Giants Beware! (Bound for Schools & Libraries)

Brief Description: Claudette wants nothing more than to slay a giant but her little village is too safe and quiet. Marc Notes: Formerly CIP.; Heroes come in all sizes ...--Cover.; Claudette wants nothing more than to slay a giant but her little village is too safe and quiet. Biographical Note: Jorge Aguirre is a Colombian-American from Columbus, Ohio. He's written for everything from the most popular children's shows to documentaries about Romanian exorcisms. He lives on the East Coast. Born in Puerto Rico and based in Ohio, Rafael Rosado is a veteran of the animation industry. He is currently a storyboard artist for Warner Brothers, Disney, and Cartoon Network. Brief Description: For use in schools and libraries only. Longing to slay a giant despite the peace her village enjoys, young Claudette embarks on a super-secret quest with her aspiring princess best friend and pastry chef apprentice brother in hopes of finding and defeating a giant before their parents drag them back home. Publisher Marketing: Make way for Claudette the giant slayer in this delightful, fantastical adventure! Claudette's fondest wish is to slay a giant. But her village is so safe and quiet! What's a future giant slayer to do? With her best friend Marie (an aspiring princess), and her brother Gaston (a pastry-chef-to-be), Claudette embarks on a super-secret quest to find a giant--without parental permission. Can they find and defeat the giant before their parents find them and drag them back home? "Giants Beware! "offers up a wondrous, self-contained world in the tradition of the very best of Pixar. Claudette and her friends will have you laughing out loud from page one. Giants Beware! Author Q&AWhat was your inspiration for the book? Rafael: I'm not entirely sure. I recently went through some old sketchbooks of mine and realized that I'd been drawing a character that looked kind of like our main character, Claudette, years before we even began the book. I guess I've had this character of this girl with a lot of spunk in my subconscious for a while. I'm also really into French comics and that influenced the look quite bit. Which character do you identify with and why? Rafael: I'm not impulsive like Claudette. I'm probably most like Gaston. He thinks before taking the leap. He worries a lot. That's probably more like me. Jorge: I wish I could say I was like Marie. Marie doesn't care what other people think of her. In this book, she aspires to be a princess and other kids make fun of her, but she doesn't pay them any attention. She's very confident and smart. I wish I were more like her. I also wish I were like Claudette. She's brave, reckless, and impulsive. But I'm not like her either. Like Rafael, I'm probably most like Gaston. I'm a little nervous and I love sweets. How did your partnership begin? Jorge: We've known each other since we were both in film school at the Ohio State University in Columbus. I was in a writing class at OSU, and of all the bad scripts in class, mine was one of the least bad scripts, and so it was chosen to be produced with Rafael as the director. We spent a good month or so filming a very bad film together. That is how we became friends. Rafael: Fast forward years later to Columbus, Ohio circa 2007. We were at John Novak's house (our colorist and a mutual friend). I told Jorge about these characters I had bouncing around in my head and a story about a giant. I went off and wrote and drew up the ideas I had so far. I gave them to Jorge, and told him to run with it. And he ran. How did you draw the book? How did you write the book? Rafael: I drew the whole thing in Photoshop, on a Wacon Cintiq (a tablet-monitor). I like drawing digitally because it gives me a lot of flexibly down the line for edits and moving things around. John Novak and Matthew Schenk colored the book. We used a DropBox to move files around between John Novak and Matthew Schenk (color), Jorge, and me. Jorge and I would meet every once in awhile either in person in Columbus or via video chatting to go over pages and notes. Jorge: I used Scrivener to collect all my notes, and Final Draft to write the script. I lettered the book in Illustrator, which gave me the chance to do one last rewrite. I'm always rewriting, and I always tried not to send any script pages to Rafael until they were fully baked or else he'd start drawing right away. What's up with Claudette's dad?Do you mean like why is he missing his legs and an arm? Well, he fought a battle against a terrible dragon and lost. You always hear about these great warriors who slay dragons. Well, Augustine is a great warrior who had a very bad day. And now his favorite sword is sitting in the belly of Azra the dragon. But that's a story for another day.

Contributor Bio:  Aguirre, Jorge Jorge Aguirre is a Colombian-American from Columbus, Ohio. He's written for everything from the most popular children's shows to documentaries about Romanian exorcisms. He is the author of "Giants Beware! "He lives on the East Coast. Contributor Bio:  Rosado, Rafael Born in Puerto Rico and based in Columbus, Ohio, Rafael Rosado is a seasoned writer, director and storyboard artist for the animation industry. He began his career at Character Builders in Columbus, Ohio as an assistant animator. He quickly worked his way up to become a character designer, storyboard artist and commercial director. During his tenure there he worked on such shows as Fox's Emmy Award-winning Life With Louie, HBO's Happily Ever After and Fox's Where in The World Is Carmen San Diego. After leaving Character Builders in 1994, Rafael went to work for Warner Brothers Animation, storyboarding on Pinky and The Brain and Emmy nominated Animaniacs, for which he also wrote two episodes. He was the recruited by the newly-founded Sony Television Animation division, where he worked on eleven shows including directing episodes of CBS's Project GeeKeR and NBC's Sammy. He was promoted to Supervising Director on Extreme Ghostbusters and Producer on Men In Black: The Animated Series. After 5 years honing his skills in Los Angeles, Rafael moved back to Ohio to raise his family. He is now one of the most highly sought-after storyboard artists, working for major studios such as Warner Brothers, The Walt Disney Company, Sony, Universal and the Cartoon Network. Highly diverse, he has storyboarded on action, comedy and pre-school shows, shows as diverse as Boondocks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Batman, The Venture Brothers and Curious George. Rafael's first graphic novel, Giants Beware!, was published by First Second Books in early 2012. His short film The Tortured Clown was acquired by and featured on the Sundance Channel.