We talk a lot about getting caught up in a book. But what would happen if you got trapped in a book – literally?! What if you couldn’t get out? That terrifying question is the idea behind Chris Wooding’s part novel part graphic novel Malice.

There are rumors. Say the right words. Gather the right items. Enter the dangerous world of the comic book Malice. Urban legend, right? Kady and Seth thought so…until it happened to them. Their thrilling adventure continues in Havoc. Tall Jake has always had control over Malice but now his influence is spreading to the outside world. You’ll have to read the series yourself to see if Seth and Kady can stop Tall Jake.

We caught up with Chris, who lives in the UK, to ask him what’s on his mind, if the legend of Tall Jake is true, which came first (the writing or the illustrations), and of course why he thinks graphic novels should have a place in literature:

One of my favorite parts about the book is that just holding the book makes you feel like you’re already entering a different world. You know how they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover? Well, in this case, you should because the cover is awesome. In the hardcover version the graphics on the cover protrude out…almost like Tall Jake is about to grab your arm and drag you into the book!

What also makes this series so interesting is that it’s part novel and part graphic novel. How does that work? Well, the best explanation is actually Chris’s own description from his website:

“Malice was an idea I’d had brewing for a long time: a combination of book and graphic novel, where sections of text give way to sections of comic art and back again. The challenge was to make it more than a gimmick, so that the comic sections were an integral part of the story. I got round that by making it a book about a comic, and the rest fell into place. In Malice, the comic sections represent parts of the published comic, and so anyone in the real world – good guys and bad guys – can read them and pick up information about what’s going on with the kids trapped inside Tall Jake’s world.”

This got me to think – if I had to choose one book to be trapped in…what would it be? For me, it would be Harry Potter so I could visit Hogwarts. What about you?