Del Rey To Publish TWO NEW Graphic Novels
Starring Dean Koontz’s “Odd Thomas”

NEW YORK, NY – June 23, 2010 – Del Rey Books, an imprint of Ballantine Books at the Random House Publishing Group, announced today that it has acquired two new graphic novels starring Odd Thomas, perhaps the most memorable and beloved character Dean Koontz has ever created. The charismatic young fry cook from Pico Mundo, California has appeared in four New York Times bestselling novels: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, and Odd Hours. Odd, who has the ability to communicate with the dead, has inspired more readers’ letters than any other of his characters, according to Koontz.

Del Rey’s previous graphic novel starring Odd—In Odd We Trust—is in its 6th printing and continues to sell strongly. A second, Odd Is On Our Side, written by Fred Van Lente and Dean Koontz, goes on sale October 5, 2010. Both were illustrated by artist Queenie Chan.

Like In Odd We Trust and Odd Is On Our Side, the new graphic novels will be original stories set in the time period before the events of Odd Thomas and based on extensive outlines written by Dean Koontz. The first, Odd Is My Co-Pilot, will be scripted by well-known comics writer James Kuhoric and illustrated by Queenie Chan. The second new graphic novel will be scripted by Landry Q. Walker and illustrated by Ikari Studio. Publication is planned for 2011-2012. The projects were acquired by Betsy Mitchell, Del Rey editor in chief.

ABOUT THE CREATORS:
Dean Koontz is the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers. He lives with his wife, Gerda, in Southern California.

Award-winning author James Kuhoric has worked on dozens of comics and graphic novels, including Stargate SG-1, Battlestar Galactica, Army of Darkness, and Freddy vs Jason vs Ash, as well as his original creations Legendary Talespinners and Dead Irons.

Landry Q. Walker is best known for translating film and television projects to the comic book medium. His recent work includes creating both the popular "little monster" series “The Super-Scary Monster Show” and the critical smash all-ages series Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade.

Queenie Chan was born in 1980 in Hong Kong and now lives in Australia. She is the creator of a mystery-horror series called The Dreaming for Los Angeles-based manga publisher Tokyopop.

Ikari Studio is a group of illustrators from Barcelona. Among their titles are The Monster Book of Manga series, the art for three manga series contained in the Spanish edition of the Japanese magazine Bs'Log, and the art for the two videogames for the Nintendo DS: "Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ" and "Animal Boxing."


ABOUT DEL REY:
Del Rey (http://www.delreybooks.com) was founded in 1977 as a division of Ballantine Books under the guidance of the renowned Judy-Lynn del Rey and her husband, Lester del Rey. Del Rey publishes the best of modern fantasy, science fiction, alternate history and manga. Ballantine Books is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, which is a publishing group of Random House, Inc, the U.S. publishing company of Random House, the trade book publishing division of Bertelsmann AG, one of the world’s leading international media companies.