Pilkey, Dav
The Captivating Career of Captain Comic: Dav Pilkey
Dav Pilkey started writing and illustrating his own comics when he was eight years old and continued making them through his high school years. “My goal back then (and still today) was to make kids laugh,” acknowledges the author. “I don’t believe children have changed too much since I was eight.” He adds, “At least their sense of humor hasn’t.”
Dav Pilkey has probably turned more reading-resistant kids into book geeks than any other author around. Just one glimpse of Professor Poopypants and kids are hooked. Dav was one of the first to incorporate elements more commonly associated with comic books into chapter books. “I used to make my own comic books when I was a kid, and, since Captain Underpants is based on my own childhood, it seemed only natural that the series’ protagonists would be comic book creators as well,” explains the author.
Fans seek out the two or three comic-book chapters in every Captain Underpants book. The author has heard again and again that these chapters are readers’ favorite parts of the series. Dav claims “That inspired me to create the spin-off books, which are 100% comic books —The Super Diaper Baby series, The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung Fu Cavemen from the Future and the upcoming Dog Man series.”
Dav Pilkey is no one trick cartoon pony. He is equally adept at both story and illustration and the two elements are perfect complements for his often silly sensibility. Pilkey’s process begins with the title. “Then, I begin crafting a story around the title,” he continues. “In almost every case, the writing comes next, and the illustrations come last.” But what if an image comes to him before he gets to that final stage? “Sometimes, I’ll do small sketches as I write, especially if I think of a visual gag,” he confides.
His newest project, Dog Man, follows the adventures of a human cop whose head is replaced by a dog’s head after an unfortunate incident. “This series is a bit of a challenge to write because the main character is non-verbal,” Dav confides. “Dog Man can only communicate by using body language and facial expressions, so not only will the pictures tell part of the story (as with any illustrated book or graphic novel), but the reader will have to look at the pictures to connect with Dog Man emotionally.” Dav reveals that ” This might be the first series that I’ve created where the pictures are even more important than the words.”
The text is crucial as proven by the many teachers and librarians who use George and Harold’s graphic novels as a way to teach spelling and grammar. How do they do that? “It’s usually a one-on-one type of thing, where the adult sits with the kid and they go through the comic or graphic novel together, page by page, picking out the mistakes and correcting them (sometimes even writing the correct spelling above the misspelled word in the book).” It’s a method that encourages the student to engage in close reading. Not surprisingly, Dav notes that “For many kids, this is much more appealing than learning from a school-issued textbook.”
Yes, things have changed in the book world since a young Dav Pilkey was chastised for reading “trash” like Peanuts. Where many authors and illustrators can recall a library moment from their childhood when a sensitive teacher or librarian directed the youngster to the book that made the difference, Dav has no such memories from his school years. “My school librarian used to get angry with me because it took me forever to find a library book that I was interested in reading. She’d grab a book and shove it at me and say, ‘Here! You’re a boy! Read this book about football!'” Not the ideal way to reach out to a reluctant reader.
Dav describes a challenge that every teacher and librarian has had to meet: “I remember being a kid and having an incredibly difficult time making the transition from beginning reader books to chapter books.” He notes that “I was (and still am) very visual, and I had (and still have) dyslexia.” Chapter books held almost no appeal to him at all. “I missed all the illustrations, not only because they told part of the story (which I found very appealing), but because the pictures gave contextual clues to the meanings of the words I was struggling to decipher and comprehend.” Dav knew that he needed the help that illustrations provided, and when they disappeared as picture books transitioned into chapter books, his interest in library books disappeared as well.
He is glad that “today there are so many different kinds of books that it’s sometimes difficult to categorize them–graphic novels and heavily illustrated books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid have become all the rage.” Dav has seen that “All of those pictures are making reading more inviting, especially to kids who are in danger of falling through the cracks and becoming functionally illiterate. ”
As for the young Dav, “Fortunately, my parents were pretty good about letting me pick whatever I wanted to read at home, so I had stacks of joke books, Mad and Cracked magazines, newspaper comics, Wacky Packages stickers, and Peanuts cartoon collections to pore over.” He read these constantly and learned at a very early age not to bring that kind of reading material to school. “My librarian and my teachers called it garbage, and they always took it away from me,” he recalls.
“I will forever be grateful to the creators of the wonderful reading materials my librarian and teachers called ‘garbage,'” says the author of dozens of popular books for kids. “If it hadn’t been for those creators, I probably wouldn’t be a reader today—and I definitely wouldn’t be a writer.”
The secret history of Dav Pilkey and Michael Jackson
Once, while visiting a school about 25 years ago, a kindergartner asked me if I could dance like Michael Jackson. It was probably the most random thing I had ever been asked, but surprisingly, only the teachers laughed. The rest of the kids wanted to know.
Being the wise guy that I am, I smiled and told him, “Yes, in fact, I taught Michael Jackson how to dance.”
The kid seemed happy with my response, and we moved on.
Unfortunately, everybody believed me and the rumor that I knew Michael Jackson spread throughout the school. When I did my last presentation at the end of the day, the room was alive with enthusiasm. Everybody was so excited. When I got to the end of my program, I asked if anybody had a question, and every hand shot up.
Everybody wanted to know all about me and Michael and how we’d become friends. Of course, I ’fessed up and told them all the truth. Immediately, the energy drained out of the room like a balloon splattering out its last puff of air. Turns out nobody had been listening to my presentation. All they had been thinking about is that they were in the same room as Michael Jackson’s friend. I don’t even think they knew my name.
Nobody had another question after that.
Interviewed by Ellen Myrick, July 2015
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