If you are one of the owners of the 1st Limited edition of “Kooky Pets”, you may be familiarized with one of these drawings. They are some of the extra signed drawings that I produced as a give away of the 50 limited issues of the book.

The drawings of the members of the Kooky Pets team were given away to their owners and you have seen them all published in the book. So here a sample of a few more Kooky Pets Team members that are not featured in the book, but they’re also important (I have to say this so they don’t get offended).

One last notice: I forgot to tell you all that all the drawings are done in acid free paper and they have been prepared with fixative spray for their best conservation. Just ready to be framed!

Now that most of the copies of the 1st Edition of “Kooky Pets” are in your hands, there’s something that I’d like to share with you. As you may have seen, this book is dedicated to all the pets int he world.

When I first thought about a dedicatory, I realized I didn’t feel like dedicating it to someone in particular. For me, this is more of a common book where many people has collaborated. So I wanted to do something more extensive and I couldn’t think of anyone better than those pets who bring so much love to our lives. So I also added a personal dedicatory to the pets that have been important for Naomi and me and they’re now gone. Let me share with you “who is who”.

Txospi and Koldo, 1977

• Txospi. I have dedicated this book especially to Txospi “who was once my brother and intrepid companion of all my childhood’s imaginary adventures”. Yes, he came to live with us when I was 9 and he was one of the living creatures I’ve loved the most. He was a jolly Miniature Pinscher and my best friend. My childhood was a pretty lonely. My only sister was 6 years older and my mother was always away working hard, so I would spend most of the time at home by myself, drawing and making up stories in my head. That’s they way I became what I am today.

  Txospi was to me like the brother I always wanted. We were flesh and bone the two of us, but it only lasted for a couple of years because one tragic Sunday evening the dog run away from home. I found him in the street being eaten alive by two huge German Sheperds who had been killing other dogs in the neighborhood. They literally burst the poor dog tripes and when I reached him it was too late. It was a really hard moment for me and I still can tell how generous and benefiting his existence had been to my life.


Pipo and Neska

• Pipo came a few years after Txospi died. He was a black poodle and was very attached to my mother. My brother in law used to dislike him because of his constant barking. But one day, he had a big row with someone who tried to punch him and Pipo jumped and bit the aggressor’s leg. Ever since, my brother in law kept saying: “Good dog, Pipo, good dog”.
• Before he died, Pipo “married” my aunt’s black poodle, called Neska. When I was 16, she was still a little puppy, she fell in the frozen swimming pool. It was January and cold as a witch’s tit. The ice broke and in seconds Neska was sinking in frozen water, so I had to jump in and dive in to save her. I was probably inspired by reading so many Marvel comics like a fool…

  Finally, we both did OK. The issue is that, apart from getting frozen and soaked, there were no dry clothes for me in the house. So for the rest of the day, I had to wear stuff from other members of my family, including some pink panties from my sister. Yes my friends, this is how my career as a hero ended up. And it was the first and last time in my life I ever wore woman’s underwear because, apart from being unflattering and uncomfortable, it was really itchy!

• When Neska died she was replaced by Pulga but before that, she and Pipo had a little poodle baby called Niki. He was my third dog but not for a long time since soon I moved out of my family’s.


Cocolichi

• Cocolichi was the parrot at my grandpa’s bar in Madrid where I spent an important part of my childhood. He was a very clever fellow who could tell exactly the moment that my aunt was coming home from work regardless of the situation. He would just sense it and yell out her name. He also used to remove the mascara from her eyelashes with great care and patience.

  But the best about Cocolichi was his habit to say funny things to the bar customers. Like yelling out loud “Did you pay” when a customer was leaving the bar, much to his embarrassment. Sadly, he flew away in Madrid in the mid 70′s and we never saw him again. He was replaced by another parrot called Curro who is still alive and lives with my mom.

• Gigli and Caruso were two canary birds who used to live at my family’s during my early childhood. I can remember them singing beautifully all the time. My family paid a lot of money for them at the time because both of them were the children of two champions of bird singing competitions in Madrid. That’s why both of them were named after reputed opera singers.


Moon

• Moon was my first and only cat but only for a few months. When I told my mother that I was moving out of her place to travel around Europe in a Volkswagen’s van, she replied: “You can do what you please with your life but the cat stays with me” and that was setting stone.


Mambru at our place in Madrid

• In the early 2000′s, while Naomi and I lived in Spain, we used to babysit our friends pets when they would go on holidays. Mambru was the old cat from our best friends, Samper and Meia. When she got pregnant they had to spend a few months in Argentina so we took care of Mambru for the period.
• Around the same period of time, my mother married a man who lived in the same town. They both had they’re own house so they decided to sell his and live together at my moms. He had a very old cat called Nancy and they decided to leave her alone in the house to avoid problems with my mom’s pets. Of course, they took care of her and they would visit her once a day to feed her and spend soem time with her. But they once went on a vacation and someone who was supposed to watch the cat he accidentally left the poor cat locked inside a room for two weeks, in the Spanish hot summer with no water nor food.

  When they came back, Nancy was barely alive. Naomi and I saw were heartbroken so we decided to take the cat home with us for the short period that was left for us to be in Spain. We kept Nancy for a few weeks but the poor cat was really sick and psychologically messed up. Just before we moved to the US, my family decided to “put her to sleep”, which was really sad for us to hear.


Princess

• Princess was Naomi’s fav dog. She was a beautiful Sheltie and she really used to look like the statue of a proud princess when she used to brush her. She died in 2004. Before Princess, she had a little Guinea pig called Patches who used to cry out all the time.


Maggie and Lucy

• And Maggie… well, Maggie was the beautiful pet of one of the wonderful people who collaborated in the book: Tzaddi Gordon, alias Lady Tackle. Maggie passed away during the making of this book, just a few weeks before the publishing, and of course there is very a special room for her in our hearts. Tzaddi lives now happily with a beautiful lady called Lucy.

Pets are irreplaceable. They’re not human like some people pretends, they’re animals and of course they have a different way to sense life. But there’s something I know for sure: they sense love, they need love and they give all the love. It’s really worth the experience to have them around and I’d love to hear you talk about your pets here!

“Kooky Pets” has been generously reviewed by Wendy Edsall-Kerwin, one of the people who collaborated in the making of the characters from the book and a really unique jeweler. It’s a great honor for me to read about the book from someone who I consider so talented and skilled as Wendy. If you want to know what I mean just check out her one of a kind jewel designs. As I once told her, they seem to come from an ancient culture of pagan shamans!

Wendy says about “Kooky Pets”: “This book would make a great addition for anyone who loves the fantastical, odd, or just plain “kooky” things that life brings us if we just look for them.”

Thank you Wendy for bringing your portion of fantasy, oddity and kookiness to the book!

“Kooky Pets” has been reviewed by Folk & Fairy, one of my fav blogs. Written by Jessica Marie, is related with story telling, illustration, fairies, art and other visual arts. This is the second time that I feel honored for being featured in this blog, the first one was in June last year. It’s always great for me to be surrounded by posts about some of my most admired artists, such as Arthur Rachkam and Edmund Dulac!

If you are into folk stories, fairy tales, Victorian design and period illustration, you will love this blog as much as I do. Thank you Jessica!

The second batch of “Kooky Pets” book is here! I’m gonna get them all signed today and they will be shipped tomorrow Friday, so all USA residents might get them by next Monday.

Many of the first buyers have already received the book and so far they all seem to be very happy. I’m really excited about having all the books delivered to you. Please don’t forget to write your testimonial in the Testimonials post after you read the book. It really means a lot to me to hear how you feel about the book. This will also be very useful and helpful to my career and for the promotion of the 2nd edition of “Kooky Pets”.

Speaking of the 2nd edition, the book will be out in October this year and it will be available in all large online stores, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It will include a Foreword from one of the artists I admire the most, sculptor and doll maker Lorell Lehman. More details about the second edition to come…

Dear friends and Kooky Pets lovers, with great joy I want to announce that the 1st Limited Edition of “Kooky Pets” is now sold out!

I’m really amazed that the sales did so good and happy that you don’t have to wait until the deadline on the 8th of August. I want to thank again and again to all the people who made this possible: the people who collaborated from the beginnings of this project and to all who bought the book. Many of you are people who have just known now about my work. I’m really excited to all of you to have the book in your hands as soon as possible and meet the Kooky Pets bunch!

The good news is that the first batch of 20 copies arrived yesterday. Your original pencil drawings are ready too, so it’s only going to be a few days for me to sign and wrap them. They will probably be shipped next Friday, unless one of the characters run away from the book. But they all seem to be really excited about meeting you, so I believe they will all behave. The rest of 30 books are being ordered to print right now and they will be shipped in a couple of weeks from now. I will keep you all updated about it.

It’s such a pleasure to share this excitement with you! Love you!

My new book “Kooky Pets” has been reviewed today at the blogs of two generous people: Deb from Digital Mouse Design and Heidi Dobbs from Chrysalis. I’m really grateful that they took so much care to read the book and review it!

“There is much truth of self to be found in the Kooky Pet’s quirks and personalities. On first sight I thought this was going to be a children’s fairy tale and it would be wonderful bedtime read for the kids but the more I think about it, it’s got a subtle adult psychic kind of twist to it. The more I read the more obvious this became and the more I wanted to find out which Kooky Pet was me … but that will remain my secret!“, says Deb. I have to agree that I always intended this book to be more than a children’s book, so I’m glad that she mentions this point.

Read the full review here

Heidi has said: “I don’t have children, so I can’t share it with them. But you know, reading through this reminds me how much fun it was to play with the Kooky Pets of my childhood. It brings me so much joy to read and look at, I just might have to buy a copy to share with myself every night!”.

Read the full review here

In a word: this is a book for adult people who still keep a child inside. If you’re one of them and didn’t get a copy, there’s less than 15 copies of this Limited Edition left. If you want to pre-order yours you can learn more about it and buy it here.