Owen, James A.

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Owen, James A.

Personal

Born November 11; married; wife's name Cindy; children: Sophie, Nathaniel.

Addresses

Home—Silvertown, AZ. Office—Coppervale International, 313 E. Center St., P.O. Box 1459, Taylor, AZ 85939; fax: 928-536-4293. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Author, illustrator, storyteller, designer, and publisher. Founder of comic book mail order company, 1984; founder of publishing company specializing in limitededition prints, 1985; freelance designer and commercial illustrator, until 1992; Taliesin Press, Taylor, AZ, founder and executive director, 1992, renamed Coppervale International (art and design studio), 1995—, publisher of International Studio, 1999—, and Argosy Quarterly; Coppervale Filmworks, founder, beginning 2001.

Awards, Honors

Named among one hundred most influential people in the comic-book industry, Hero Illustrated, 1994, 1995; Chesley Award nomination for best monochrome work, Association of Science Fiction & Fantasy Artists, 2003, for Old Tom's Study; AI award for Best Novel, 2003, and Phantastik Preis nomination for Best International Novel, both for first book in "Mythworld" series; Chesley Award nominations for best hardcover illustration and for best interior illustration, Association of Science Fiction & Fantasy Artists, 2007, and Best Books for Young Adults selection, American Library Association, all for Here, There Be Dragons.

Writings

"CHRONICLES OF THE IMAGINARIUM GEOGRAPHICA" SERIES

(Self-illustrated) Here, There Be Dragons, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2006.

(Self-illustrated) The Search for the Red Dragon, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2007.

OTHER

(With Jeremy Owen, Lon Saline, and Mary McCray; and illustrator) Lost Treasures of the Pirates of the Caribbean, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2007.

Author and illustrator of "Starchild" and "Obscuro" comic-book series. Also author of "Mythworld" novel series, published in Germany and France. Author of James A. Owen's Sketchbook & Journal, located at http://coppervale.livejournal.com.

Sidelights

James A. Owen, an acclaimed illustrator and storyteller, is the founder and executive director of Coppervale International, an art and design studio housed in a century-old restored church in Arizona. As an author, Owen has written and illustrated more than twenty installments in the "Starchild" comic-book series and has penned the seven-volume "Mythworld" novel series. Other works include the novel Here, There Be Dragons, one of several volumes in his "Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica" series of fantasy novels for young adults.

Owen developed an early interest in literature and began writing and drawing comics at age six. "My mother painted, and also taught first grade," he told One Ring online interviewer Jonathan Watson. "Her brothers and sister were a painter, printer, and graphic designer, respectively. And their father was an English teacher (among many other things). So I have it in the blood to love art, and books." Owen, an avid reader, was particularly influenced by the work of one particular writer, as he recalled to a contributor in Pink Raygun. "I loved Ray Bradbury and the way he wrote about evoking the magic of childhood." "These things that I loved when I was a kid," he added, "I surround myself with in my studio, and fantasy was a big part of it."

Owen started his first business venture, a comic-book mail-order company, in 1984, and founded Taliesin Press, the forerunner to Coppervale International, founded eight years later. His first work, the comic-book series "Starchild," sold sporadically; remarkably, after Owen broke his hand in a devastating car accident and was forced to turn to more established artists for help, the comic established a foothold in the marketplace. Owen later secured the rights to International Studio, an arts periodical, and also began publishing Argosy Quarterly, a magazine of literary fiction. He later completed the seven-volume "Mythworld" series, which has been published in Europe.

In 2006 Owen published Here, There Be Dragons, the first novel in his "Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica." "The core inspiration for all of my work is the question ‘What If?’" he told Watson. "I like to find those gaps in history, where what-ifs could have occurred. That's where great stories can be found. And my what-if here had to do with lost books—specifically lost atlases. What if early on in cartography, someone mapped an undiscovered land, then lost the atlas, then never went back? And what if someone FOUND that atlas, which detailed a map to a place that no other evidence on earth could prove to exist? Thus was born the Imaginarium Geographica."

Set in 1917, the self-illustrated work concerns three strangers—John, Jack, and Charles—who are given possession of the Imaginarium Geographica, an atlas of the imaginary lands from legend, myth, and fable. The trio journeys to the Archipelago of Dreams, where the forces of the Winter King threaten Arthur Pendragon's throne. The caretakers of the atlas are later revealed to be authors J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams; according to School Library Journal contributor Kathleen Isaacs, readers "with extensive reading background in both fantasies and mythology may be keen to identify the allusions" in the novel. Krista Hutley, writing in Booklist, offered praise for Owen's artwork, stating that his "amazingly detailed pen-and-ink illustrations, dark and atmospheric, lend a real storybook flavor."

The Search for the Red Dragon, the sequel to Here, There Be Dragons, takes place nine years after its predecessor. John, Jack, and Charles learn that someone is kidnaping children from the Archipelago of Dreams, and their investigation leads them to the Red Dragon, the last of the fabled Dragonships.

Though Owen strives to create entertaining comics and novels, he believes his works should serve a greater purpose. As he remarked to Watson, "I make the point that our stories are what define us as families, and communities, and cultures. And it is in sharing those stories that we come to understand other families, and communities, and cultures. And how can we do that, truly, if the stories we share do not contain at some level, the values that we hold and hope to preserve?"