Agent Moose and Friends!

Agent Moose by Mo O'Hara and Jess Bradley (Scholastic, 2022)

Look out! There's a new Moose in town! 

Agent Moose is a delightful, new graphic novel for younger children - always a good thing, on both counts! - and I've had the pleasure to be asked to interview its author, Mo O'Hara, to celebrate the publication of the book. 

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I am SO delighted to read a graphic novel that is aimed at younger readers. I just know books like Agent Moose will be widely enjoyed and pave the way to explore graphic novels as they grow up too. The bright colourful pictures and engaging characters really pop out at the reader. But you don't hold back with the complexity of the vocabulary or the humour. How do you see the connections between the written text and the pictures? What do you want your readers to remember and enjoy about the written side of the graphic novel?

I love the fact that you can be a bit more daring with vocabulary choice in a graphic novel than in a chapter book, because kids can glean the meaning of the word through the pictures as well as the context of the surrounding text. Graphic novels are a fantastic way of expanding kids’ vocabulary actually. I think what I want the reader to remember is the voice of the characters. I want the dialogue to be authentic to each individual character so that you can tell that that is an Owlfred line or an Anonymoose line straight away. And I want them to find it funny.

Character really shines through in the book. What makes a great character in a graphic novel?

I think with a graphic novel or with any book you have to really care about a character to want to spend that much time in their head or sitting on their virtual shoulder. Connection with a character is vital for me. All authors and illustrators start their books differently but, for me, it starts with the character. Anonymoose came to me first as an idea and then I built the world, the situations, and the other characters around him. Actually, although Agent Moose came first and very clear in his voice, Owlfred followed along very quickly. Seeing them as a double act really cemented the way that I envisioned the story.

Who is your favourite character in Agent Moose?
I think my favourite character is actually Owlfred. Anonymoose is great. I mean he is a 7-

foot furry moose who is a master of disguise- what’s not to love? But Owlfred brings real heart to the books. He’s an ordinary owl who doesn’t have a superpower, yet he steps up anyway. He uses his brain and his reluctant bravery to get out of tricky situations and he notices things. He is a classic detective who never misses a clue.

Why does Agent Moose work specifically so well as a graphic novel, rather than a standard novel? What drew you to the form for this book?

I think it works because a moose dressing up as a palm tree or a DaVinci painting is just intrinsically funny. We want to see it. There is so much opportunity for visual humour in the story and in the characters. It also works because of Jess Bradley’s amazing illustrations. Every time I get to see a new section that she has drawn there is something fresh that will crack me up.

I was drawn to graphic novels for a couple reasons. I loved comics as a kid. My brother collected comics, so I was literally surrounded by them from an early age. I didn’t read any graphic novels myself until about 10 years ago though. I came across some fantastic storytelling in that form. I used to be an actor before I was a writer, so I’ve always liked visual storytelling. Graphic novels seemed to have this filmic quality to them. They were the perfect combination of visual and written storytelling.

Many graphic novels draw on filmic technique, though in Agent Moose I thought this was particularly strong (such as the cut at the end of Chapter 3 going into Chapter 4!) Did you consciously think visually when you created the narrative?

Thanks. I definitely see the story in a storyboard format as I’m writing it now. I do that with all my writing actually. I think in scenes rather than chapters. For the Agent Moose books though we came up with some clear and consistent ways of showing the story unfold in a very cinematic way. There are establishing shots at the start of each chapter. Sometimes they are a reveal like in the one you describe. There are overhead shots and tight close ups. Graphic novels really reflect cinema and use a lot of similar techniques. But there are also little quirky things that you can do in a graphic novel that you couldn’t necessarily do in a movie like the little boxes in the corner of a frame saying, ‘grinding teeth’ and pointing to Agent Moose’s teeth when he is frustrated or ‘gloating smile’ when Camo thinks he has won. Jess is a master of the visual quirky comic aside.

Can you tell us more about your creative process for Agent Moose? How did the collaborative effort work? How was it different from writing a traditional novel for children?

I set out to write the first script for Agent Moose (and it is called a script for a graphic novel rather than a manuscript) with three things in mind. I wanted it to be like a buddy movie between Agent Moose and Owlfred. I wanted to have a world that was funny but warm hearted, with lots of eccentric supporting characters. And I wanted it to be a proper mystery where you had to follow clues and didn’t quite know the pay off until the end. I went through a few drafts on my own and then showed it to my Agent who showed it to my editor. Then we started working on the script to make it as good as it could be and to really optimise the potential for visual humour. Then it was ready to send to Jess to start to illustrate. Jess had done character drawings already that were fantastic, so she had a great line on who these characters were already. Then the book started to take shape. The art director and Jess honed the drawings and the editor, and I worked on the script more and more. Each aspect fed off each other. I put in lines because of something Jess drew, and we cut things that were unnecessary because the illustrations conveyed the meaning.

Writing any book is more collaborative than most people think, but writing a graphic novel is very collaborative. I learned so much from working with the team that put this book together. And I can’t wait to share Agent Moose -Moose on a Mission with you this summer. Once we had book one under our belts it was even more fun to create book two. We really got to explore the characters and go wild with the disguises. Watch this space.

Thanks so much, Ben, for all your insightful questions. It’s been great doing this interview.

An absolute pleasure, Mo! Hope to see more from the Agent Moose gang very soon!

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Agent Moose by Mo O’Hara and Jess Bradley is out now!