grade.
Boston Jane Series
GVN: Jennifer: You had written in many different genres in the beginning, including “Our Only May Amelia” and the “Boston Jane” series of books with “Our Only May Amelia” being adapted for the stage by John Olive in 2006. How did that come about?
JENNI: I wrote primarily historical fiction in the beginning of my career. I just sort of fell into it. Our Only May Amelia takes place in 1899 and I loved all the historical research. The Boston Jane series grew out of that initial research. Our Only May Amelia takes place in Washington State and is on many of their state reading lists. That’s how the Seattle Children’s Theater became interested—it was a natural fit. They did an amazing production!
Pursuing Comic Artwork
GVN: Matthew: You started out as an editor and then a web creative director. Did you have the idea of being a book illustrator still on your plate and when did Jennifer pitch the concept of Babymouse to you?
MATT: I always wanted to draw comics, but I had no idea how to actually get published and maybe do it for a living. There weren’t really college courses on how to become a cartoonist back then. (Now there are!) But I kept doing things on the side, like a webcomic called Marty Gray about an alien who was stranded on Earth. Jenni always liked my comics, and an older sister is always looking for ways to put her younger brothers to work for her, so in 2001 she came to me with the idea for Babymouse and a rough sketch of the character on a napkin. (Sadly, I threw the napkin away.) We worked up a story and I did a bunch of sample illustrations, and we were off! But success wasn’t exactly overnight: It took us three years of pitching the idea to publishers before Babymouse finally found a home at Random House.
The Popularity of “Babymouse”
GVN: (Both) Your book Babymouse for President won the 2013 Eisner Award for Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 7). When you started the series, did you have any idea how well accepted it would be, by both readers and by your peers?
MATT: When we started the series, our biggest concern was the fact that there was no graphic novel category in children’s publishing! No one knew how to make them, where to shelve them, or how to convince reluctant grown-ups that comics were actually GOOD for helping kids learn to read.
JENNI: We never would have made it anywhere without the early and massive support of the librarians, who saw in real-time what books kids were actually coming back and asking for over and over. (Spoiler alert: it was graphic novels!)
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The Babymouse Process
GVN: (Both) Your new book in the Babymouse series is The BIG Adventures of Babymouse: Once Upon a Messy Whisker. This is a delightful tale mixing the common plight of self-image as we grow older while mixing in numerous and well executed flights of the imagination, as Babymouse envisions classic fairytales and stories to cope with her “whisker” issues. How did this story develop and what is the process you use? Do you discuss often as you proceed, or do you (Jennifer) just provide Matthew a “script” and turn him loose?
JENNI: We wanted the new series to be more fantastical and break the fourth wall of Babymouse’s world. Our readers have always been so enthusiastic about those sort of wacky characters—like her animated Locker. Matt and I usually toss around a general theme/idea and then I break it out into Narration/Action/Dialogue using a classic film storyboard.
MATT: Our process involves a lot of back-and-forth. Once we have a storyboard everyone is happy with, I start filling up sketchbooks with lots of rough thumbnail sketches depicting everything we’ve spelled out in the story, sometimes from different angles or as different “takes” by the characters. Then I scan those sketches and send them to Jenni, and she prints them out, cuts them out, and shuffles them around until she’s figured out the layouts for the pages. Then she glues them in place and sends scans back to me, and I use those layouts as a rough tracing layer when I digitally draw my final “inks” in Photoshop.
Family Relationships
GVN: (Both) One of the very enjoyable elements in the story is Babymouse’s relationship with her baby brother Squeak. Even though she is busy with her “whisker” dilemma, she doesn’t hesitate to engage her brother and to make him happy. How important do you find it is to represent such family relationships as well as Babymouse’s dealings with friends and even rivals?
JENNI: Well, that comes fairly easy to us. We are from a big family of five kids. And Matt is the baby!
MATT: I’ve always liked that Babymouse is (very obviously and hilariously) not perfect. She can be pretty self-centered (her name is in the book title!), and sometimes she takes her family and especially her friends for granted. She’s lucky everyone is so patient with her! Well, everyone except that cat Felicia Furrypaws. But when it comes to Felicia, let’s face it—sometimes, people are just mean!
Following Jenni and Matt
GVN: Thank you both so much for giving us some of your time. Before I let you go, I want to give you both an opportunity to discuss any other projects you have coming up and where you can be followed on social media or the web?
JENNI: You can follow me on Instagram @jenniferlholm or on my website www.jenniferholm.com.
MATT: You can follow me on Twitter at @mattholm and keep track of our ever-growing list of books at www.matthewholm.net. Thanks for speaking with us!
Random House Books for Young Readers, The Big Adventures of Babymouse: Once Upon a Messy Whisker by Jennifer and Matthew Holm hits stands on September 27th.
Senior Writer at GeekVibesNation – I am a 50 something child of the 70’s who admits to being a Star Trek/Star Wars/Comic Book junkie who once dove head first over a cliff (Ok, it was a small hill) to try to rescue his Fantastic Four comic from a watery grave. I am married to a lovely woman who is as crazy as I am and the proud parent of a 18 year old boy with autism. My wife and son are my real heroes.