Meet The Team

Special thanks to Derek Ozawa who worked tirelessly with JP to bring Rex Riders to life in its original form as an animated cartoon that blended STAR WARS with JURASSIC PARK, and for his fabulous work on Metal Force.

Fabio dove into the animated version and drew the illustrations seen in the gallery that appears on the Vacation page. By the way, have you read “Dinosaurs The Grand Tour” by Kieron Pim with illustrations by Fabio? You need to. To read a review of this terrific book click here. Did you know Fabio does sci-fi? We have some amazing things to show you!

Jim Calafiore's contributions go far beyond his work on Rex Riders and can be seen throughout. His versatility, insights and creativity are remarkable!! And his patience is limitless.

Thanks also to Sergio Cariello, Bill Stout, Bob Eggleton, Kev Walker, Bill Mensching, and Ibrahim Aydin whose work can be seen throughout this site. High praise to all!

Interview with Author JP Carlson

Jane Sullivan has been a children’s librarian for over 30 years and is the Publisher at Monstrosities Books. She sat down with author JP Carlson to find out what happened after REX RIDERS was published, why there was such a long period between REX RIDERS and his latest books, and what his plans are for a sequel.

JS: After REX RIDERS was published you said that you were working on a sequel and were very specific about the title and the setting. But here we are years later and we haven't heard anything about it. What happened?  

JP: After the book was published it heated up very quickly. At the time, COWBOYS & ALIENS was in the news and it was expected to be a huge hit. It starred Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde and Sam Rockwell; it was directed by Jon Favreau; and the producing team included Steven Spielberg. It was a real dream team. This was viewed as the beginning of the renaissance of the western genre brought up to date for a modern audience with new elements that hadn’t been part of that genre.

REX RIDERS was radically different from COWBOYS & ALIENS but it was set in the old west so it was viewed as a film that could potentially appeal to the same audience. I didn’t quite see it that way, but I was glad for the attention it brought to the book and the film rights. 

JS: Why did you see REX RIDERS as different from COWBOYS & ALIENS?

JP: I saw REX RIDERS as a dinosaur adventure that happened to be set in the old west. I didn’t view it as a western per se. I felt the audience for a dinosaur film was distinct from the audience for a western or a sci fi western although they certainly overlapped. I put Ray Harryhausen’s VALLEY OF GWANGI in the same group of films as KING KONG and 1,000,000 YEARS B.C. even though they all have different settings.

JS: So what happened?

JP: To everyone’s surprise – me included – COWBOYS & ALIENS did not do as well as people had hoped for a host of reasons and that had an unfortunate impact on REX RIDERS. The following summer JOHN CARTER failed at the box office for a host of different reasons and the summer after that THE LONE RANGER failed. This was really unprecedented and REX RIDERS became collateral damage purely because of the setting of the story.  

JS: Did you decide not to write a sequel? How did that influence you?

JP: I shelved my plans for a sequel thinking I’d come back to it and made a rookie mistake; I started and failed to finish a bunch of books. This is one of the worst things you can do as a writer. On the plus side, I spent a lot of time on each of them.   

JS: The REX RIDER e-book was released in 2020 with a different cover by Fabio Pastori.

JP: A really nice contrast between the two. It’s hard to pick a favorite, I like them both. 

JS: You've posted an aggressive schedule of release dates for a variety of books. Are these the books you started and didn't finish?

JP: Yes. These are all books that I started and set aside at different stages of development. And the list is actually longer. BIG FOOT & THE MANN was written as an animated buddy cop TV pilot and was read by the very talented actors and actresses at New York City’s NAKED ANGELS – which hosts the longest cold read series in the country. I have two books outlined in the horror genre, a novel about lawyers, and four REX RIDERS books, including one set in the future.

JS: The subjects are different from what we expected.

JP: Very different from what readers expected but pretty consistent with my background. I did standup comedy and humor writing for years. I’ve written animation bibles, screenplays, sitcom episodes, treatments – you name it. But I’m also an avid weightlifter and I love all kinds of genre flicks. I have a lot of different interests. 

JS: You have an exercise book and then a juvenile super-hero title and a tween girl's book.

JP: That is the plan right now, but the exact order may be different. I am not a big fan of staying inside the lines so each of these books is very different from what’s out there, but they need a home on bookstore and library shelves so those are the nominal classifications. The line between juvenile and tween is blurry and it’s even blurrier with humor so I wouldn’t take the classifications that seriously.

JS: How can people get a taste of what's in store?

JP: Sign up on the mailing list. I am planning on making the books available for review before the publication dates and people who are interested are a fantastic test audience for the material. Humor is particularly tricky and you can never be sure how things are going to land. I’m very excited about these projects and the blog is going to be a lot of fun. There is so much out there to get excited about.

JP CARLSON ON “COUNTER CULTURE" WITH HOST GROVER SILCOX

Philadelphia’s Grover Silcox interviewed JP on Grover’s Emmy-award winning show, COUNTER CULTURE. Take a look!

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