So Andrea Portes is the super talented author of the novel Hick, which became a movie that she wrote starring Blake Lively and my favorite actress who-has-really-good-taste Chloe Grace Moretz. She’s also writing comic books now, and more novels, AND she’s working on the Uncle Alice Presents project that is the subject of this very cool Kickstarter campaign that was launched THIS VERY EVENING and that you should obviously sponsor immediately. Uncle Alice Presents is a comic book, graphic novel and TV experience telling “out-of-this-world stories with Alice Cooper as our scary, scaredy narrator.” Included in the anthology, and the reason why mermaids everywhere should pay special attention to it, and why aspiring mermaids everywhere should head to the closest beaches, is Andrea’s MERMAID-MAKER.
First, here is Andrea (on the left) being very glamorous at the Hick movie premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival:
Listen to the description of MERMAID-MAKER and take a gander at the awesome illustration by David Beauchene:
All the hot so-cal beach girls start going missing, one by one, as a mad scientist at SCRIPPS has started capturing them and bringing them back to the lab in an attempt to scientifically create mermaids by crossbreeding humans and fish.
Out of extreme generosity and selflessness, I obviously had to ask Andrea all about MERMAID-MAKER and mermaids generally, and our shimmering Q and A follows:
So can you tell me about this new Uncle Alice Presents Kickstarter campaign you’re involved in?
I created and wrote a comic book series, called SUPER RAD, for Dark Matter. (That comes out in Fall 2013). It turns out, they were working on the Uncle Alice project and I tossed over a few ideas and they actually stuck.
What is this mermaid maker? How did you come up with the idea to include mermaids?
It’s so funny, so when I was brain-storming about funny, weird ideas for the anthology, the last thing that popped into my head was “Mermaid Maker.” And I remember I actually laughed because it was such a goofy idea. But then I thought about how strange that would be to have a mad-scientist type actually stealing beautiful girls off a beach with the intent of cross-breeding them with fish to make mermaids. It just kind of made me chuckle.
I sent that idea, with a few others, over to Uncle Alice creator Tom Sheppard (The Annoying Orange, Pinky and the Brain) and Todd Moyer (Dark Matter CEO).
To be quite honest, I thought MERMAID-MAKER was going to make them think I was just a goofy weird but for some reason it seems to have taken. It’s in all the press and they even have the front cover, with the mermaid and the fish, in their “breeding tubes” or whatever you would EVER call that.
So funny. It really just goes to show you can never tell what will take.
Do you have an opinion of mermaids generally?
I think right now my opinion of mermaids is people seem to dig em. Particularly, judging the reaction to MERMAID-MAKER.
Have you ever secretly aspired to be a mermaid?
I think I would love to be a mermaid. All that beauty and never having to worry about thighs! Perfect.
Come to think of it… maybe this MERMAID MAKING isn’t such a bad idea…
I’m in!
What else are you working on?
Thanks for asking, my second novel Bury This is coming out this coming winter. It’s being published by Soft Skull.
My comic book series, SUPER RAD, will be out this fall.
And, happily, I just finished my third novel, STUPIDFACES, which is exactly right at this very moment, in the hands of my agent. It’s a YA novel, so that’s a bit of a departure… but after writing Bury This, which is incredibly dark, I needed to write something lighter. And, of course, for a YA, I’m told it’s dark.
I have a feeling I’m going to get told a lot of my things are dark, actually…
Except MERMAID-MAKER.
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Check out the Kickstarter video right here:
