I’m always amazed how the binding process transforms the work. This won’t hit the stores until September but copies are going out to reviewers soon.

Here’s the final, final cover:

And here the back cover text:

Expelled into the hot, empty streets, fifteen-year-old Kit takes to feeding the stray cats that haunt the forgotten and unseen spaces of his town. There he also meets Jess, a manga-loving punk stuck with heavy-metal headbangers. But the pack can only hold for so long once she creates Katman, a ferocious shape-shifting stand-in for Kit’s quiet version of heroism. Not that he thinks of himself as a hero. After all, heroes don’t typically lie, steal, and hang out with crazy people.

Exploring themes of abandonment, reluctant responsibility, and the transformative power of art, KATMAN tells the story of two people forced to make a choice: Is it cooler to care about something, someone, or nothing at all?

And, finally, a preview (click on image to see larger):

The designer at Holt had some great suggestions to improve my cover. You can click “Katman” in the categories to see the “before.”

Here’s a bit of the backcover. The whole book is set within a five block radius of my house. Somehow it helps with the writing for me to set it in a real place.

It doesn’t come out until Fall 09 (Fall 09!) but it’s mostly done now.

I just finished up the type on KATMAN and really dug the process. In an act of typical frugality I laid my paper over multiple pages to save paper and ended up liking the inadvertent compositions created. Here’s one and then a sample of it placed.