I just interviewed George O'Connor, author of the Olympian series. Here are the questions and answers.
-What is your favorite Greek myth?
Ooh, tough question. I might have to go with the story of Zeus versus Typhon. It explains the Greek's ideas of how the Egyptian gods came to be, has a cool fight between Zeus and a humungous hundred headed monster, has the return of the sickle and Kronos, and features two of my favorite gods, Hermes and Pan, saving the day.
-What was your process for writing/illustrating the books?
First thing I do is I read a lot, anything I can find that deals with the god or goddess I am writing the book about. A rule I follow is that I do not read any modern retellings of the myths- I only use source material that was written by ancient Greeks and Romans, or anyone who really believed in the gods way back when. It helps me prevent accidentally copying someone else's ideas of how to tell a story, and normally reading the really old versions of the myths reveals some weird and crazy details that get left out of modern versions.
After I read a bunch, I start drawing ideas of how scenes will look-- I call this key-scening. I draw a whole bunch of sketches, and after I have a pretty good idea of how things might look, I assemble the drawings into little page-sketches called thumbnails. I make sure the composition of each panel and page works, make sure there will be room for the text (I start writing and sketching each volume of the Olympians at the same time, since the words and pictures have to work so closely together in a graphic novel), make sure the story flows, etc..
Then I draw the thumbnails up bigger, in what we call a dummy, which is basically a blueprint for the book, which I use to write the final script for the art and show my editor. Finally, I draw the finished artwork, color it in with my computer and we add the text to the art. Then it goes to the printer and comes to the readers.
For a more detailed look at my process, check out this link at the Olympians website http://www.olympiansrule.com/process/writing.html
It has many photos, including several funny shots of me with a beard.
-Who is your favorite Greek god/goddess?
My favorite god is Hermes, and my favorite goddess is Hera.
-Do you like writing or drawing better?
I like them both, but I have to say that I find drawing to be the easier of the two. Because writing is harder for me, when I write something that I think came out pretty good, I get a lot of satisfaction from it.
-What were your favorite books when you were younger other than Greek myths?
I really loved books like Where the Wild Things Are and Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day. I also really loved the Prydain Cycle by Lloyd Alexander, which is based on Welsh mythology.
-What plans do you have for other books?
Well, Olympians is going to be 12 books in all, with the next one out being Poseidon, and I'm working on book 6, Aphrodite right now. I also am working on a picture book about a little girl and her pet Velociraptor, and a few other projects as well. I try to stay busy ;)
-If you were to create your own Greek god, what would it be like?
When I was in 5th grade I did create some modern Greek gods-- there was a god of computers and a god of atomic energy, among others. Nowadays I figure rather than create new gods for things that didn't exist back then, the old Greek gods would probably just have picked up new jobs. Hermes or Athena might be good gods of the computer, and I can see Hephaistos being a good choice for god of atomic energy.
