QA: Dad Confidential Illustrator Robert Wallman

This week marked the publication of DAD CONFIDENTIAL, a novel I started in January, with copious illustrations by Robert Wallman, whom I met in high school in 1979. I asked Robert some basic questions so people could get a little insight into him and his process.

Why did you become an illustrator?

I drew well early on, and the encouragement of family and friends made it seem natural to pursue as a career. By college graduation I realized very few people really earn a living this way. So I also began doing pre-press print production, from paste-up and mechanicals transitioning to computer graphics, in order to stay afloat.

Where were some of your earliest creative outlets?

Throughout high school and college, I contributed cartoons to student publications and designed posters for shows. I studied character animation at the California Institute of the Arts, then switched to graphic design at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. While the animation study was brief, it greatly influenced my illustration skills.

Post-college, while doing print production for industries such as advertising, corporate communications, and textbook publishing, my illustration skills were known to co-workers, who would request personalized greeting cards and caricatures. Those occasionally led to job-related art projects. It was at one of those companies where I worked with Jeff, whom I'd originally met in our high school's health class.

What was your DAD CONFIDENTIAL work process?

Having once contributed to Jeff's popular wrestling fanzine (and previously unfamiliar with that "world"), I was glad to join forces again on his ebook project. He would send me excerpts of chapters in progress, with suggestions for a few illustrations per each. At first, I'd scan rough sketches for refinement in Photoshop, until it became easier to draw everything onscreen, duping images, flipping things around, etc. Unlike more critical collaborators, Jeff OK'd most of my first drafts, in some instances even revising the text to reflect a particular art detail.

Do you have any other illustration projects in the works?

I don't want to be too specific before anything's finalized, but I'm creating graphics for a documentary, an online comedy show, a law firm's website, even a health(!) organization. And someday it might be fun to try creating a more fully illustrated graphic novel based on either an existing manuscript or one of my own composition.

DAD CONFIDENTIAL is available at Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Q&A With DAD CONFIDENTIAL Author Jeffrey Cohen

In advance of the December 3 release of my novel, DAD CONFIDENTIAL, I'd like to take this opportunity to ask myself some questions about the book.

How long did it take you to write DAD CONFIDENTIAL?
Close to a year...About nine months to write it, and then another six weeks to edit it into what's being published. With the advent of DropBox, as long as I had access to the Internet, I would tackle another few paragraphs after lunch and when the kids were in bed.

What's it about? And is DAD CONFIDENTIAL really your life, told in a roman a clef style?
It's definitely not my life! And not just because the main character, Michael Kaufman, has a technical job (statistical analyst) and three kids. He's living on Long Island and I'm in Queens, he's got a daughter along with two sons. I just have the two boys. Right there, anything I'm writing about raising a girl is going to be pure conjecture on my part. But the book is not exactly a primer on how to deal with your children.

In a nutshell, Michael Kaufman is juggling problems at work with a home life that revolves around his wife (Gail) and three children. Twelve-year-old Brad is studying for his bar mitzvah. Now that's the most relevant thing for me, even though my 12-year-old did not start his prep until I was halfway through my first draft this spring. Nine-year-old Faith is a diva in the making. And there's a lot of drama surrounding her but she can also be very sweet. Six-year-old Simon just doesn't want to be left out of the mix. His birthday comes first in the book as well as his favorite holiday (Halloween). Writing occasionally from Simon's mindset, I was able to use his presence as a "greek chorus" to the action throughout the rest of the story.

When did you decide to make it a graphic novel?
The term "graphic novel" is a bit misleading. There are more than 60 illustrations, which depict the action in those sections of the novel. But it's not like "Wimpy Kid" or "Dork Diaries," which are for preteens and are packed with drawings and comics.

I had the idea for the book more than a decade ago. You build up a lot of material just watching all the different ways that parents interact with their kids. Most people think they're great parents and privately badmouth other people's parenting skills. Add in the illustrations and I thought it was a fairly unique package.

Where did you meet Robert Wallman, your illustrator?
High school, more than 30 years ago, believe it or not. In health class. I was passing around some of my (not so great) homemade comics and he had a few things he had done. Needless to say, there are reasons why I continued as a writer instead of an artist.

After graduation, it took another decade for us to meet up. I took a job at a Manhattan-based software company, in the publications department. They walked me around for introductions and I shook a bunch of hands. Robert looked up from his desk and said, "I went to high school with Jeff." After a few seconds, I said, "Oh yeah!"

What happens in DAD CONFIDENTIAL?
You read about a year in the life of the Kaufman family, skewed from the father's perspective. I like the concept of the "unreliable narrator." Mike is relating things as he remembers them, but that doesn't always mean he's telling them exactly as they happened. As a married, "safe" older guy, Mike thinks he's being paternal while he muses about the lifeguards at the swim club. He's not having pornographic thoughts, he's just being honest. And probably very wrong!

Everybody gets to have their own "adventures" in the book. Simon struggles to create the perfect Halloween costume, only to see his older brother and his friends co-opt it. Faith drags Mike to a "daddy and daughter" formal dance, which involves her teaching him how to do ballroom dancing. And of course, Brad's bar mitzvah gets its own chapter.

What brought you to Smashwords as your epublisher?
Simplicity and cost. There are other self-publishing sites that want money to help you design and lay out your manuscript. One site wanted a few dollars per illustration, which immediately disqualified them from my short list. Smashwords had fairly strict procedures, but once I met their guidelines, it was load and go. And they format the book in nine different popular e-reader styles. I just gave myself enough time to publicize the release, although it won't appear on sites like Amazon, B&N, or iTunes until the December 3 release date.

Was writing the book worth it?
Ask me in six months! I did this for the experience, so it will be interesting to see what kind of return it generates. On a per-hour basis, I'm sure I could have made money money bussing tables somewhere.

A preview of DAD CONFIDENTIAL is available now at Amazon, the iTunes Bookstore, and  Smashwords. You can also view a downloadable sample from the book.

Confidentially, Dad Wrote a Book

So I wrote a book.

This is something I considered doing for, well, decades. But I never got around to it.

When I was nine years old, I decided I wanted to be a cartoonist. I started taking more interest in art classes and spent a lot of time thinking about which cartoonists I really liked, stylistically and thematically.

Within a year, I came to the realization that I had a number of artistic limitations. First and foremost, I lacked the "eye." My teachers would give me instructions and my stuff did not have the dimensionality of other students. In fact, I was mortified that I – the presumptive future artiste – was being casually outdrawn by classmates. Sometimes in a matter of minutes.

Yet people still clamored for my stuff. Not just other precocious students. My teachers would examine my comics and chuckle. In sixth grade, I was even asked to produce, single-handedly, a comics and puzzles publication that was distributed to children in local New Jersey hospitals.

Well then, why me? If my drawing skills were not top drawer, why was I chosen? Ah, it was my writing. Other kids drew a few lines to create six boxes on a page. They doodled a couple of characters with a promising start in box one. By box three, their story was going nowhere. Then they would come to me, holding out the sheet of paper for suggestions. Occasionally I was stumped. But most of the time, I would go box-to-box, leading to a punchline. My prize? After their byline, I added, "& Jeff Cohen."

I decided to become a writer. I was 10. Over time, decades of time, I started dozens of lengthy projects. Some had outlines. Others had notes. There were many Chapter Ones. Even a couple of Chapter Twos. Perhaps, a long time back, a Chapter Three. But nothing went more than 30 pages. I gassed out.

When you're young, you think you've got time. When you're old, you think you're out of time. With two kids, I had some time, precious little down time. What made me put my fingers to the keyboard and clatter until I completed this specific project? A confluence of elements came together.

The Short Backstory
My first day of college, I was elated to learn that the campus newspapers were located across the hall from the student radio station. I spent the majority of my university years in a circular radius of no more than 15 yards. When I pursued journalism as a career, the radio element went away.

In late 2009, I started reviewing children's music. That "fed" my blog. I began to listen to a number of podcasts, which refueled my fire for broadcasting. I had appeared on the Howard Stern "Super Fan Roundtable" numerous times. I could articulate my thoughts about Stern – perhaps I had more to say. In April 2012, I made a last-minute deadline I'd given to myself and started my podcast, "MrJeff2000 Explains It All," which continues on a weekly basis.

The podcast was a liberating experience and it reminded me of other long-ago goals. Twenty years ago, I had a concept for a graphic novel about a detective in the city. It involved taking many pictures of urban settings and juxtaposing a faceless detective (and other characters) into those settings. Once again, I was thwarted. Although I had access to programs like PhotoShop, I lacked the knowledge to run them properly. And while I had a concept, for a writer I was hopelessly blocked on how to complete the project.

Ten years later, I thought about writing about my experiences as a father (this is all pre-blog). But there were others who had "gotten there first." I abandoned the project, but thought perhaps I could do something in that vein with a multimedia concept, or perhaps a graphic novel. Abandoning my pursuit of cartooning looked foolish now, decades later. Here I was, with a ready-made concept and no way to get it done.

Flashback to high school: Still doing amateur cartoons (for my friends mostly), I meet Robert Wallman in health class. A year older, he is also a better artist by leaps and bounds. After he graduates in 1980, our paths do not cross again until 1991. I am hired at Information Builders and introduced to other departmental staff – including him.

A few years later, I start a pro wrestling newsletter and Robert does some spot illustrations for it. I forward some issues of my shoddily-copied 'zine to a "major" wrestling newsletter and the editor goes bonkers. He hires Robert to do some comics for him (mostly based on my concepts of current events in pro wrestling).

After Robert left the company, we kept in touch through social media networks. But in early January, I approached him about doing some graphics for a book project. He asked for some samples. I hit the ground running and wrote a prologue. Fine, he replied – what do you want, exactly? I described two scenarios in the four page segment and the next day, I had two graphics. Feeling lightheaded, I dropped them into the text.

And So It Begins
That's how we operated over the next 9-10 months. Whenever I would fall into a writing hole and stop sending concepts for a few weeks, I would offer a brief apology. But I stuck with the concept, chapter by chapter, month by month (the chapters ARE months in the book).

When I was "done," I cut and pasted all the chapter files into one master document. Yikes. It was more than 300 pages long. If anything, there would have to be some trimming when I did the second draft.

And now here we are. It's coming out. Finally. After 11 months or after 40 years, take your pick. DAD CONFIDENTIAL is hitting ebook retailers on Tuesday, December 3. Smashwords will launch it at all major outlets, including Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, etc.

It's kind of a big deal and I've been surprised at the people who have said they're looking forward to reading DAD CONFIDENTIAL. And people have downloaded the free samples! I thank everyone for their kind words and hope it lives up to their expectations.

What's next? Well, I've always had a hankering for opera....

Kidding.

DAD CONFIDENTIAL will be published on Tuesday, December 3. You can download free samples in numerous formats for different readers at its Smashwords page.