Behind the Old Aparador

as her eyes adjusted to the gloom…

story by Cyan Abad-Jugo

illustration by Lala Gallardo

The first time I read this I said mmm… then oh—
shivered a little, wiped my eyes, then sighed with relief.
Two years after, I still feel that way.

When we started to put this book together Lala and Waya Gallardo had just won the Gaiman prize for comics and I knew that I needed Lala to illustrate for GL2 (that was our code for Night Monkeys before we settled on a title).

We gave her two options, Aparador (which felt perfect for her) and Peace Crane (only because I knew that she was a geek for WW2). She chose Aparador and when she emailed the studies I was over the moon. They were beautiful and unexpected. And the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you've made a good match (between writer-illustrator) is immeasurable.

Last week I went over the story one more (no one more, no, just one more) time to check for typos and inconsistencies and I approved the digital-proofs for the illustration. I just have to pray that I didn't miss anything; that nothing goes wrong with the plating; that the colors on press are right. That everything is just-so.