A Monster of a Debut
This story originally appeared in Children's Bookshelf on June 1, 2006 Sign up now!
by James Bickers, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 6/1/2006
If destiny—that long-standing and ever-powerful ideal central to fantasy literature—is real, then it was surely destiny that caused young illustrator D.M. Cornish to accidentally drop one of his illustrated volumes in the office of his new publisher. Had it not been for that moment, had he not reached for some gum out of his knapsack, sending an illustrated journal to the floor, Monster Blood Tattoo, the first volume in a new fantasy trilogy, would likely not exist.
Dyan Blacklock, publisher with Omnibus Books (an imprint of Scholastic Australia), remembers her weekly meetings with the illustrator, who had come to her on the strength of a tip from a fellow artist. Up to that point, Cornish had been doing by-the-numbers illustrations for television and advertising. Or at least, that was what paid the bills. But what he had really been working on for 14 years was a series of intricately illustrated books that detailed the Half Continent, a rich fantasy setting where man and beast wage continual war against one another.
And so it was that one of the books fell onto Blacklock's floor. Fortunately, she acted on her curiosity.
"A publisher is, by nature, a stickybeak," she says. "A journal with the number 23 written on the spine in Wite-Out was bound to excite my curiosity." Before handing the book back, she flipped through it and saw "delicate drawings in black ink with copious spidery handwritten headings, followed by detailed descriptions."
"I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise up," she says. "Here was the kind of thing every publisher dreams of discovering. This was a work at once beautiful and unique. It was illustrated with such intensity and love that it had the power to move a reader with the barest of information."
 Author D.M. Cornish. Credit: Mark Brake |
Putnam won the rights to the book in the U.S. at auction, beating out three other publishers. Senior editor Timothy Travaglini says that the last thing he was looking for was another fantasy title, but he simply couldn't pass up one this compelling. "I hadn't read anything since Philip Pullman that was as wholly original and engaging as Rossamund's story," he says, "and that ultimately is what made it a book I couldn't live without."
He also notes that the book passes a crucial test that many fantasy titles do not: it appeals to readers outside its genre. "I can't count the number of times I've had people preface their praise with, 'I don't really like fantasy, but...' " he says.
Blacklock said Tattoo has been sold into seven territories, with advances exceeding a million dollars. "In the U.S., Putnam has been a passionate partner and its enthusiasm for the work is wonderful," she says. "In the U.K., David Fickling Books is displaying the same kind of excitement, having doubled its offer overnight in a tightly fought rights deal, and in Japan Sony are already at work on its edition."
She adds that the story will not stop with a mere three books. Noting that there are "many extraordinary creatures and people" that won't fit in the first three volumes, she also foresees an encyclopedia devoted to the milieu. "And without a doubt, the history of the world will require a volume or two," she says.
