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An Interview with Fernando Moguel

moguel

Fernando J. Moguel (pen name: Mr. Pendlum) is a Mexican-American creative communicator, author, educator, and multi-disciplinary artist. His passion is using his creativity to inspire curiosity. He is based in Houston, Texas.

Mr. Pendlum is an AI cloud of particles that manifests as a clock-like figure and likes to speak in rhyming verse.


Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

As a kid, I always loved creating characters and stories. Everywhere I’d go, I would have a notebook and pencil with me. I’d sit in the car on the way to the store, or maybe soccer or piano practice, and spend the whole ride doodling, drawing characters, creating a new alphabet, making up stories. I have my parents and brother to thank for always enabling and encouraging my curiosity and creativity.

In terms of what made me want to write my illustrated poetry book: I didn’t set out to write this book from the start. I didn’t have the concept in mind from the beginning. I didn’t even plan to write a poetry collection

Though, I have always loved writing poetry and have wanted to write a book since I can remember. In fact, I still have some of my manila folder, scrap paper, pencil-written, stapled “books” that I wrote and illustrated when I was about 7 or 8. Some of those classic titles include I Like To Eat, The Planets, and Monsters. When I think about it, those three titles sum up Mr. Pendlum’s Compendium pretty nicely.

Poetry is something I’ve always loved writing. At some point, I started writing a few poems that were educational, inspired by topics that interested me. Two of the first were “Galileo Galilei” and “Maneki Neko” (the friendly cat you often see waving at you at Asian restaurants or stores). As I wrote more of these poems, I started building a collection, and eventually I decided that at some point it would be nice to compile them into a collection. This was in 2017. From about the time that I started writing with this intention, it took me six months to have a completed illustrated collection in physical print (in very expensive photography paper; each copy was costing me about eighty bucks). I didn’t know what I was doing and it took me a bit to navigate the self-publishing world.

Anyway, that was the first prototype. Mr. Pendlum’s Compendium of Illustrated Verse from the Multiverse Vol 1. I would take it around and give it away to people. At the time, I was managing a TV studio at an international school, so I got to read it to classes of students.

Throughout the next several years, I tweaked, added, removed, adjusted, tweaked again. I added a few more poems about female historical figures. I added hidden objects to find in the illustrations. I took out poems, including one that could potentially have been misconstrued and seen as encouraging people to take pills without reading the labels (I could imagine myself getting sued). I played with and adjusted the background and cover colors multiple times (and yes, I would print new copies along the way to see how they looked, perhaps thinking this might be the “final version.”

Eventually, in late 2022, I finally self-published. It’s taken me a while, but I recently have been shifting more and more focus towards promoting, getting the word out, being active on social media, attending book-related events, and engaging with my local community and the writer and author communities.

And, of course, I’m working on a few new collections, including Volume 2 of The Illustrated Multiverse, and another sub-series under the Mr. Pendlum’s Compendium series, called Quirky Character Quotes.

What inspired you to start writing this book?

Too many things to name inspired this book. This book is basically a big melting pot of my many different interests and passions. Astrophysics, psychology, literature, biology, mythology, neuroscience—I draw inspiration from all kinds of topics and disciplines, and I glue it all together with my love of storytelling, character-making, world-building, poetry writing, music composition, and illustration.

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

I feel like I discovered my book’s concept and title, more than I created it. I wanted to encapsulate the idea that it was a collection of all sorts of concepts and things. Codex, miscellany, encyclopedia? All good words for a collection.

At the same time, I had a character that had become prominent in my project that I call “The Syneverse,” which is basically my universe of stories, characters, music, and music videos. This character’s name was Mr. Pendlum, and originally I created him as a visual representation of time for the music video concept of one of my songs: “Plato’s Cave.”

At some point, I started including some of my songs as part of my poetry collection, and then integrating more of my characters and stories along with the other more “factual,” educational poems that I had been writing and compiling.

“Compendium.” Another good word for a collection. Sounds all-encompassing, epic. Ah, and it goes along well with my character’s name, Mr. Pendlum. Mr. Pendlum’s Compendium. I like it. That became the name of my overarching series.

This particular collection needed a subtitle. “…of Illustrated Verse from the Multiverse” was a nice continuation from “Mr. Pendlum’s Compendium” that summed it up nicely. Eventually I shortened that to “The Illustrated Multiverse.” And Volume 1? Well, I want to create as many volumes as I can. I juggle many other things, so let’s see how many I can complete before it’s my time to join Mr. Pendlum in his dimension.

There you have it. Roughly, that’s how I arrived at Mr. Pendlum’s Compendium-The Illustrated Multiverse Vol. 1.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

Actually, in a sense, my book DOES have a soundtrack! Music is a big part of what I do: I love composing and producing. I wanted the poetry to go beyond the page, so each illustration of the poem I get animated, and then I record the narration and create a musical score to go with the background of the narration, thus creating animated musical poetry! The style of the music that I create for this project is a mix of styles. It’s cinematic, otherworldly, with quirky electronic textures and rhythms.

Describe your dream book cover.

I’ve always loved doodling, and I taught myself to illustrate. I designed and illustrated the book cover myself. It’s a montage of so many of the quirky characters and things that are found in the book, kind of like a big, epic movie poster, with my main character, Mr. Pendlum, in the center of everything and everyone. When I started writing the poems, I didn’t have any concept for a cover in mind. But as the project grew and I created more and more poems and illustrations, I had more characters, objects, and assets, and I started putting them together, and that’s how I built the cover illustration, bit by bit. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, so you can say it’s my dream cover!

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I’ve had the fortune of doing many different things. From very early on I worked as a performer, dancer and actor. I was one of the Barney kids on a two-year live-stage show (yes, Barney the Dinosaur). I toured all around the US and Canada, and performed in major venues like Radio City Hall in front of thousands. I was nine and ten years old during that time. On that tour, I met The Wiggles (the hit children’s Australian musical group that sings “Hot Potato and other classics). I did a video with them, which led to many more years touring and performing with them. At age 15, I was cast as the Yellow Wiggle for the Latin-American Wiggles. Later on, I managed a TV studio at an IB world school, then later I worked as a product manager for an ed-tech company. After that, I was a communication specialist for the Department of Education for the City of Houston. And throughout, I’ve also worked as an illustrator, scriptwriter, musician, producer, photographer, video producer and editor, children’s music writer, short film composer, and more! I feel very grateful that I’ve gotten to work across so many areas and disciplines that have fed my many different interests and passions!

What books did you read (for research or comfort) throughout your writing process?

I’m an obsessive buyer of books and a voracious reader. No, really, I have a book-buying problem. It’s not the worst problem to have. I love books, and have so many “favorites” that I could name. I also love reading on all sorts of topics and subjects. Some of my favorite subjects are: astrophysics, philosophy, mythology, sci-fi fiction, poetry, psychology, and business. Some authors and thinkers that I love are Malcolm Gladwell, Neil Gaiman, Carlo Rovelli, Phillip Pullman, Carl Sagan, Adam Grant, Dr. Seuss, Edward Gorey, Shel Silverstein, Liu Cixin, Ted Chiang, Ken Liu—I’ll stop there before I get too carried away. It all feeds into my creative process, one way or another. Every idea is a pastiche of other ideas. There are no original ideas, just different ways of putting existing ideas together in new and clever ways. I think, the wider your palette, the more you have to draw from and the more “original” your pastiche can be.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

The world, the universe, it’s all full of fascinating concepts and things. My mission is simple: I want to inspire curiosity through my creativity. That is the heart and soul of my book, and my work in general. My perfect reader is anyone who I can inspire to follow their curiosity and nurture their love of learning, especially the youth.


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