Candy in Action: The Cover Story

Today on Melissa Walker's blog, she quizzes me about the cover of Candy in Action. Candy's publisher, Soft Skull Press, shared a bunch of the old cover versions and some of the original designs that inspired my editor Jody and I. If you've ever wanted a behind-the-scenes look at cover design, it doesn't get more behind-the-scenesy than this.

(And -- extra added bonus feature! -- here's the very first cover of Candy, which we talk about in the article, but which I stupidly couldn't convert into a normal file. But oh, do I have good powers of persuasion.)

"The moment that my publishers accepted the Candy in Action, I knew what the cover was going to look like. It wasn't even a matter of, what do I want it to look like. I just knew. It was going to be a sleek, glossy cover with black widescreen boxes at the top and bottom. Then the center was going to be a bright, vivid picture of the Los Angeles coast at night, taken from overhead--all neon lights and a million sparkling house parties--and then a black silhouette of a girl doing a kung-fu drop kick over it. That, uh, never happened.

"The publishers didn't ask for my input. I gave it to them anyway. My first book, Never Mind the Goldbergs, was with Scholastic. At most big publishing houses, if you're a first-time writer and you're really nice to them, you get to say 'no' once, and they might listen to you. I said no three times--I was a total diva. They were cool with it each time, though.

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You Should Have Seen His Bat Mitzvah

Here's the wonder that is Athens Boys Choir. The name is deceiving -- ABC is actually a hip-hop group of one, and that one happens to be a mild-mannered boy named Katz who was born a girl.

I first heard of ABC when I received his CD -- with possibly the most hilariously understated cover you can imagine -- to review for B*tch Magazine. His lyrics tend toward the risque, although he's frequently more playful than offensive (on his latest single, Fagette, he shouts out "girls with the chubby chubbs/and the boys who ain't got no butts")....but, the opposite of every hip-hop sensibility you've ever encountered, this is probably the tamest rap video ever.

It's a composite of videos from Katz's bat mitzvah.

Or, as the intro puts it: "In 2002 I came out as a man. But before I could do that, I had to become...a woman."

Thence follows some of the trippiest '80s retro Bar Mitzvah footage that the human brain can wrap itself around. It's a one-man pitch for the next book in the Bar Mitzvah Disco series.

What I love most about it: how it's so nice. And how even the requisite Jewish kitsch is sweet: ""Now my bubby wanted a doctor to marry me/You got two Ph.D.'s/one in fine and one in sexy!"