SMASH: Trial by Fire - Hardcover

My younger brother, Kyle, and I grew up reading and loving comic books. Kyle is an artist and I'm a writer, so we always dreamed about creating our own comic... but for years we were unable to find a project that we both wanted to work on.

Then, as (mostly) grown adults, we had a stroke of inspiration to create the sort of all-ages comic we would have loved when we were kids.

What did we want more than anything in the world when we were 10 years old? Our own super-powers, of course!

That was the birth of Smash, our series about a 10-year-old boy who unexpectedly gains the powers of his superhero idol -- along with his villains. It took many years to develop the idea, and we submitted it to numerous comic publishers, who all politely rejected it, on the grounds that "kids' comics don't sell."
What a difference a few years can make! The success of kids' graphic novels like Bone, Amulet, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid (a fellow webcomic-to-book convert) showed the book publishing industry there is a big audience for kids' comics. We'd started publishing Smash as a webcomic, but we never stopped wanting to see it as a book.

Eventually, we were fortunate enough to interest the world's greatest literary agent, Bernadette Baker-Baughman, who managed to entice Candlewick Press, home of Kate DiCamillo, Waldo, Judy Moody, and other superstars of children's books. And now, we're thrilled to present the first volume of Smash, in glorious full-color!

We hope you enjoy Trial by Fire. To find out more about the book and our process of creating it, please visit our website at SmashComic.com. And thanks for reading our dream come true!

Super Strong.
Super Fast.
Super Young!

Andrew Ryan dreams of having the strength and abilities of his superhero idol, Defender. Then he could stand up to his big brother, face down the school bully, and never be afraid of anything -- or anyone -- ever again.

KA-BOOM! When he is clobbered by fallout from a blast that kills Defender, Andrew's wish may have just come true. Now it's up to him to protect the citizens of Seatown from thieves and thugs. Not to mention the Magus, a fearsome villain who will stop at nothing to steal Smash's superpowers for himself! Andrew dons a homemade costume to hide his identity -- and Smash is born!

But fighting crime isn't easy when you're in fifth grade. And it takes a lot more than superpowers to be a hero...