The Kids Asked, We Answered: A look behind creating The Adventures of Team Brain

 

TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Jerome Cabanatan, Tara Gratto

 

Jerome Cabanatan  00:00

Like, you know, if you want to learn how to swim, then you're gonna have to jump in the water. If you want to make a book, if you want to make a book, you know that first draft, you know that first page that you write, that's not going to be the first page in the finished book.

 

Tara Gratto  00:12

Hello, and welcome. I'm Tara, the founder of Raising Resilient Children. As a longtime educator, former preschool owner and parent, I have been working with caring adults and children for over 20 years. In that time, I would ask a lot of questions and provide a lot of support and feedback. Through this, I built a system for navigating the hard and messy parts of parenting with clear paths that will support you and your unique family's needs. My expertise is in social emotional well being and I'm a big fan of using picture books. I even wrote one to support teaching children about emotional regulation called The Adventures of Team Brain. I know there is no cookie cutter approach to parenting and the information can be overwhelming. Let's tackle some of this by having some important conversations and digging into some different topics.

 

Tara Gratto  00:15

I'm super excited to be joined by Jerome Cabanatan. He is the co-collaborator and illustrator of The Adventures of Team Brain. So we had a really exciting time together. Last week, we were at a school where we did an author illustrator visit. And I was talking to him after and I said you know what, I really think we need to do a podcast episode about this because the kids asked such amazing questions. So actually sort of created this particular episode for you to listen with your children if you want to. So welcome, Jerome, how are you today?

 

Jerome Cabanatan  01:36

I'm doing great. It was it was a it was a fun Friday. And it's something that I look forward to doing.

 

Tara Gratto  01:44

Yeah,

 

Jerome Cabanatan  01:45

I like working with kids.

 

Tara Gratto  01:46

I know, right, is that I hadn't been with kids for a year, like in a teaching capacity with children. So for me, it was like, oh, yeah, I love that ah ha, I love seeing the like the glimmer in the eyes. It's so exciting. So hopefully, yes, I'm hoping that we will do more of these. Because I think I think one of the really cool things about it was getting the kids being able to ask us different kinds of questions. And also seeing that there's different kinds of possibilities, right? What does an author writer offer to the process? And what does the illustrator offer and just making it sort of fun and accessible. They were so engaged. I was I was so impressed with them. They had they were focused.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  02:27

That's right. That's the That's credit to the people that have them every day too.

 

Tara Gratto  02:31

Yeah, they did a great job preparing them. And part of part of preparing them was they gave us a list of questions. And that's actually what I wanted to talk about today on the podcast, because those questions were truly outstanding. So the Adventures of Team Brain, if you haven't looked at it, read it yet. It is about emotional regulation. It is about the three apps, the stress storms in life, right? It's about Fight, Flight Freeze. It's about how we can all be superheroes in our emotional regulation story. So that's what the book's about. But the kids asked us another layer, which then taught a whole other set of lessons. And I want to say the takeaway from my day and their day might be that that was part of sort of a new layer of learning.

 

So we talked about emotional regulation in the book. And then because of the book, we talked about things like perseverance, making mistakes, conflict resolution, and all kinds of things. So let's dig into these questions, because I loved them. All right.

 

Tara Gratto  03:33

So how long did it take to write the book? How long was the brainstorming? So how long did it take us?

 

Jerome Cabanatan  03:40

Oh, geez. I would say with with our own, with our own or other jobs I think it was about a year of back and forth since since the since the initial 'hey Jerome. I'm thinking about this.'

 

Tara Gratto  03:59

Yeah.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  04:00

Like 56 changes later we got started.

 

Tara Gratto  04:07

Yeah. So it was it was at least a year for sure. And I think part of the sort of brainstorming process was its I think it even started a bit before that. But understanding that this could be a book was definitely a year of, of thinking and discussing and getting started.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  04:26

I think, I think I would say from the start of the decision, this this is going to be the book about it. I would say it was about I think I think it was what six months.

 

Tara Gratto  04:35

Yeah. Yeah. It's actually doing my taxes. And I was like, oh here's where we started it was April last year.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  04:43

The tree doesn't start at, like at the surface, right. There's a lot of stuff that goes on underneath and we built we built that right.

 

Tara Gratto  04:55

We planted the seeds. Yes. All right. So then Next question they asked us was,

 

Tara Gratto  05:01

How did you cooperate to make this book? I loved this question.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  05:07

Yeah. I think the best way that we were cooperating was because we communicated, right, we communicated and we were open, we're open to change. And, you know, I was open to the fact that everything that I'm seeing may not be what you want to present and

 

Tara Gratto  05:23

right.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  05:24

And you're open to the fact that everything that that you want to present will be seen in a different way.

 

Tara Gratto  05:31

Yes. That was a big learning curve for me. It was a big learning curve for me to be like, here's this great concept. And you're like, Yeah, but there's no story.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  05:42

No, it was, uh. wWhenhen I when I, when I met when a table that cons when I, when I pitch it to people that walk by

 

Tara Gratto  05:49

Yeah.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  05:51

I explained who the author is. And I explain what she does. And I basically say, it's heavily researched. And she gave me all the science. And I made it cool.

 

Tara Gratto  06:03

Yeah. And that's, and that's how our conversation first started, right? Like, I sent you this like, document of literal like notes. I'm like, Well, here's the science. And here's fight flight freeze. And here's why. It's called reptile brain and right, and we sort of had that sort of conversation about, well, great. The science is awesome, but we need a beginning, a middle and an end. And I think it was

 

Jerome Cabanatan  06:25

almost like it had all the facts for like, all the facts in like, a,

 

Tara Gratto  06:31

like an encyclopedia.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  06:33

I can see where the cool spots would be almost like almost like, like an intro. Intro to, to a show.

 

Tara Gratto  06:40

Yes.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  06:42

You don't exactly. Know what happens. That's that's kind of where I was like, this is a cool trailer. Now what's gonna happen?

 

Tara Gratto  06:49

Right? Yeah. And it was also putting the pieces together, because they were sort of three distinct pieces of science that they didn't really fit together. And for me, one of the interesting parts of the process was trying to explain the science in a way that it did fit together, but also not because I mean, this science is not pure science, right? It's, we're still learning a lot about the mind and emotion. Like we're still learning a lot. So it's very, very much a playful take. And that was intentional, like this is grounded in science, but it's also about sort of speaking to kids and getting them to gravitate into it. And I think when you mentioned that you were sort of pitching it as you went along. I remember that being such an important part of the process, I had actually forgotten about how you would go to your events. And you'd be like, Okay, well, here's this concept, and you would kind of get feedback, and you would go to your taekwondo class. I think that's something we haven't actually shared yet.

 

Tara Gratto  07:41

We actually know each other. We've known each other for quite a long time, right. We used to do taekwondo together, you still do taekwondo, I need to get back to doing Taekwondo. So part of part of our martial arts background is that we are kind of already built to take feedback, and practice it and get better at it, I think that's really built into the way we sort of learned is this idea that you're not going to get it right the first time, or the second time, or even the fifth time that you're going to have to keep keep at it. So I think that was a really important point that you made that how you like, took it, and we went back and forth, and I had the science and

 

Tara Gratto  08:22

I also learned something really cool about this process. I learned how comic books work. I learned like as you as you're going along, you taught me so much about a whole language I didn't understand. It's taken me a long time to appreciate graphic novels and comics, I used to see them as kind of like supplementary. And I did a whole episode with Jared Lerner on this the idea that like we need to rethink what we think about comic books and and graphic novels. But you taught me a whole other layer, you're like, well, this means this and I was like, Oh, we don't have to use words to explain that. Right? You really helped me understand the value of words and the value of pictures, and that the two don't have to like explain each other all the time, that there's a narrative that's happening, that I wasn't aware of. So that was also really cool to sort of realize that there's a whole language built into the pictures.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  09:20

When when reading, when reading like things in comic form, it's like there's, there's the notion before that it's kind of like it's lower level, it's lower level reading. But there's, it's a different type. It's a different type of reading, because there's things there's things that you can read into, into a picture that you can't explain in that you can't you can't explain in the word, but sometimes

 

Tara Gratto  09:43

it's different.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  09:44

It's more effective with a silence, right? You don't need to, you don't need to explain every bit. You know, maybe some of the older comics all the comics in like the late 50s 60s would have a picture. Then the caption explains the picture, right? It's not necessary. It's not that necessary anymore. Like, if you see, even with something like, like emotions, with emotions, if you draw a picture of somebody that's mad, you don't have that have a title that says this person's mad.

 

Tara Gratto  10:17

Yes. For sure there's nuance. That's for picture books now too, it used to be.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  10:23

Yeah. And it becomes that's kind of like life, right? Sometimes if somebody's feeling a certain way, somebody's feeling a certain way. You can't ask them. How are you feeling? Sometimes? Because if you ask them how are they feeling? Fine. And then but you're training to talk their face, their body language, their, their, their gestures, their tone, is completely not fine.

 

Tara Gratto  10:44

right, which is, I think that's like, I mean, this is why it was so so important to me when I started this journey that I really wanted this type of illustration. Because in the social, emotional sort of book space, it's it tends to lend itself to one type of characterization tends to be sort of, you know, very soft and colorful and things like that. But I really wanted that action-figure superhero, I wanted a book that spoke to a totally different audience. So that was really important to me at the outset is this idea of what you're talking about, like how can we have pictures speak to children differently? So it was super intentional to do this comic book. So that was one of the reasons I actually self-published because I was like, No, I really want to work with a comic book illustrator. And I really wanted to work with you, because I had seen your journey. And I loved your story a couple weeks ago about how you've really like embraced this part of you this new sort of space.

 

Tara Gratto  10:44

Right.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  10:44

So I think, you know, maybe comics have done it. Perfectly yet. Right. But it's a, I think it's, it's the perfect path, I think it's the perfect path to, to be able to recognize certain certain body positions, certain certain faces, that, that people can easily recognize and easily recognized as frustrated, easily recognized as mad easily, easily recognized as calm. So they can do so you can get them to do whatever activity it is, as best they can, right? Just do it while it's while they're frustrated or have someone to do it while they're calm, or over excited. At the same, you won't get the same quality of activity

 

Tara Gratto  11:33

So the next question that we were asked is, where did you get the ideas. So for me, I got the idea for this book, because I used to run a preschool. And in my preschool, throughout my career, 20 years working with all types of ages of kids, I've always used books, as an avenue for teaching hard topics for teaching social emotional skills. I just I love using books. That's what I wrote my master's thesis on. But one of the things that I noticed is when it came to the specific idea of like teaching tools for feelings, practicing breathing, there isn't really anything out there. And I found when you help kids understand a bit about the why, that they're more on board with it. So if you just tell kids practice breathing quite often I like "no don't want to do that. That's boring, ugh, right." And then the moment they're even less so. And there's some sort of stuff behind that. So another amazing question that was asked is, where did you get the idea? And I think one of the things that was so important for me in this journey was, I used to go to preschool. And I've worked in education for over 20 years. And I've always used books to teach big topics to have hard conversations to build tools and skills for feelings. Because I think one of the things or I don't think I know, one of the things that we sometimes do is we teach children about emotions in hard moments when they're not in the learning headspace.

 

Tara Gratto  14:02

And so one of the reasons I love books is because you can have like kind of a hard conversation but make it more fun, more engaging, less abstract. And in this process, as I was sort of building out Raising Resilient Children, one of the things that I noticed is there was no books about emotional regulation that sort of delved a bit into the science, there was no books that were sort of action based. A lot of social emotional books tend to be like, I mean, it's, for lack of a better word, like softer. And I noticed that some of the kids that I work with, they just didn't gravitate to that style of learning. So it was really important to me that I sort of worked with a comic book illustrator, and I really wanted that graphic novel element to it. So when I was sort of creating the idea for The Adventures of Team Brain long before it was called that that's, that's a brainchild of, of Jerome the title, but it was this idea that when you help children understand the process of science in a really fun way, that they are the superheroes in their emotional regulation story, that they play a really important role in learning tools and skills, they're more likely to practice.

 

Tara Gratto  15:18

So if you're a parent who has ever tried to get your child to breathe in a difficult moment, and notice that they have no interest in breathing with you, that's why this book exists, if you have tried labeling your child's feelings in a difficult moment, and had that backfire, that's why this book exists. So the ideas came from empowering kids. And as sort of a side empowering adults because all of this is new, right? All of this idea about emotional regulation and making space for feelings. This is all really new stuff. So I wanted to sort of have a space a place that was fun to learn about this thing so that caring adults can learn alongside their children. But that's where the original idea for the book came from. And then I don't know Jerome, if you want to speak to like, where did the concepts for the characters come from? Because that's really your part of this?

 

Jerome Cabanatan  16:13

Well, when it comes to like, the look, and the look and what I was trying to do, the characters, the characters, they come from years and years of watching 80s, and 90s, cartoons and comics, and like, the video games, like any of the any of the cool looking characters that are about that size, I tried to try to, they're, they're inspired by and they're there. It's borrowed from so things like MegaMan, and I like looking at, like anyone that had a helmet, right? Anyone that had a helmet, those are those are things in terms of what it looked like. So I just scratched it out on a piece of iron man always has always had a cool looking thing. And I like flying. Well, I don't know exactly personally how to fly, but you know, it's nice, it's nice to draw them. So I and that's for the look of the characters themselves. In terms of how like how they move and how to express I, I still always go back to Scott McLeod's Understanding Comics. And, and his and watching his work as as he as he's grown, when he was younger. So things like you probably don't know, but there's a he has ahe has a comic called Saw, which was an independent thing. And, and it was a character that just from the future flew around, flew around shots of us it was an action comic, but in the language and the things that he did, visually, and how to how to how to tell stories. It was it's a masterclass. So I like to look back at it and always and, and study some of the techniques that he does try to wrap it around some, some science that has been given to me.

 

Tara Gratto  18:12

Awesome. I think like, a lot of the pieces also were like inspired by like, the where emotions brain evolves into full dinos slash dragon.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  18:23

That's the Incredible Hulk 

 

Tara Gratto  18:26

Slash pokemon Yeah, so I mean, I love I love how there's like all these different elements, and there's like, definitely parts of your personality. And that's one of the things that I learned, like through this process to was like, you know, we took this one idea about reptile brain and then turned it into a emotions brain, right? And how that can evolve. And what does that look like? And how can kids imagine right? How can kids imagine their brain flipping? And when it flips? How does that result in some changes, right? How does that result with some changes? So

 

Tara Gratto  18:59

alright, so the next question we were asked is, How did you choose the words? So I think this question is a great one. Because when I started this process, I was using way too many words, which we've already touched on this idea a little bit, but I was using a lot of words. And so the way it actually sort of the process evolved was in the beginning. I had, as we said, that draft of sort of science and facts and sort of ideas. And then Jerome took it and he created a little bit of concept art with it. And we went sort of back and forth, as we said, for many months on those concepts. And one of the things that sort of came out of that process is once the sort of comics was sort of put together as a sequence. That's when I did a layer of language and then it went back to Jerome again. So we went back and forth in that process multiple times to both reduce and sort of create spaces where there was going to be no words or the right types words. And it was really important to me that the books spoke to you, the reader. So the book talks to you about your brain about your sort of thinking brain, body, brain, emotions, brain and how, what's happening inside your head, because this is all about empowering you with becoming the superhero of your emotional regulation story. So that's sort of how the the written part happened.

 

Tara Gratto  20:25

Now, one of the great sort of secondary questions here is like, how did you cooperate when you made this book? So how did we cooperate to make it happen?

 

Jerome Cabanatan  20:35

Well, one of the things, I guess if it all goes, I think, during the actual during the actual talk, whenever I'm doing an actual talk, or or, or I'm at a con and I'm at a table, I have to resist the urge to just tell everybody Oh, just do taekwondo. Like, yeah, that was that's a that's a large part, that's a large part of martial arts isn't like he, even though we were competing in individually all the time, all the training that we would always do was always as a team. So I can't not make things work, I can't think that's, that's just something that has been drilled in just, it's, you know, being a sibling, right, being the sibling is too bad. That's your brother, that's your sister, you, you have you have to make it work. Umm what it was was, if it didn't work out, once it was done, we went, we went back and forth again, with again, and then eventually, being able to distill distill the words. So just so we didn't, I don't want to leave anything out. Because there was so much importance in in the, in the science and in the words behind it. But you know, that whole, that whole thing of just like, tell it to me like, I'm five,

 

Tara Gratto  22:00

alright, capture the story. Yes. Right.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  22:03

That's, that's kind of what I what I, what I wanted to get into, they just didn't want to miss anything. So what it was was, you would I remember thinking that you'd give you the science, and I tried to, I try to like, distill it. But then you would say, but this is missing. Oh, that's an important part. So let's fit that in there. And all the while making sure that, that the pictures and the pages had space, right. Had much space. Yes, that's so kind of in a traditionally with comments, a lot of times people will, they'll write everything first write everything first. And they'll know they'll know where the letters go, or like where the lettering goes. But because we weren't sure we did it the other way. Which also, which also people do, which also people do. For myself, when I work on my own things, I think, I think visually first, so I try to be able to tell the story without words first, and

 

Tara Gratto  23:13

then add the words

 

Jerome Cabanatan  23:13

melded it in, and then I'll fit it Oh, is trying to make space. I was trying to make space. So. So it's not too cluttered. But that was that was part of part of the process. Because it wasn't finalized. We knew what wanted to be said. But we just didn't know how to say.

 

Tara Gratto  23:29

Yeah. I think one of the things that was one of the things that was like a big like aha moment for me and our presentation on Friday with the kids was it was the first time I realized that we had we had conflict throughout. But it didn't feel like conflict, right? We did have several points where we did not necessarily agree on what was happening in the picture or what was happening with the language. But I didn't really think of it as as that until the kids were asking, like, how did you cooperate? How did you problem solve? And I was like, oh, yeah, there was a lot of perseverance that happened here and a willingness and openness to take feedback, right to be like, this isn't perfect, and I want your opinion.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  24:15

It was a I think both of us were just a product, of a product of our training in all aspects that we have collaborated with some with with other writers too. And yeah, a lot of times, right. I guess sometimes with in the schoolyard right in school. If something doesn't work, if something doesn't work, you cannot do it like you have you have that option. But as as adults and professionals it's - Oh, we've agreed to this already. Yes, we have to make it work. And it never it never felt struggling because I can't I know that Collaboration is just that, right? As you as you, you know, it's very, very rarely is it ever. I know exactly what I'm gonna do. I know exactly what I'm gonna do.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  24:15

Boom, it's gonna happen. But I think kids don't realize that.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  25:18

That's also not fun.

 

Tara Gratto  25:21

True

 

Jerome Cabanatan  25:22

I like to I, when I like to always use the analogy, like when you play sports, the thing that makes the thing that makes the sport hard. That's the fun part of the sport, right? Soccer's not soccer is not as fun. If you can just, if you can just pick it up and chuck it. Right. It's, it's, it's the rules, right? It won't be as fun. It's the rule is the rule set. It's the limitations of anything that that make it interesting that make it fun. Basketball is not as fun if the net is only five feet high.

 

Tara Gratto  25:56

Right? Is that the element of challenge. Yeah, and I and I'm gonna say working with kids right now. And families right now, we are a little bit afraid of challenge. We're a little bit afraid of conflict or a little bit afraid of not getting it right the first time. And I think that's why one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation is because that was an aha moment for me on Friday. We take that for granted. Right? I 100% took for granted that we were just collaborating and that part of our journey was going to be getting the thing done, and having it be something that we're both proud of. I took that for granted. And when when the kids asked us that question, I was like, Oh, I shouldn't take that for granted. Because there's a whole other layer there where our book wouldn't be awesome. And it wouldn't exist. If we hadn't been willing to try and fail. Make mistakes. Disagree. It was about how you disagree, right? Did we ever have blowouts? No. Right? We talked through things. And we said things and we're like, Okay, this isn't working for me, or that's not working. Right. It was very much about how can we use kindness to disagree. But I had taken that point for granted.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  27:06

That's the part where I where I say that too. Like i i Take it all for granted. Because my excuses. I was like, Wait, you didn't do taekwondo. Before Yeah, you should start, like those are my go to answers. But that does. That clears it up for me. But it doesn't clear it up for them. So that's why I resist the urge. Like maybe at the end, maybe at the end, I'll say you should go to this like recommend.

 

Tara Gratto  27:36

Martial Arts is for everybody.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  27:40

It is

 

Tara Gratto  27:40

All right, so our next question is for you. And that was what kind of materials did you use to make the illustrations? Like what? What was that process? Like if I'm going to say say that working with you, I didn't realize the process either. That was also a journey for me.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  27:58

Okay

 

Tara Gratto  27:58

not not sort of realizing the different phases. Of course, when you write you write a draft, you fix the draft, you edit the draft until the final product. And I don't know why I didn't apply that idea to you. So where did it start? To where did and like what are the different sort of materials that you used

 

Jerome Cabanatan  28:16

Dollar store schedule was such a strong book and, and ballpoint pen. And the only reason why it's a ballpoint pen is because I somehow have a giant bag of ballpoint pens.

 

Tara Gratto  28:30

And that's what it was.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  28:34

I'm not quite sure how I think it was, I think maybe somebody

 

Tara Gratto  28:38

Probably from a tournament

 

Jerome Cabanatan  28:39

something and I just have a bag of ballpoint pens, and nothing fancy, but I just I don't like to waste stuff. I don't like to waste stuff. I just grew up that way and I don't make something out of nothing. And then I kind of have that. I kind of have that inside. I think a lot of people that create things Yeah, so we just they just

 

Tara Gratto  29:05

well, it's about embracing and perfectionism like on Friday it was very notable and I don't know if you noticed this when you're like we're going to use both sides of the paper. Some kids really struggled with that when you when you were like we're gonna do this on one side and we're going to flip it over they were like you could see the hesitation in their eyes where they were like Oh I don't like that idea. I want another piece of paper for my final product

 

Jerome Cabanatan  29:28

that's why we that's why we started with that's why we started with make a bunch of this make a bunch of this and that frustrated a few kids. Like I don't know, what are you telling me to do? Yeah. That was it. It was it was perfect because we got to apply everything that they

 

Tara Gratto  29:50

Stop breathe think

 

Jerome Cabanatan  29:52

Hey, look, they drew Wonder Woman and s Spider Man and

 

Tara Gratto  29:55

that was profound. Start with a pencil. Sorry pen.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  30:00

I use the I use that, but I have grown to like the pen a lot because I don't erase. I don't erase, I just, I either make it right or I start or I start a new thing. As soon as, as soon as I start erasing, I can erase forever. And then after an hour, I have no picture. So that's no fun. So I, I, I just basically dumped my brain, whatever I'm thinking about, I dumped my brain on on the page and whatever looks good, I might, I'll redraw it again on a on a second page. And then when I have an idea of what it's  supposed to look like, I'll take a picture on like, I'll take a picture on my on my iPad, take a picture of it on my iPad, tighten it up, tighten it up. And then I make like a like a dummy after how's the pages. So this is this is the first iteration of words, despite it being sketched out. So just so I can get a feel of the pages, I like having it in my hand.

 

Tara Gratto  31:02

You need that physical, physical book

 

Jerome Cabanatan  31:06

And inside it just it's a tangible, it's a tangible step. Right. Moving forward with this. So then I do that. And then I color it. Then I color it. And it's

 

Tara Gratto  31:22

Yeah, I think that was a surprised me so much. We didn't color it for quite a while.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  31:27

Yeah,

 

Tara Gratto  31:27

it was a lot of back and forth before there was any color.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  31:33

I'll go through this, go through that. And then once once I've gone once I've gone through all of those once I've not drawn those, then we send it send it off to send it off to the printers and then yes, and then

 

Tara Gratto  31:46

it took us a while to get the name to like the name of the book. And I was like I get it. I was sitting on stress. I was like, this book has no name. What's going to be the name? How are we going to name this thing?

 

Jerome Cabanatan  31:58

I always do the cover and the name at the end.

 

Tara Gratto  32:02

Yeah.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  32:03

Because I don't like sometimes I wish like, even like with my with my own kids like, I wish I had like a month or two to know you first before I named you because then I would kind

 

Tara Gratto  32:19

of have some Oh, interesting. Okay.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  32:21

But yeah, that's I just feel like I know what the book is. And I know who the characters are, that I'm able to name it and make a cover for it at the end.

 

Tara Gratto  32:30

Right.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  32:31

I've done it the other way. And I've had an I've had like the name first. Yes, they first have the cover first. I feel I feel bound

 

Tara Gratto  32:42

limited

 

Jerome Cabanatan  32:42

Yeah. That cover and which has sometimes created something nice too. So I like to do things a little bit differently. No rules.

 

Tara Gratto  32:55

Yes. Oh, sorry.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  32:58

Yeah.So then I just I like to. So it's a lot of Sketchbook, sketchbook and, and an iPad. And before an iPad, it was it was a little tablet. And it's not, it's not a necessary thing to do. I've made. I've made like, full just pen and marker comics. And you I've made a whole book written drawn on the computer with my finger.

 

Tara Gratto  33:29

can't even imagine.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  33:30

So it's not the right. If you can get it done. Right. Right. And that's, that's my whole thing for any kind of comic stuff is you, you go and you get it done. And it's most things in my life is. However, wait, however way it gets done. Is is the way it gets done. You can do it the perfect way and not have it done. Or you can do an imperfect way to have it done. And life's not perfect. Life's not perfect. So,  but done is better than perfect.

 

Tara Gratto  34:02

Right?

 

Jerome Cabanatan  34:03

There is things in life this doesn't apply to. But when it comes to when it comes to creating when it comes to art when it comes to writing, I don't for myself, I don't think that I've done my best work yet. I I gave myself for when I when I started, I'm going to do this.

 

Tara Gratto  34:29

Yeah,

 

Jerome Cabanatan  34:30

I'm gonna give before I start criticizing myself, I'm going to give myself 1000 pages. I'm going to do 1000 pages, I'm going to celebrate every 1000 pages, whether it's like my sketchbook or like things that don't come out, but whatever 1000 pages that I do, then I can reassess. And then then what then after that, I can't count those anymore because then I have to do like my 1000 published pages,

 

Tara Gratto  34:53

right

 

Jerome Cabanatan  34:54

And then once I have those 1000 published pages that I can,

 

Tara Gratto  34:56

This sounds like perfecting kicking  First, I'm gonna start with 1000 kicks then I'm gonna start with

 

Jerome Cabanatan  35:04

It's wall drills.

 

Tara Gratto  35:05

That's exactly what I thought of. I was like, See, Jerome applies Martial Arts to everything.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  35:13

Like when you know that when you're doing like chesttest protected drills, and everyone likes to hit stuff, right? Everyone likes to hit stuff in the context of martial arts don't

 

Tara Gratto  35:23

don't take that to runway

 

Jerome Cabanatan  35:27

But when you're when you're learning how to hit, then you have to learn how to get hit.

 

Tara Gratto  35:32

Right? Some people don't like, that's the last fun part. Yeah.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  35:37

Everybody wants everybody wants to, like, you know, if you want to learn how to swim, then you're gonna have to jump in the water. If you want to make a book, if you want to make a book, you know that first? You know, that first page that you write? That's not going to be the first page in the finished book? Yeah.

 

Tara Gratto  35:53

Right. That's for surveillance, for sure. All right. Our last question is, I think one of my favorite questions, because there was a lot of thought put into this. The last question is, why did you make the pictures as brains?

 

Jerome Cabanatan  36:11

Oooo. Oh, one of the main reasons why I wanted to draw the pictures as brains was

 

Jerome Cabanatan  36:21

I wanted, I wanted it to be at the same time. I wanted kids to identify like, like, every time for kids to be able to identify regardless of gender, or race or anything like that. But at the same time, I wanted it to be I wanted them to see it as something completely different and weird as well. Right? Because, like, we drew like, I drew, if I drew like, a shaved head Filipino kid.

 

Tara Gratto  36:53

Yeap.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  36:54

It would be fine. But then there's be some kids that would be like,

 

Tara Gratto  36:58

that's not me

 

Jerome Cabanatan  36:59

that's great. But that's, that's not me.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  37:02

Yeap

 

Jerome Cabanatan  37:02

Right, if I can put if I can make it as brains, and it's already weird, than it's already not them. But everybody relates, everybody relates to it in the same way because

 

Tara Gratto  37:12

right.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  37:13

Body's got a brain? Yeah, everybody's got a brain. But you know, there's just no real there's no real color or gender. That's, that's associated with it. But I also didn't want it to be. I didn't want to really have to be an advertising point or anything of it being being genderless or raceless, or anything like that. Yes. Yeah, I didn't want to get I didn't want to get into into that conversation. Because I don't have much to say about that about that converation But I do know that kids like to see something. Kids like to see something fun, weird and  they can associate with. And yeah, if it's, if it's all brains, and we're talking about brains, like I didn't want to haveI didn't want to have

 

Tara Gratto  38:08

just emojiis or whatever, yeah

 

Jerome Cabanatan  38:10

just have to be tied down to one particular one particular thing. So even if I made the emotions brain when it's calm a dog, and then it turns into a dino, if people say, that doesn't make sense, like, well, there's brains on the top of their heads the whole time of this, none of this stuff.

 

Tara Gratto  38:27

yeah, this is playful. For sure. It's very playful.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  38:31

It's nice. It was a nice way to it was a nice way to be able to show science and whimsy. At the same

 

Tara Gratto  38:40

together. Yeah, no, I think that's true. And for me, one of the things I talked to all the time is that emotions are everywhere. Everybody experiences them, it doesn't matter where you live, it doesn't matter what part of the planet you're on. It's almost like the universal language, right? It's the one thing that everyone everywhere experiences. And it's shaped differently by where you live by your culture by some of these things we're talking about. But the truth is, and that's what the whole goal of team brain is, you are responsible for your emotional regulation story. So we do we need it to be seen as you write, how can it speak to children worldwide? How can it speak to children about other children? Right, so like the, the lesser talked about component of social emotional intelligence is that you have feelings, and so does everybody else, and how everyone experiences those feelings is unique to them. So how can that be showcased? And I think that you did such an amazing job with the brains in that regard. And you saw that I don't know if you saw it on Friday, but like when you were explaining this, their faces are like, oh, yeah, right. And they could look around the room and be like, I get it now. I get and I think that was again when when there is I want to have this conversation. Like none of this was magic. There's thought put into every layer. And so the seeing the kids have that revelation of like, oh, they did that so that it could be me. And my friend, and my classmate and my neighbor and my parent, right? It could be all these things, just by sort of making a comic book brain head So I love that.

 

Tara Gratto  38:51

Well, thank you so much for joining me this conversation today. And I hope that our listeners will if you haven't got it yet, you have to head out to Amazon worldwide. You can get it anywhere in the world on Amazon, The Adventures of Team Brain. And yes, we are thinking about what's next. That was the last sort of question. So we haven't figured that out yet. But there is going to be a what's next. Thank you for joining me Jerome.

 

Jerome Cabanatan  40:51

No problem adventures was plural.

 

Tara Gratto  40:54

Yes, that was also part of the naming process. I'll leave you with that.

 

Tara Gratto  41:01

Thanks so much for listening. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss future episodes. You can also submit questions or comments to me at Tara gratto.ca forward slash podcast. I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, have a great one.