My friends can tell you that I can be a funny guy at times. Not all the time, maybe, but who is? Still, I manage a few zingers now and again, and I’ve been known to make people’s heads explode—not literally, that’d be gross—and to make people snarf their drinks from time to time.

But, before No Small Bills, I’d never written funny.

Not flat-out funny, at least. I’d done wry, certainly, and over the top, and slightly tongue in cheek. I’d done amusing moments and funny lines—hell, I wrote two Eureka novels! But I’d never written anything that was just utterly goofball off-the-wall silly funny.

When I sat down to write a new, wholly original novel a few years back, however, I flipped through my catalog of story ideas—most writers have them—and DuckBob was the one that jumped out at me. And it was clearly going to have to be funny. After all, he has the head of a duck—it was either going to be an insanely silly book or a deep philosophical treatise told through surreal metaphor. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or The Metamorphosis. Continue reading

When I started writing No Small Bills a couple years ago, I didn’t really have a lot in my head about where I was going with it. I didn’t have a detailed outline—which was a rarity for me—or a cast list—also unusual. All I had, in fact, was the idea of doing a very silly, very funny book reminiscent of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Good Omens, the basic concept of the main character trying to save the universe, and the character himself. DuckBob Spinowitz. He, at least, was clear in my mind. I could practically picture him—as I proved when I had him describe himself in excruciating (and borderline scandalous) detail.

So, of course, when it came time to do the cover I knew DuckBob had to be on it. Who else’s mug could do the book’s silliness justice? And I knew it should say “outer space” as well.

I just didn’t know how, exactly.

Then I had the idea to turn DuckBob into his own constellation. Hey, there’s a Dogstar, why not a Duckstar? Why not a whole flock of them? Besides, doing the cover that way would kill three birds with one stone—showing DuckBob, showing outer space, and showing it’s funny. And that’s a pretty good shot, if you ask me. Continue reading