Egg, caterpillar, pupa, butterfly

The long and wiggly life cycle of a book

Welcome to the 52nd edition of the Graphic Dead Man Walking newsletter. Fifty-two editions in 52 weeks.

While the newsletter about the graphic adaptation of Dead Man Walking turns one today, our work on the book itself is about to turn six.

So it seems like a good time to look back over the terrain traversed in those six years. Come with me back to…

The egg

The idea for a graphic version of Sister Helen Prejean’s Dead Man Walking was hatched on February 3rd, 2019, when Helen was recording the audiobook version of the original Dead Man Walking. The audio producer asked Helen whether a graphic version was available.

That’s all it took—which is often the way with Helen. She phoned me that day with the idea and I said “On it!”

We plunged into learning about graphic books and searching for an illustrator. As you can see from my early ‘sketches’ of story flow, we were in dire need!

Some early sketches of story flow.

On March 17, 2019, we unearthed a treasure in Catherine Anyango Grünewald, a Kenyan Swedish artist who we discovered by way of a website with broken links and a conversation carried out through Twitter messaging.

What a find! Catherine’s not only an extraordinary artist, she’s also dedicated to using her art to illuminate issues of justice.

To give you a taste of her work, here’s her version of one of the panels I had sketched out:

A panel from graphic Dead Man Walking, illustrated by Catherine.

With Catherine on board, we submitted a proposal to Julia Masnik at the Watkins/Loomis Agency and signed a contract with Random House on September 25, 2019.

The caterpillar

For a creature that has an abundance of legs, caterpillars are surprisingly lacking in pace. Our little caterpillar of a book was no exception.

We’d made a good start before signing the contract with Random House, with draft scripts of chapters 1-3, plus rough sketches of the first chapter. By early 2020, we had the first three chapters roughed out. And then…

Covid.

Everything slowed, including the publishing industry. Our contract had included an estimated completion date of March, 2021. That was tossed out and we were given a generous amount of elbow room to finish the job.

The pupa

During Covid, our caterpillar entered the pupa stage, with a whole lot of gestating going on inside but not much to show for it on the surface.

It wasn’t until November, 2023 that I completed the script of the final chapter and the epilogue. Catherine had all chapters illustrated by April, 2024.

Copyediting began in June, 2024, and then it was over to the design team for page layout, lettering, font choices, speech bubbles, and a whole lot more.

While the design team was at work, we refined and polished, worked through copyright issues, and knocked off tidbits such as acknowledgements and bios.

The butterfly

Now, at the end of January, 2025, the butterfly has emerged, but it’s yet to take wing.

We’ve finished our reviews of the completed manuscript, and it is something to behold!

Catherine is at work on the cover while we wait for back-cover blurbs to come in. We’ll get one last look at the book before it heads off to China for printing.

For the next nine months or so, we’ll be working on the marketing side of the book, building out what’s known as our ‘author platform.’ (You, dear readers, are part of that.) I’m working on an accompanying website, that I’ll give you a peek at in a forthcoming newsletter.

Our butterfly is scheduled for its first public flight in November, 2025, a little shy of seven years from when the idea for it was first hatched. Book publishing is not for the impatient.