Monday, January 9, 2012

Author Interview with Park Cooper - Picaresque - Comedic Fantasy

Where were you born and where do you call home? Texas.

What is the name of your most recent book and if you had to sum it up in 30

or less words, what would you say?
Picaresque. It's a comedic fantasy,
mostly about a court jester who loses his job and becomes an adventurer
instead.

If you gave some of your characters an opportunity to speak for themselves,

what would they say?
Er, my main character narrates the novel, so I suppose
I did, and the novel is the result...

Do you have plans for a new book? Yes. Is this book part of a series? Not

yet, but I have many ideas for the sequel...

What or who inspired you to write? Good writers. And how long have you been

writing?
That's a long story. I suppose I've been seriously working on
writing fiction for a good 7 years now.

How did you come up with the title and cover design? The title just seemed

natural to me, because I'm an English professor. For the cover image we
turned to a local company, Mothership Arts.

What books have most influenced your writing most?
Pratchett, Douglas Adams,

Zelazny, for this book, I suppose. Oh, and Brust.

Are you a self published (Indie) Author? Yes.


Have you ever read a book more than once? Certainly!


What book are you currently reading and in what format

(ebook/paperback/hardcover)?
OUTCAST by Michele Paver, in paperback.

Coffee or tea? Tea.


Vanilla or chocolate icecream? Vanilla. I'm allergic to chocolate.

Patti gasps!

Laptop or desktop for writing? Desktop, preferably, but it doesn't matter

that much really.

What is a movie or TV show that you watched recently and really enjoyed? LET

THE RIGHT ONE IN. (The Swedish version, obviously.)

Where can your readers stalk you?


My facebook page: Yes

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Picaresque-ebook/dp/B005LEGKAE
Other: www.wickermanstudios.com

Is your book in Print, ebook or both?
eBook, currently.

 “Picaresque” describes a humorous story concerning the on-the-road adventures of a clever rogue or rogues, often operating in a corrupt society; The Prisoner of Zenda, Tom Jones, and Candide are classic examples of this genre.

When court jester Reginald was in prison awaiting execution for telling a very ill-timed joke he made in front of the king, he made a couple of new friends: Hobart the magician and his patient, Sunny, an elf who has something very dangerous wrong with her mind.

On the run, they ally themselves with a few others who haven't yet found their place in the world:
--the world's greatest 8-year-old thief
--the world's only female knight
--the world's only talking dog

To all appearances, they've become just a group of traveling performers, but over time, they (and Hobart's mentor, who no longer has a body because he accidentally got trapped in a spell he cast to help him spy on the local ladies) become a crack team of spies for the desert City-State of Caravanserai.

Reginald's letters to his superior, Nina (thrust into an executive position after one of Reginald's early reports seemed to drive Reginald's previous superior insane) tell the tales of his and his group's efforts to outwit and otherwise foil hecklers, bandits, a troll with a fiendish plan for world conquest, the people's glorious revolution... and, when they accidentally stumble upon the source of all the monsters in the world, a very large dragon.

But more importantly, Picaresque tells the tale of Reginald's brave and often-apparently-hopeless quest to talk his employer, Nina, into going on a date with him.

Picaresque is a comedic fantasy novel from Wicker Man Studios, the creators of Half Dead, a vampire graphic novel published by Marvel Comics and Dabel Brothers Productions, and Gun Street Girl, a digital comic on the web at www.gun-street-girl.com. They have written multiple columns for review sites and other pop culture sites around the web (and still sometimes do).

Dr. Park Cooper teaches English at a college in Austin, Texas, and is the editor-in-chief of the indie comic book company Septagon Studios, as well as a free-lance editor for companies such as Del Rey’s manga division.

Barbara Lien-Cooper is a writer, editor, and adapter of novels, comics, and manga, including adapting manga for Tokyopop (including V. B. Rose) and Viz Media (Nora).

www.wickermanstudios.com

Image of Park Cooper 
Dr. Park Cooper was born in Texas, where he currently resides, after a period of time living in Kent, Ohio, where he got his Ph.D. in literature. He writes with his wife Barbara Lien-Cooper at their creative studio Wicker Man Studios, and together they have written comic books and graphic novels, including HALF DEAD, a creator-owned vampire graphic novel that was published jointly by Marvel Comics and Dabel Brothers Productions. He also helped write one very short tale for his wife's digital comic, Gun Street Girl, drawn by Ryan Howe. While co-writing a manga project for Tokyopop shortly before that company's exit from the field, he and Barbara switched to also editing and adapting manga, such as V.B. Rose for Tokyopop, Nora for Viz Media, and many, many more. Most recently, Park and Barbara started writing prose novels, such as Picaresque, a comedic fantasy novel about a court jester… Read more

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...