Kids Comics Pitchfest 2023 Showcase

Elite Team Space Explorers (in training)

Tween alien, Telly, must pass Earth Studies or be permanently separated from his Elite Team Space Explorer mom. Missing her is like a constant hum in his brain. Telly and his friends’ first assignment: transform into weird-looking human kids (with alien abilities), go to CERN, get sucked into the largest experiment on earth, and learn about the Big Bang. The problem? Telly must follow the speed-of-light path of a proton while struggling with a fear of going fast that makes him puke regularly. Now, the success of this mission rests on his anxiety-filled shoulders and unexpected sabotage awaits. Science-based and funny, this story is a rocket ride through found-family, SEL, and what happens when CERN’s biggest accelerator starts up.

My Why:

On a family speed boat as a child, I would always take the seat with the most wind and water and yell, “Faster!” Fast forward – I became a mom to a child whose anxiety flared if his swing was pushed too high or too fast. It seeded a running theme in Elite Team Space Explorers (in training) about what happens when an anxious tween gets dropped into a speed-of-light experiment at CERN.

Having friends who work at CERN, visiting with a spacewalking astronaut, and a family trip to the Discovery Shuttle fired up my imagination to write a graphic novel about an anxious tween alien traveling through one of the fastest experiments on earth.