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Songwriter, bassist, graphic novelist, and accomplished artist — with a resume spanning decades of creative success, Alan Robert is about to be drawn into another iconic world with his release Beetlejuice: The Official Coloring Book.
Alan has carved out a unique niche creating horror-inspired adult coloring books (not that kind of adult). He sat down with us to talk about his love for iconic Beetlejuice scenes, his favorite pages in the coloring book, and his unique experience in finding his passion as a multi faceted creative. Playboy also got a sneak peak at the new single and music video from his band Life of Agony, which is now streaming worldwide!
Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity—watch the video clips to see more detail!
Alan’s journey with adult coloring books began with the most horrifying place he had ever been. So naturally, that’s where we had to start the interview.
Playboy: Have you ever come across any venue bathrooms grosser than CBGB’s?
Alan: CBGB’s took the cake. There wasn’t even a stall! There have been some very close seconds, probably in Europe somewhere. Maybe France, where there was just a hole in the tile…
Playboy: Your daughter’s coloring inspired you to get into this. Does she color what you draw now or is she not old enough yet?
Alan: She’s a big horror fan. She’s 16 going on 25, and her favorite movie is It. She loves Pennywise, so she’s really into horror. She’s not as much into coloring in the books as much as creating her own art, which is really cool. We’ve talked about doing a collaborative book in the future.
Playboy: What would be your dream project? Maybe a Shining coloring book? Stephen King turned into coloring?
Alan: Both of those sound awesome. Sign me up now! This year though, drawing the Universal Monsters coloring book with Universal Pictures and Beetlejuice with Warner Brothers involved (both with Inside Editions), those are two really top-level projects that I’m honored to have been asked to draw. I’ve also drawn some pretty stellar music ones, like the Black Sabbath Volume 4 lithograph for their 50th anniversary and also the Pantera Vulgar Display of Power 30th anniversary merchandise along with another lithograph celebrating that record. I’m very open to jumping on board with things that I’m a fan of, I think it’s the ultimate way to pay tribute to the media that has shaped me.
When I took on graphic novels, I wasn’t that confident in my own illustration abilities so I was looking for artists to draw the story that I had written, and one after the other just didn’t pan out. I finally got so fed up that I decided to draw it myself. That’s when I got the publishing deal and once I got in with IDW Publishing, I never got my foot out of that door. I just kept pitching them new ideas and they kept saying yes.
Playboy: How dare you have good ideas that they keep liking!
Alan: I know! it’s funny, when I pitched them the adult coloring book in the first place it was April Fool’s Day and I got the quickest “yes” response from them that I ever got from any of the other projects. Since it was April Fool’s Day, I really had to ask “are you guys messing with me?” They really wanted to get into that space, but strangely enough they got a lot of push back from retailers about buying a horror themed adult coloring book. There just wasn’t a market for one at the time, this was the first of its kind back in 2016.
Playboy: When you tell people that you create adult coloring books, do they ever think it’s a different kind of adult?
Alan: All the time. I always have to explain it. Coloring books for grown-ups is maybe a little easier to understand but… when people hear “adult coloring book” they look at me and ask, “Wait, what do you?”
Playboy: Let’s get into the Beetlejuice coloring book—did you get any kind of early access to the content to help guide the coloring book?
Alan: The cool thing about this one is it goes back to the very first film and it is a coloring book of every scene in the original movie. I hope to do part two! Originally when I was approached, it was going to be the best scenes from both movies but because the timing was so under the gun, we decided to focus on the first film.
Playboy: Let’s talk about the best scene in the first movie then!
Alan: I love the sand worms. Anytime you have sand worms, it’s a good scene. Probably when Beetlejuice scares the couple and you don’t see what’s going on, you see him from behind and all the special effects come out. I also love the shrunken head guy.
Playboy: If you could put together a custom box of crayons for the book, what colors would be essential?
Alan: Well green and purple have to be in there, along with black and white. You have to have some yellow and there’s this weird aqua color that’s in some of the costume design and the sand worm’s lips. I’d throw red in too. Ironically, I’m not great at coloring. I don’t picture the page in full color. It’s always a surprise when fans tag me in their posts. Colorists all over the world get really into it and they use all different mediums. There are even watercolors, sometimes markers, and sometimes sparkle nail polish. It really gets creative! You can have the same page colored by 20 different people and it would look completely different every time.
Playboy: Are your favorite scenes from the movie the same as your favorite pages in the book?
Alan: Actually no! One of the best pages was the one where Gina Davis’ character has the severed head of Alec Baldwin—that just works as a page really well. Also Beetlejuice’s night spot, with all the girls dancing. That was a fun spread and someone’s going to really bring that to life, that’s going to be exciting to see in color.
Playboy: Hey with that scene, you’re going to get to say it’s both kinds of adult!
Alan: Hah, yes, finally it will make sense!
Playboy: How do you translate the scenes from the movie into the page of a coloring book?
Alan: The trickiest thing for me as an artist to even draw a coloring book page is that it’s one single line weight throughout the whole design. You can’t rely on shadows or gradients or even cross-hatching to create depth in the page, so it really has to be all shape-based. Having done this for the last bunch of years, I feel like I have a good handle on what will make a coloring page good. Beetlejuice has a lot of textures going on that enable you to focus on the characters and really have them pop. I’m interested to see what colorists do with it because there’s a lot of potential for some really fantastic pages.
Playboy: Over the past 20 minutes, it’s been very clear that you have been successful at pursuing your passions. With all of the stimulation from social media and the internet, it can be very hard for creatives to find their own path. What advice would you give a budding creative to help them find their voice and create without burning out?
Alan: I was very fortunate to not have not having to rely on art when I first started out professionally because I was a working musician. Sometimes artists or new creators are dependent on finances, but for me when I jumped into comics everything I did was a passion project, and it really didn’t matter if it was going to be successful or not financially as long as I loved it, and that’s really the mentality that I stuck with throughout my whole art career. Thankfully, because I also am a musician, and a touring musician for the last 30 years, for me the art has always been just a passion project, and I think that carries through the art—you can see that, you can tell. I don’t take projects that I don’t want to work on, thankfully I have that freedom.
When I first went to art school in the early 90s, I was preparing to be a professional artist upon graduation, which I didn’t end up doing. I went on tour, but I was preparing my portfolio, and there are a lot of tedious aspects of working yourself up in the comic book industry—whether it’s inking someone else’s drawings or coloring flats for colorists. There are a lot of production-type jobs that creators need to take in order to prove themselves and gain the freedom to draw their own story or write their own script.
I don’t take anything away from the more tedious tasks. As long as you’re in the industry, you’re working towards a goal, and you can always put energy on the side toward the things you’re striving for. Just like music, you have to start somewhere, so just do it. You never know what’s going to be a success or not. I had no idea that a coloring book for adults would outsell all my graphic novels. I made it as a spoof, and now it’s become a huge part of my life for the last eight years.
Playboy: Let’s talk about the music a little bit and make sure our readers know at least three essential songs for experiencing your band, Life of Agony.
Alan: I would definitely say “River Runs Red” is probably our most popular song and our shortest song, so it’s an easy listen. I would turn them on to a song called “Scars” off of our last album. Then we just released “The Crow” and it’s in memory of Brandon Lee, so it’s kind of an homage to his tragic death.
Playboy: This is our last question for you—where can people buy the official Beetlejuice coloring book?
Alan: Everywhere that sells books! Amazon, Target, Walmart, Barnes and Noble. Enjoy!
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After the interview ended, we spent another five minutes talking about different movies in the horror genre, so if you’re looking for recommendations, give Evil Dead 2, The Shining, or Repo! The Genetic Opera a try and let Alan know your thoughts on his Instagram!