Adult coloring book from Arizona fantasy author James A. Owen

When Arizona author and illustrator James A. Owen decided to put together an adult-friendly coloring book based on his dragon-infested fantasy novels, he had no idea he was jumping onto an international bandwagon.

The independently published "All the Colors of Magic," which is due to hit Arizona stores Wednesday, July 8, was crowd-funded in a Kickstarter campaign that Owen started in March.

"The week after I launched it, I came back from a convention in Denver, and there were these articles about this artist from Scotland, Johanna Basford, who sold, like, 1.4 million coloring books," Owen says. "That's when I realized there's a serious trend here, and we just kind of stepped into the middle of it."

The 1.4 million figure is for Basford's "Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book," from 2013. This year the artist released a sequel called "Enchanted Forest," sparking a spate of media coverage for the adult-coloring trend.

How big is the fad? Well, this month, "Game of Thrones" author George R.R. Martin announced he would oversee a coloring book featuring never-before-seen illustrations of the fantasy novels that spawned the hit series on HBO.

In a roundabout way, "Game of Thrones" also is responsible for "All the Colors of Magic," which will be sold at Changing Hands Bookstore and Samurai Comics locations, as well as Gotham City Comics and Coffee in Mesa.

Owen's fantasy series, "The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica," originally

targeted young adults, but his publisher, Simon & Schuster, was planning to re-release the books with new covers designed to appeal to older readers — and without Owen's illustrations.

"Those are currently taking over the bookshelves all over the place, and they've designed them to look a bit like 'Game of Thrones' books, which I'm totally OK with, but I wanted to do something to emphasize the art," Owen says.

Because he retained the copyrights to his images, he was able to leverage his sizable online fan base to publish the coloring book on his own. His Kickstarter campaign met its funding goal of $8,500 in less than two weeks and eventually raised more than $15,000.

Owen lives in the small eastern Arizona town of Taylor, where he grew up. He started out in comic books with the independent title "Starchild" and made the leap to novels with 2006's "Here, There Be Dragons." It's a fantasy set in the early 20th century, but with talking animals, steam-powered cars and living "dragonships."

There are seven books in the series, each featuring Owen's detailed black-and-white illustrations, which have a bit of a retro woodcut feel. That gave him plenty of images to choose from for "All the Colors of Magic," which is billed as "A Coloring Book for All Ages Featuring Dragons, Badgers, a Slightly Depressed Minotaur, Battle Goats, More Dragons and Other Magical Creatures From 'The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica.' "

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Owen plans three more coloring books from the series, assuming the market doesn't suddenly evaporate.

Gayle Shanks, co-owner of Changing Hands, says there's little danger of that.

"We can't keep them in stock," Shanks says.

"We've always sold adult coloring books in addition to children's coloring books. We've always sold them well, but then this series that Chronicle (Books) put out, 'Secret Garden' and 'Enchanted Forest,' for some reason TV picked up on it. It was touted on the 'Today' show, and we had dozens and dozens of requests for those two titles in particular.

"I don't see it ending. I must have a dozen publishers who have coloring books who never have before."

In addition to nature images, many of the so-called adult coloring books feature intricate designs, such as Buddhist mandalas and Celtic knot work. Coloring them often is described as calming and meditative, an antidote to the chaos and stresses of adult life.

"I've had a couple of customers come in and say, 'My therapist has recommended that I buy an adult coloring book, and I feel kind of silly,' " Shanks says. "But I think it's a great idea. I brought one home, and my 7-year-old grandson and I have been working on it together, coloring on opposite sides of the pages."

To make sure his book appeals to kids and adults, Owen says he was a stickler for production quality, especially the paper.

"If we were going to have a coloring book geared toward adults as well, I wanted something that you could use your crayons on, but you could also use Prismacolor pencils or watercolor or markers," he says. "So we used this really heavy, hundred-pound matte paper for it, and the pages are perforated so you can pull the individual pages out. And then we even ended up deciding to make it perfect bound, so it's a little bit heavier and feels like it has more substance to it."

As an extra thank-you to his fans, Owen says he'll feature their coloring choices of his artwork on his website, jamesaowen.com.

"Once every week or so, I'll pick the one that I like the best, I'll print it out, I'll pin it on my refrigerator, and we'll post a photo of the fridge," he says. "So you made James Owen's fridge. That's the highlight of the week."

Reach the reporter at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896.