A MADness Interlude… The Penguin Book!

This week we take a brief detour from the bumpy, pothole-filled washboard of a road that is our chronological journey through my work at MAD to have a look at the third and the last book project I did for MAD.

First there was Goodnight Batcave, then there was Superman and the Miserable, Rotten, No Fun, Really Bad Day. MAD wrapped up it’s shameful desecration of everyone’s childhood memories with this third volume in their kid’s book parody series. It was released almost exactly six years ago today. MAD editor Dave Croatto wrote the first two, but MAD associate editor Jacob Lambert did the dishonors with the writing this time. It’s (obviously) a parody of Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems.

All three books were a lot of fun for me to do, but this one was my favorite. All of them were a challenge to get the look of the art right in order for the parody to hit home, but Mo Willems unique childlike style is deceptive in its simplicity. When you really examine his art it is quite sophisticated in the nuances of expression with his characters, captured with an economy of shape and line that is really wonderful. Drawing the Batman family characters in it was surprisingly easy as a result.

It was my idea to add the little penguin sidekick throughout the book. I thought it needed something that would have a look closer to the “Pigeon” character from the book this parody targets, and it would give me the opportunity to add a little additional visual humor to the pages with the bird’s reactions and interactions with the story.

I drew the entire book with a black prismacolor pencil, and then did the flat color in Photoshop. I also hand lettered the text with that same black colored pencil to mimic the look of Mo’s books. Once I got the hang of the look of the characters, it actually went quite quickly.

The hardest part of this job was that I finished the art over a year before the book was released, and during that year I saw Mo Willems a few times at National Cartoonists Society events. I had to keep my mouth shut about this project while chatting with him, not because of any legal issues but just because I wanted it to be a surprise for him. He’s a big MAD fan, and is actually officially one of the “Usual Gang of Idiots” himself, having done a handful of pieces for MAD and MAD Kids. I don’t think I ran into him after it came out, so I don’t know what his reaction was. I’d like to think he loved it.

While Goodnight Batcave did pretty well in sales (I still get the occasional tiny royalty payment from that one), Superman and the Miserable, Rotten, No Fun, Really Bad Day and this one did not fare so well. Both or out of print, alas.

Some people were afraid that, being something from the people at MAD, these books would not be appropriate for kids. But the writers and editors very smartly did these parodies in a way that kept them appropriate for the same age that the books they are spoofing were originally aimed for. You can read these books to a kid who loves the books they spoof, and they love them.

The first spread and this last spread make a nice “bookend” to the story.

Ultimately the disappointing sales of these last two books in the series killed the kids book parody series, but we did pitch one more concept to the powers that be. That took place right around this time in my chronological timeline, so we’ll have a look at the and the story behind it next week!