August 28, 2025 • 26 mins
This week on Cattitude, Michelle Fern welcomes cartoonist and writer Thom Zahler, best known for his work on My Little Pony comics and the hit series Love and Capes. Thom introduces his brand-new comic, The Ghost Whiskerers, published by John Carpenter’s Storm King Comics. Inspired by his real-life feline duo, Mal and Halloween, this spooky-yet-heartwarming adventure takes listeners into a world where cats battle the supernatural! Thom shares behind-the-scenes stories of bringing his cats to life on the page, why felines make such purr-fect comic book stars, and how The Ghost Whiskerers blends humor, heart, and a touch of ghostly fun for cat lovers of all ages.
EPISODE NOTES: The Ghost Whiskerers: Cats, Comics & the Supernatural!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/cattitude-the-1-cat-podcast--6666768/support.
EPISODE NOTES: The Ghost Whiskerers: Cats, Comics & the Supernatural!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/cattitude-the-1-cat-podcast--6666768/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Live.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hello, cat levers, Welcome to Cautaitude. I'm your show host,
Michelle Bourne. So if you love to read and you
have kids, this is the best show for you. If
you love to read them have cats, this is a
great show for you. Even if not, this is going
to be a super fun show. So stay tuned. I
can't wait to introduce our guests today and we'll be
(00:44):
right back.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
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Speaker 1 (01:24):
Let's talk pets on Petlife Radio dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome Thomas Zaler. He
is a comic artist and writer. Welcome Tom.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Hello, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I'm thrilled to have you. So let's share with our
listeners your background and maybe give them some graphics through
the airwaves possible.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Well, I've been drawing all of my life. I can't
remember ever not wanting to be a comic book artist.
And I went to an art school in New Jersey
called the Joe Kubert School, which is one of the
few schools in the country that teach cartooning, which is
why I moved there. I graduated after three years. I
did caricatures. I worked in an ad agency, but along
the way I was always doing comics, and about twenty
(02:23):
years ago I finally went off completely on my own.
I haven't looked back, even during some scary stuff during
the pandemic. But I've been running my own company out
of my house for the last twenty years, drawing comics.
I write and draw for my Little Pony comic book
on occasion. I've done comics for webtoon a lot of
romantic comedies warning label Cupid Zeros. I have a superhero
(02:48):
romantic comedy called Love and Capes. And then my latest
one is for John Carpenter's comic company, the guy who
wrote and directed The Thing and Halloween and Starman and
all sorts of stuff, And it's the Ghost Whisperers about
a boy and his two cats who see ghosts.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yep, and that's why you're on Catechy today because we're
going to talk all about it. Thanks for sharing all
of that. I really liked your book. There's a lot
of underlying threads through the book. It's not just a
comic book about a boy and his cats. Yeah, I
mean there's a lot there. It's not a heavy book,
but it's really interesting. So before we get into the
(03:29):
details of the book, how did the ideas come to them?
I'm an avid reader. I've been reading since I could
read tons of books. My library card is my favorite card.
I think more of a favorite card than my credit cards.
So I love reading and I'm always astonished how people
come up with themes and stories and then with when
you're a comic artist, you're a writer, you're doing both,
(03:52):
you're doing everything. So how does this come about?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (03:56):
All sorts of ways, usually massive head but past that,
I sometimes i'll see, Yes, I did a header out
of a shopping cart when I was two and a half,
and I think that that's how this whole path and
a cartooning got started. Because I think you have to
be a little not right in the head to go
do cartooning. But yeah, sometimes I will take a story
(04:17):
and I'll see something that pushes me in a different direction.
Like I'll see a story and say, what if it
were done this way? Or what if it were done
a different way. The Ghost Whiskers Sandy King John's wife
was looking for a young reader's comic, and I was
pitching her a bunch of different stuff. When she told
me specifically what she wanted, I really thought about it.
I have two cats, I have a nephew, and I
(04:39):
put all those things together, and I was very much
trying to do a young reader's book. So it's very
intentional that, like have you seen the movie up, the
Pixar film No. One of the things I love about
it is that it's very user definable, so it doesn't
necessarily hit you with the heavy concept. As a parent,
you could say that one thing was happening, but if
(05:02):
you're really paying attention or you're an older audience, you
know that another thing is happening. So it's not introducing
concepts that kids aren't ready for or that parents don't
want to talk about. So the same way in The
Ghost Whiskers ghosts appear, but we don't say exactly where
they come from or what happens to them to get there.
They're just spirits that show up that have to go
(05:23):
from where they are to somewhere else. So it's very
much designed to be like just scary enough, but not
too scary, because it's very intentionally done for young readers.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Okay, interesting, So tell us about your cats.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
So I had past tense two cats. I now have one. Sadly,
my cat Mal, I had to let him go recently.
He had cancer. Oh I'm sorry, thank you, Yeah, that
it was tough. They are my first cats. I had
them for about ten years. Alloween is the other cat.
She is still around for all I know, she'll hear
me talking and try to make an appearance. She's a Calico,
(05:58):
orange and black and white, which is why she's called Halloween,
and Mal is named after the character from Firefly Mel Reynolds.
They're both delightful and they have their own personalities. And
then when I decided to do a comic about cats,
I literally put them in the books. Part of it
is because I just like, I know that they are
not forever, and I wanted to have them memorialized in
(06:19):
some way. I've actually put both of them in my
Little Pony comic as well, but in this book they're
actually the stars of the show.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
That they are. So we're going to talk more about
what the Ghost Whisper is about and get into more
details of it. But that aside and talking a bit
about because whispers were low, but the cats in the
Ghost Whispers can see spirits. Do you think that cats
have kind of a third sense about them or sixth sense?
(06:48):
I guess you'd say, or a lot of people think
they're kind of mystical creatures and they're aware of things
that like humans are not, which is in the book.
But do you believe that.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
I don't. There's a certain amount of mysticism that I
stay away from in my personal life, Like I just
don't want to get my hand too close to the
buzzsaw and all of a sudden be haunted by something
like it may be there, but I don't need to
find out. I think cats are very perceptive, and I
think that they see things that we don't. I don't
know if it's energy or I know certainly my cats
(07:23):
had picked up on emotions that I didn't think they would.
At one point when it was very stressful in my house.
Now started hyper grooming because he was getting stressed out too.
Like I appreciate that bond you have between you and
your animal where they're picking up on your moods like that.
I think there's more stuff in the world than what
we see. I don't know how much of that cat see,
but when I see them staring off watching, you know,
(07:45):
cat TV, I always kind of wonder what they're looking at.
And that's kind of where some of the ideas from
the book came.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Okay and cat TV. What is that?
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Oh? As someone use that as a term for me,
it was actually the original title of the book. It
was called kit TV. It's the thing that happened when
cats are staring at a space where there's nothing, but
they're watching it like there's something there. So I was
kind of filling in the gap about what they were seeing.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Well, my cats do that all the time, especially Molly.
It's funny. I'll watch her, she's on the couch, but
she stays in the cushion. There's something there. It's the
cushion and she's just staring at it. So now I'm
going to think there's possibly something else there. Because I
believe that there's things that we don't always perceive. I mean,
(08:30):
how do you explain when you get thoughts out of
no place that just strike you? What is that about?
Is that somebody sending you a message things that maybe
you wanted to know for a long time, maybe your
whole life, and all of a sudden you just get
it then and there. And it could be in an
obscure as you're driving to the bank or at the
grocery store and you just get this thought and go, oh,
(08:52):
that's how Why did that happen just then out of
the balloon?
Speaker 5 (08:56):
I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of stuff
that happens, like I think it bubbles underneath the surface.
But I think there's also a lot of common stimuli
that we all have, and I think there I don't
know if it's completely a collective unconsciousness, but I think
that people are more connected than we know. I don't know.
It's one of those things where you can see the
(09:16):
tips of the waves sometimes, but you don't know all
the mechanics of what's going on underneath the water makes sense?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Okay, So with the ghost Whisper, who's the main character,
there are three.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
Really, there's malon Halloween, the cats, and then there's the
boy Daniel and the cats wind up in a situation
where they need help from the boy, and the boy
is still young enough where the cats can talk to
him if they want him to hear them, so he
gets wrapped up in it, gets the ability to see
ghosts as well, and then they help a number of
spirits move from where they are when they get a
(09:49):
little stuck to where they need to go. And part
of the idea is that the spirit world is like
one big ball of yarn, which is why cats get
to guard it, so everything kind of clumps up. So
he has a house that happens to be one of
those big nodes where ghosts are going from where they
were to where they need to be next, so they
passed through the house. It was like from a production
(10:11):
point of view, and from a storytelling point of view,
it was a good way to have a six year
old kid get involved with a lot of stories without
having to contrive reasons for him to sneak out of
the house. The biggest conceit in the book is that
his parents sleep really well because he gets into a
lot of adventures at night. That they don't hear. But
I wanted to have reasons for lots of ghosts to
(10:33):
come to this particular house. So his family moves there
from Boston. It takes place in Tacoma, Seattle area, and
their house that they're in happens to be one of
these nodes, and the cats take over because that's what
cats do. It becomes their thing to police. And then
they get into the situation where all of a sudden
they need to bring Daniel in as well.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Okay, we're going to take a sharp break and we're
going to talk about a few other topics that are
I think really putting into chill. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 7 (12:00):
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Speaker 3 (12:16):
Welcome back everyone. We're talking to Tom Zalar. He is
a comic artist and writer and we're talking about his
new book, The Ghost Whiskerers. So in the book, we
just talked about the characters. Daniels one of the key characters.
He's a little boy, and you also brought in some
interesting concepts because you talked about him. You know, in
the book there's him at school, so at six years old,
(12:39):
you know, there's always certain things you could learn and understand.
Why did you bring in what you brought in, like
the sharing with the crayons and some of the other
themes that you brought in, is it teach children or
have parents teach children? Or awareness.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
I wanted Daniel to have problems that would relate to
the problems that the ghost we're having to keep them
from moving on. So everything was kind of a learning
experience for him, but he was still at the level
where the things he was learning were going to be
important to the adventures that he was having. I also,
since he moved there, he's very out of place. He's
(13:16):
trying to find his he's trying to find his rhythm
with people. He's trying to merge in with this class
of kids, but he's very much the outsider. So as
a as a narrative technique, it becomes really interesting to
make him see this world that he's not part of
and isn't quite friendly to him, and figure out how
to get involved with it. So the problems that he
(13:37):
has with kids, worrying about sharing, or how they deal
with their brothers and sisters, anything like that, those all
become things that he learns that helps him move the
ghosts from one place to another. Because what all happen
is that they get when the ghosts appear, they're kind
of stuck on something. So at one point a brother
and sister appear and they're fighting, and it's they're fighting.
(14:01):
They need to calm down so that they can move on.
But Daniel doesn't have a brother or sister, but he
sees enough other brothers and sisters having these kind of fights.
That's what he brings to the adventure. And I tried
to make it things that while the cats are very
good at their job, and we see them actually take
ghosts without Daniel's help, I wanted them to run into situations.
(14:23):
For as much as we don't understand why cats do
what they do, I don't think cats understand why we
do what we do.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
No, they sure don't. This is a really good book
because I think it teaches children certain like life lessons
as much as they can get it. What is the
age range for this book? Suggest to age.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
It's probably about five to twelve thereabouts.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Okay, so yes, and I think we can get life
lessons our whole life, but you know, especially children need them.
You bring in something at the very end, You bring
in adoption, which kind of heavy in a sense, you know,
but and you know this day and age, and we
were in mid twenty twenty five. There's all kinds of families,
(15:06):
so I love that you brought it in. Why did
you decide to bring in adoption at.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
The end, Well, thank you. My nephew is adopted, and
I wanted to tell a story for him as much
as for anyone else. So I took that and how
I felt about him and all the things I wanted
him to know, and I wanted to put that in
the story. So like, while the story is for everyone,
(15:32):
I very much wrote it for my nephew.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I love it. It's personal like that I have a
nephew that's adopted too. It's a very sweet ending without
being sugary sweet, and I like that you brought in
that concept and everything you did. Now we're speaking to
all listeners here. We all love cats. A lot of
us have kids or some young people in our lives.
What makes your book different that they should buy it?
Speaker 5 (15:56):
I think that it has an awful lot of heart
because story is so personal with it being my cats
and essentially my nephew. And on top of that, I'm
gonna brag just a little bit because I worked on
My Little Pony comics. My Little Pony had a lot
of lessons, but they were never cloying lessons. And I
took from that as well that you learn stuff. But
(16:16):
it's not that moment in eighties cartoons where people would
sit down and say, well, what did we learn today? Kids?
It's very much they're more natural. I think they're a
little more nuanced. They're just a hair more realistic and
crunchy and the kind of thing that you can really
relate to with that feeling like you're being preached at.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, well said very well. Said what do you hope
parents or the adults in a child's life or say,
I already give the book to my niece or nephew, grandson,
granddaughters too little, but give it the book to them.
What do you want parents to see is important in
the book?
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Oh? I want them first of all to have shared
experiences with their kid, so to be able to share
the book and have have that commonality. Because there's so
much kids entertainment that's written specifically for kids that's almost
off putting to adults. So by writing something that I
hope is intelligent and interesting and engaging enough where that
even while it's four kids, the parents or adults can
(17:15):
enjoy it too. That's going to create a shared experience
that they're going to be able to bond over. Like
I said, that's also something that happened with My Little
Pony where those stories were While they're very much written
for a younger audience, they can be enjoyed by an
older audience. So I wanted to bring that and hopefully
it deals with enough kind of problems and issues like
(17:36):
the small ones kids have about fitting in with a
new group, that it gives them something that they can
talk to each other about. And yeah, I just want
to facilitate that kind of There's someone I heard that
said that it's not just about quality time with kids,
it's about quantity time because you only get the quality
moments when you spend enough moments with them to have
(17:57):
that you can't manufacture like I will now have quality
time with you. It's more you need to be there
a lot and then magic stuff happens. And I want
to have things that help bring those moments about.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I love that. Now, on the kid's point of view,
what do you hope the kids get from the book.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
First of all, I hope they enjoy it because it's
it's a fun story. I don't want it to feel
like work. And I tried very hard to make sure
that the kids are written like kids, like they should
be able to see themselves and some things that they're
going through in the kids in the story, so they're
not like miniature adults. They're having kid length problems. You know,
(18:36):
they lose a book, they it's always fitting in with
new people or making a new friend, any of that
stuff where I hope they see themselves reflected in it,
and I hope it gives them a little more experience,
like it broadens their thought, so like if you've never
met someone who's adopted, it gives you enough to go
on to know how loved those those adoptees are, and
(18:58):
like some of the complications that come with either being
adopted or what it took to be adopted or anything
like that, where I just want to I want to
give them a little more of a window into what
the world is like in a friendly way, to see
how vast and textured and awesome it is.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Okay, and even though you bring in adoption, you have
several other ghosts that we didn't even mention beside sister,
and we're not going to go through all of them,
but you also bring in a dog ghost.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Yes, I kind of felt like if the cats were intelligent,
other animals would be intelligent, and there would also be
animals that would pass through. There's a there's a specific
reason why the dog is attracted to them. It's not
normal because it establishes that normally animals are much easier
to pass through to the next place. But something happens
(19:51):
that causes a bit of a disturbance, and it also
won it allows for a lot of humor. That's that
particular chapter I think is one of the funniest, and
it just kind of opens your mind to the way
that the dogs are written very different than the cats,
and I liked playing with that difference between those two
different characters.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Okay, and what would you say to people that are
listening and aren't the hearing you know, ah, you know,
I love cats, but there's talk about spirits and ghosts
and stuff, and this might be too much for a
little kid. How would you reassure them that this is
a good book for your child. I didn't think it
was scary, but I mean, I'm an adult, so I'm
(20:32):
not the best one to judge in that point, but
I think it's perfectly acceptable for a child. But anyone
who's who who's thinking, I'm not sure, says the word
ghost it's for a kid. I mean there's other ghost
things for kids, but.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
M yeah, it's it's designed to be more magical than
frightening or scary, like all the scary stuff is actually
pretty low stakes, like things get knocked around at the house,
or there are noises or drafts, but there's nothing where
the kid ever feels like he's actually in danger. Those
stakes were set up intentionally, but it's also it's a
(21:09):
magical fantasy universe that's built. So it's the kind of
place where if a kid read the book, he would
like to be in that universe, as opposed to a
scary place where it's like, well it's an interesting story,
but I would not want to live there. Like it
just it adds a little magic to what's in your
existing life, and it's it's you know, it's set up
(21:30):
to be you know, like Casper the Friendly Ghost or
something like that, where it's whether or not you think
ghosts are real or any of that stuff. It's just
that little magical add on to the world that's out
there to make it a little more interesting, a little
more fantastic.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Okay, it's wonderful. I mean, it's written so well, and
it's and the drawing is amazing. How long does it
take you to draw or illustrate a book like this?
Speaker 5 (21:54):
I can draw a page day. It's also a question
of what other stuff is going on at the time.
And she's through it, she's actually doing really well. But
my mom was sick for a while during it, and
that threw me off my pace. It probably took me
about six to nine months to actually get the book
done from beginning to end once the script was approved
(22:16):
by storm King.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Well, I'm glad your mom is doing better, and thank you.
You're welcome. That's pretty amazing A page a day. Do
you ever find yourself stuck when you're trying to dream
of what the characters should look like? Or in this case,
I know you wrote you had your nephew in mine,
So are his parents in the book too?
Speaker 5 (22:34):
No, that would be my brother and sister in law.
I didn't put them in, but I telegraphed some of
the adoption stuff by not putting them in. So my
nephew is still young enough where he's still developing a personality,
so it was more the visual representation of him and
just kind of his youthful exuberance rather than anything aside
from the backstory, nothing so specific about him like that.
(22:57):
So I didn't feel bad about about not putting my
brother and sister in law in there. And sometimes I
do get stuck, but not for long. And I've been
doing this long enough where I can either tell when
it's something i'll figure out, or I can tell if
it's something where I've done it wrong and I have
to go back a couple steps. But a lot of
times it's figuring out. Like I was saying about when
(23:19):
we were talking about the kind of collective unconsciousness thing,
you realize that you need to take a break from it,
so you find something else to do. One of the
things that worked really well was that if I was
really stuck on something, or there was something that I'd
written in the script that I didn't think was working,
I still could finish inking and coloring and lettering the
page before, and that it'd take the rest of the day.
(23:40):
And while you're doing that, your brain will go in
all sorts of different directions, and hopefully by the time
that day is over, you've actually figured out the problem
that you're going to have to get to the next day.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
A little bit of the writing Mystique shared with us,
So thank you. Do you have another book coming out
with kats in the future or would you like to I.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Would love to do a sequel to Ghost Whiskers. That
would be delightful. It depends on how well this one sells.
I've got another pitch in with Storm King. I'm going
to be drawing the Anger Birds comic, and I have
a couple more romantic comedy comics coming out. I want
to make sure that I'm doing it judiciously, like I'm
not putting cats in it just because I really like
cats and I want them in everything I'm doing. I'm
(24:19):
trying to make sure that the story is the story
is the story. But yeah, I would love to do
more in this universe, and I'd love to figure out.
One of the pitches I have is for something Egyptian,
so there'd be lots of places where I can put
cats in that as well.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Oh yeah, wonderful. So let's tell everyone where can people
find your books find out more about you?
Speaker 5 (24:36):
So you should be able to find it on Amazon,
but you can also go to Storm kingcomics dot com
and get it there, or you can go to my
website Thhomz dot com. There's some weird stuff going on
in the comics industry with distribution, so sometimes that gets
a little glitchy. But you can go to Storm King
or me directly. We have tons of copies if you
(24:57):
get them from me, they'll come signed.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Well wonderful. I'd like to thank you so much for
coming on Catatude and I wish you amazing success.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Oh my pleasure. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
I hope you all enjoyed the show. The book is
called The Ghost Whiskers for children from like five to twelve.
You can find out more at Storm mckincomics dot com
or tom z sence spelled t h o m z
dot com. What a great book. Thank you Tom for
coming on the show. Thank you to everyone listening to Catitude.
(25:28):
We are the top cat show on pet Life Radio
and that says a lot, so thank you so much.
And of course a huge thank you to my cats,
Dennis Mollie and Charlotte Mollie. Now I know how you
watch a lot of cat TV, and I'm concerned a
little bit, and I aug thank you to Mark winter,
for making me and my guests sound amazing. Now remember
(25:50):
lista attitude, have catitude.
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This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hello, cat levers, Welcome to Cautaitude. I'm your show host,
Michelle Bourne. So if you love to read and you
have kids, this is the best show for you. If
you love to read them have cats, this is a
great show for you. Even if not, this is going
to be a super fun show. So stay tuned. I
can't wait to introduce our guests today and we'll be
(00:44):
right back.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
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Speaker 1 (01:24):
Let's talk pets on Petlife Radio dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome Thomas Zaler. He
is a comic artist and writer. Welcome Tom.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Hello, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I'm thrilled to have you. So let's share with our
listeners your background and maybe give them some graphics through
the airwaves possible.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Well, I've been drawing all of my life. I can't
remember ever not wanting to be a comic book artist.
And I went to an art school in New Jersey
called the Joe Kubert School, which is one of the
few schools in the country that teach cartooning, which is
why I moved there. I graduated after three years. I
did caricatures. I worked in an ad agency, but along
the way I was always doing comics, and about twenty
(02:23):
years ago I finally went off completely on my own.
I haven't looked back, even during some scary stuff during
the pandemic. But I've been running my own company out
of my house for the last twenty years, drawing comics.
I write and draw for my Little Pony comic book
on occasion. I've done comics for webtoon a lot of
romantic comedies warning label Cupid Zeros. I have a superhero
(02:48):
romantic comedy called Love and Capes. And then my latest
one is for John Carpenter's comic company, the guy who
wrote and directed The Thing and Halloween and Starman and
all sorts of stuff, And it's the Ghost Whisperers about
a boy and his two cats who see ghosts.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yep, and that's why you're on Catechy today because we're
going to talk all about it. Thanks for sharing all
of that. I really liked your book. There's a lot
of underlying threads through the book. It's not just a
comic book about a boy and his cats. Yeah, I
mean there's a lot there. It's not a heavy book,
but it's really interesting. So before we get into the
(03:29):
details of the book, how did the ideas come to them?
I'm an avid reader. I've been reading since I could
read tons of books. My library card is my favorite card.
I think more of a favorite card than my credit cards.
So I love reading and I'm always astonished how people
come up with themes and stories and then with when
you're a comic artist, you're a writer, you're doing both,
(03:52):
you're doing everything. So how does this come about?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (03:56):
All sorts of ways, usually massive head but past that,
I sometimes i'll see, Yes, I did a header out
of a shopping cart when I was two and a half,
and I think that that's how this whole path and
a cartooning got started. Because I think you have to
be a little not right in the head to go
do cartooning. But yeah, sometimes I will take a story
(04:17):
and I'll see something that pushes me in a different direction.
Like I'll see a story and say, what if it
were done this way? Or what if it were done
a different way. The Ghost Whiskers Sandy King John's wife
was looking for a young reader's comic, and I was
pitching her a bunch of different stuff. When she told
me specifically what she wanted, I really thought about it.
I have two cats, I have a nephew, and I
(04:39):
put all those things together, and I was very much
trying to do a young reader's book. So it's very
intentional that, like have you seen the movie up, the
Pixar film No. One of the things I love about
it is that it's very user definable, so it doesn't
necessarily hit you with the heavy concept. As a parent,
you could say that one thing was happening, but if
(05:02):
you're really paying attention or you're an older audience, you
know that another thing is happening. So it's not introducing
concepts that kids aren't ready for or that parents don't
want to talk about. So the same way in The
Ghost Whiskers ghosts appear, but we don't say exactly where
they come from or what happens to them to get there.
They're just spirits that show up that have to go
(05:23):
from where they are to somewhere else. So it's very
much designed to be like just scary enough, but not
too scary, because it's very intentionally done for young readers.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Okay, interesting, So tell us about your cats.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
So I had past tense two cats. I now have one. Sadly,
my cat Mal, I had to let him go recently.
He had cancer. Oh I'm sorry, thank you, Yeah, that
it was tough. They are my first cats. I had
them for about ten years. Alloween is the other cat.
She is still around for all I know, she'll hear
me talking and try to make an appearance. She's a Calico,
(05:58):
orange and black and white, which is why she's called Halloween,
and Mal is named after the character from Firefly Mel Reynolds.
They're both delightful and they have their own personalities. And
then when I decided to do a comic about cats,
I literally put them in the books. Part of it
is because I just like, I know that they are
not forever, and I wanted to have them memorialized in
(06:19):
some way. I've actually put both of them in my
Little Pony comic as well, but in this book they're
actually the stars of the show.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
That they are. So we're going to talk more about
what the Ghost Whisper is about and get into more
details of it. But that aside and talking a bit
about because whispers were low, but the cats in the
Ghost Whispers can see spirits. Do you think that cats
have kind of a third sense about them or sixth sense?
(06:48):
I guess you'd say, or a lot of people think
they're kind of mystical creatures and they're aware of things
that like humans are not, which is in the book.
But do you believe that.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
I don't. There's a certain amount of mysticism that I
stay away from in my personal life, Like I just
don't want to get my hand too close to the
buzzsaw and all of a sudden be haunted by something
like it may be there, but I don't need to
find out. I think cats are very perceptive, and I
think that they see things that we don't. I don't
know if it's energy or I know certainly my cats
(07:23):
had picked up on emotions that I didn't think they would.
At one point when it was very stressful in my house.
Now started hyper grooming because he was getting stressed out too.
Like I appreciate that bond you have between you and
your animal where they're picking up on your moods like that.
I think there's more stuff in the world than what
we see. I don't know how much of that cat see,
but when I see them staring off watching, you know,
(07:45):
cat TV, I always kind of wonder what they're looking at.
And that's kind of where some of the ideas from
the book came.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Okay and cat TV. What is that?
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Oh? As someone use that as a term for me,
it was actually the original title of the book. It
was called kit TV. It's the thing that happened when
cats are staring at a space where there's nothing, but
they're watching it like there's something there. So I was
kind of filling in the gap about what they were seeing.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Well, my cats do that all the time, especially Molly.
It's funny. I'll watch her, she's on the couch, but
she stays in the cushion. There's something there. It's the
cushion and she's just staring at it. So now I'm
going to think there's possibly something else there. Because I
believe that there's things that we don't always perceive. I mean,
(08:30):
how do you explain when you get thoughts out of
no place that just strike you? What is that about?
Is that somebody sending you a message things that maybe
you wanted to know for a long time, maybe your
whole life, and all of a sudden you just get
it then and there. And it could be in an
obscure as you're driving to the bank or at the
grocery store and you just get this thought and go, oh,
(08:52):
that's how Why did that happen just then out of
the balloon?
Speaker 5 (08:56):
I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of stuff
that happens, like I think it bubbles underneath the surface.
But I think there's also a lot of common stimuli
that we all have, and I think there I don't
know if it's completely a collective unconsciousness, but I think
that people are more connected than we know. I don't know.
It's one of those things where you can see the
(09:16):
tips of the waves sometimes, but you don't know all
the mechanics of what's going on underneath the water makes sense?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Okay, So with the ghost Whisper, who's the main character,
there are three.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
Really, there's malon Halloween, the cats, and then there's the
boy Daniel and the cats wind up in a situation
where they need help from the boy, and the boy
is still young enough where the cats can talk to
him if they want him to hear them, so he
gets wrapped up in it, gets the ability to see
ghosts as well, and then they help a number of
spirits move from where they are when they get a
(09:49):
little stuck to where they need to go. And part
of the idea is that the spirit world is like
one big ball of yarn, which is why cats get
to guard it, so everything kind of clumps up. So
he has a house that happens to be one of
those big nodes where ghosts are going from where they
were to where they need to be next, so they
passed through the house. It was like from a production
(10:11):
point of view, and from a storytelling point of view,
it was a good way to have a six year
old kid get involved with a lot of stories without
having to contrive reasons for him to sneak out of
the house. The biggest conceit in the book is that
his parents sleep really well because he gets into a
lot of adventures at night. That they don't hear. But
I wanted to have reasons for lots of ghosts to
(10:33):
come to this particular house. So his family moves there
from Boston. It takes place in Tacoma, Seattle area, and
their house that they're in happens to be one of
these nodes, and the cats take over because that's what
cats do. It becomes their thing to police. And then
they get into the situation where all of a sudden
they need to bring Daniel in as well.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Okay, we're going to take a sharp break and we're
going to talk about a few other topics that are
I think really putting into chill. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 7 (12:00):
Let's talk about Life Radio Headline Radio at Life radio
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Speaker 3 (12:16):
Welcome back everyone. We're talking to Tom Zalar. He is
a comic artist and writer and we're talking about his
new book, The Ghost Whiskerers. So in the book, we
just talked about the characters. Daniels one of the key characters.
He's a little boy, and you also brought in some
interesting concepts because you talked about him. You know, in
the book there's him at school, so at six years old,
(12:39):
you know, there's always certain things you could learn and understand.
Why did you bring in what you brought in, like
the sharing with the crayons and some of the other
themes that you brought in, is it teach children or
have parents teach children? Or awareness.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
I wanted Daniel to have problems that would relate to
the problems that the ghost we're having to keep them
from moving on. So everything was kind of a learning
experience for him, but he was still at the level
where the things he was learning were going to be
important to the adventures that he was having. I also,
since he moved there, he's very out of place. He's
(13:16):
trying to find his he's trying to find his rhythm
with people. He's trying to merge in with this class
of kids, but he's very much the outsider. So as
a as a narrative technique, it becomes really interesting to
make him see this world that he's not part of
and isn't quite friendly to him, and figure out how
to get involved with it. So the problems that he
(13:37):
has with kids, worrying about sharing, or how they deal
with their brothers and sisters, anything like that, those all
become things that he learns that helps him move the
ghosts from one place to another. Because what all happen
is that they get when the ghosts appear, they're kind
of stuck on something. So at one point a brother
and sister appear and they're fighting, and it's they're fighting.
(14:01):
They need to calm down so that they can move on.
But Daniel doesn't have a brother or sister, but he
sees enough other brothers and sisters having these kind of fights.
That's what he brings to the adventure. And I tried
to make it things that while the cats are very
good at their job, and we see them actually take
ghosts without Daniel's help, I wanted them to run into situations.
(14:23):
For as much as we don't understand why cats do
what they do, I don't think cats understand why we
do what we do.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
No, they sure don't. This is a really good book
because I think it teaches children certain like life lessons
as much as they can get it. What is the
age range for this book? Suggest to age.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
It's probably about five to twelve thereabouts.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Okay, so yes, and I think we can get life
lessons our whole life, but you know, especially children need them.
You bring in something at the very end, You bring
in adoption, which kind of heavy in a sense, you know,
but and you know this day and age, and we
were in mid twenty twenty five. There's all kinds of families,
(15:06):
so I love that you brought it in. Why did
you decide to bring in adoption at.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
The end, Well, thank you. My nephew is adopted, and
I wanted to tell a story for him as much
as for anyone else. So I took that and how
I felt about him and all the things I wanted
him to know, and I wanted to put that in
the story. So like, while the story is for everyone,
(15:32):
I very much wrote it for my nephew.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I love it. It's personal like that I have a
nephew that's adopted too. It's a very sweet ending without
being sugary sweet, and I like that you brought in
that concept and everything you did. Now we're speaking to
all listeners here. We all love cats. A lot of
us have kids or some young people in our lives.
What makes your book different that they should buy it?
Speaker 5 (15:56):
I think that it has an awful lot of heart
because story is so personal with it being my cats
and essentially my nephew. And on top of that, I'm
gonna brag just a little bit because I worked on
My Little Pony comics. My Little Pony had a lot
of lessons, but they were never cloying lessons. And I
took from that as well that you learn stuff. But
(16:16):
it's not that moment in eighties cartoons where people would
sit down and say, well, what did we learn today? Kids?
It's very much they're more natural. I think they're a
little more nuanced. They're just a hair more realistic and
crunchy and the kind of thing that you can really
relate to with that feeling like you're being preached at.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, well said very well. Said what do you hope
parents or the adults in a child's life or say,
I already give the book to my niece or nephew, grandson,
granddaughters too little, but give it the book to them.
What do you want parents to see is important in
the book?
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Oh? I want them first of all to have shared
experiences with their kid, so to be able to share
the book and have have that commonality. Because there's so
much kids entertainment that's written specifically for kids that's almost
off putting to adults. So by writing something that I
hope is intelligent and interesting and engaging enough where that
even while it's four kids, the parents or adults can
(17:15):
enjoy it too. That's going to create a shared experience
that they're going to be able to bond over. Like
I said, that's also something that happened with My Little
Pony where those stories were While they're very much written
for a younger audience, they can be enjoyed by an
older audience. So I wanted to bring that and hopefully
it deals with enough kind of problems and issues like
(17:36):
the small ones kids have about fitting in with a
new group, that it gives them something that they can
talk to each other about. And yeah, I just want
to facilitate that kind of There's someone I heard that
said that it's not just about quality time with kids,
it's about quantity time because you only get the quality
moments when you spend enough moments with them to have
(17:57):
that you can't manufacture like I will now have quality
time with you. It's more you need to be there
a lot and then magic stuff happens. And I want
to have things that help bring those moments about.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I love that. Now, on the kid's point of view,
what do you hope the kids get from the book.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
First of all, I hope they enjoy it because it's
it's a fun story. I don't want it to feel
like work. And I tried very hard to make sure
that the kids are written like kids, like they should
be able to see themselves and some things that they're
going through in the kids in the story, so they're
not like miniature adults. They're having kid length problems. You know,
(18:36):
they lose a book, they it's always fitting in with
new people or making a new friend, any of that
stuff where I hope they see themselves reflected in it,
and I hope it gives them a little more experience,
like it broadens their thought, so like if you've never
met someone who's adopted, it gives you enough to go
on to know how loved those those adoptees are, and
(18:58):
like some of the complications that come with either being
adopted or what it took to be adopted or anything
like that, where I just want to I want to
give them a little more of a window into what
the world is like in a friendly way, to see
how vast and textured and awesome it is.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Okay, and even though you bring in adoption, you have
several other ghosts that we didn't even mention beside sister,
and we're not going to go through all of them,
but you also bring in a dog ghost.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Yes, I kind of felt like if the cats were intelligent,
other animals would be intelligent, and there would also be
animals that would pass through. There's a there's a specific
reason why the dog is attracted to them. It's not
normal because it establishes that normally animals are much easier
to pass through to the next place. But something happens
(19:51):
that causes a bit of a disturbance, and it also
won it allows for a lot of humor. That's that
particular chapter I think is one of the funniest, and
it just kind of opens your mind to the way
that the dogs are written very different than the cats,
and I liked playing with that difference between those two
different characters.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Okay, and what would you say to people that are
listening and aren't the hearing you know, ah, you know,
I love cats, but there's talk about spirits and ghosts
and stuff, and this might be too much for a
little kid. How would you reassure them that this is
a good book for your child. I didn't think it
was scary, but I mean, I'm an adult, so I'm
(20:32):
not the best one to judge in that point, but
I think it's perfectly acceptable for a child. But anyone
who's who who's thinking, I'm not sure, says the word
ghost it's for a kid. I mean there's other ghost
things for kids, but.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
M yeah, it's it's designed to be more magical than
frightening or scary, like all the scary stuff is actually
pretty low stakes, like things get knocked around at the house,
or there are noises or drafts, but there's nothing where
the kid ever feels like he's actually in danger. Those
stakes were set up intentionally, but it's also it's a
(21:09):
magical fantasy universe that's built. So it's the kind of
place where if a kid read the book, he would
like to be in that universe, as opposed to a
scary place where it's like, well it's an interesting story,
but I would not want to live there. Like it
just it adds a little magic to what's in your
existing life, and it's it's you know, it's set up
(21:30):
to be you know, like Casper the Friendly Ghost or
something like that, where it's whether or not you think
ghosts are real or any of that stuff. It's just
that little magical add on to the world that's out
there to make it a little more interesting, a little
more fantastic.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Okay, it's wonderful. I mean, it's written so well, and
it's and the drawing is amazing. How long does it
take you to draw or illustrate a book like this?
Speaker 5 (21:54):
I can draw a page day. It's also a question
of what other stuff is going on at the time.
And she's through it, she's actually doing really well. But
my mom was sick for a while during it, and
that threw me off my pace. It probably took me
about six to nine months to actually get the book
done from beginning to end once the script was approved
(22:16):
by storm King.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Well, I'm glad your mom is doing better, and thank you.
You're welcome. That's pretty amazing A page a day. Do
you ever find yourself stuck when you're trying to dream
of what the characters should look like? Or in this case,
I know you wrote you had your nephew in mine,
So are his parents in the book too?
Speaker 5 (22:34):
No, that would be my brother and sister in law.
I didn't put them in, but I telegraphed some of
the adoption stuff by not putting them in. So my
nephew is still young enough where he's still developing a personality,
so it was more the visual representation of him and
just kind of his youthful exuberance rather than anything aside
from the backstory, nothing so specific about him like that.
(22:57):
So I didn't feel bad about about not putting my
brother and sister in law in there. And sometimes I
do get stuck, but not for long. And I've been
doing this long enough where I can either tell when
it's something i'll figure out, or I can tell if
it's something where I've done it wrong and I have
to go back a couple steps. But a lot of
times it's figuring out. Like I was saying about when
(23:19):
we were talking about the kind of collective unconsciousness thing,
you realize that you need to take a break from it,
so you find something else to do. One of the
things that worked really well was that if I was
really stuck on something, or there was something that I'd
written in the script that I didn't think was working,
I still could finish inking and coloring and lettering the
page before, and that it'd take the rest of the day.
(23:40):
And while you're doing that, your brain will go in
all sorts of different directions, and hopefully by the time
that day is over, you've actually figured out the problem
that you're going to have to get to the next day.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
A little bit of the writing Mystique shared with us,
So thank you. Do you have another book coming out
with kats in the future or would you like to I.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Would love to do a sequel to Ghost Whiskers. That
would be delightful. It depends on how well this one sells.
I've got another pitch in with Storm King. I'm going
to be drawing the Anger Birds comic, and I have
a couple more romantic comedy comics coming out. I want
to make sure that I'm doing it judiciously, like I'm
not putting cats in it just because I really like
cats and I want them in everything I'm doing. I'm
(24:19):
trying to make sure that the story is the story
is the story. But yeah, I would love to do
more in this universe, and I'd love to figure out.
One of the pitches I have is for something Egyptian,
so there'd be lots of places where I can put
cats in that as well.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Oh yeah, wonderful. So let's tell everyone where can people
find your books find out more about you?
Speaker 5 (24:36):
So you should be able to find it on Amazon,
but you can also go to Storm kingcomics dot com
and get it there, or you can go to my
website Thhomz dot com. There's some weird stuff going on
in the comics industry with distribution, so sometimes that gets
a little glitchy. But you can go to Storm King
or me directly. We have tons of copies if you
(24:57):
get them from me, they'll come signed.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Well wonderful. I'd like to thank you so much for
coming on Catatude and I wish you amazing success.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Oh my pleasure. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
I hope you all enjoyed the show. The book is
called The Ghost Whiskers for children from like five to twelve.
You can find out more at Storm mckincomics dot com
or tom z sence spelled t h o m z
dot com. What a great book. Thank you Tom for
coming on the show. Thank you to everyone listening to Catitude.
(25:28):
We are the top cat show on pet Life Radio
and that says a lot, so thank you so much.
And of course a huge thank you to my cats,
Dennis Mollie and Charlotte Mollie. Now I know how you
watch a lot of cat TV, and I'm concerned a
little bit, and I aug thank you to Mark winter,
for making me and my guests sound amazing. Now remember
(25:50):
lista attitude, have catitude.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on Petlife
Radio dot com
Speaker 5 (26:04):
T
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