First of all do you like the name of our book club?
Yes certainly I do, but you might have to change it if you come to the United States where I live. A biscuit in the States is something you would put gravy on with dinner and it’s not sweet in the least! So you might have to be The Fun book and Cookies Club.
What inspired you to write your first Timmy Failure book?
Well, I draw a comic strip for adults in the US called Pearls before Swine, you have it in this country too. When you draw comic strip you have no space to work in. You have three tiny panels – so the idea that someone would give me 300 blank pages to tell my story and that I could draw whatever size was very tempting.
How did you decide what to write about?
I straight away knew I wanted to write a detective story but when I read Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys when I was younger, I always thought I must be the dumbest guy in the room because I never guessed it. Even now if I read Encyclopedia Brown I get about half of them! So I thought it would be funny to turn detective stories on their head and have Timmy starring in my books, a detective who truly cannot solve any mystery. He is way dumber than anyone else. And that made me laugh.
What’s the difference between writing a comic strip and a book?
I wrote my strip for 10 years before writing Timmy Failure. I think it’s a bit like the difference between writing poetry and prose. A comic strip has a rhythm and a pattern and you got to get in and out quick. So you set up a joke, tell the joke and done. When you tell a big long story it’s a totally different skill. I don’t have to worry about where characters are in my comic strip, in a cartoon you can have a character fall off a cliff, the next day he’s okay and noone questions that. But with my Timmy Failure books I have 12 characters to think about and need continuity. Sometimes I forget where a character is in the book, so when I first started writing the books, I did the horrible laborious thing of every day when I would sit down to write I would read the entire book up to the point I was – so I would remember where everybody was!
Did you make any mistakes?
Yes in the second Timmy Failure Book: Timmy Failure Now Look What You’ve Done I did. He has a broken leg, and I’ll never do that again. I would draw the drawings and either forget the cast or put it on the wrong leg!
Is the whole story of the books in your head when you start writing?
No. I have a few pegs to that I want to hang the story on but no outline. I see how it goes. You can make horrible mistakes that way and end up in a total dead end – but it’s an exciting way to write. Every day is a discovery. I have to destroy paths all the time.
Was Timmy Failure always called Timmy Failure or did he start off with another name?
He was Timmy Fayleure spelled the French way but then I thought it was more direct and blunt to spell it like you say it! He’s called Timmy Fiasco, Timmy Flop in some of my translated versions.
Can you tell us about how you write?
The writing is done on the computer and the drawing is done by hand. I write, write, write then I hit the illustration. When I write I put in parenthesis - brackets - things like: (Timmy gets knocked in head by baseball, mum standing nearby, Rollo looks unhappy) then I keep writing. Then once I have anywhere from one to three chapters that are missing illustrations, I’ll stop and draw. When you’ve got a rhythm in writing that might not come again for days so you have to follow that. I know I can always draw but I actually love the writing the most.
Do you have a special writing place like Roald Dahl did in his shed?
I have a writing room where I draw on the walls. It’s the space I wanted when I was 10 years old. So my walls are covered with experiments and characters and I listen to music while I do it.
Who was your favourite author when you were a child? And what were your favourite books?
From really young age it was Dr Seuss and I also loved How to Eat Fried Green Worms by Thomas Rockwell which almost every kid reads in the US but I don’t think it’s so big here. I also loved The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and CS Lewis’ Narnia series. I was a big reader when I was growing up in the US. My library did a summer reading challenge where there were grades of how many books you read. Prizes were just certificates and gold stars. I would always read the most and I still read so much. I read a lot of children’s books now because I also want to know what I can get away with in my own books. Roald Dahl is very dark and got away with a lot of stuff – and that’s interesting to me.
What would you have done if you didn’t become a writer and cartoonist?
I would have stuck being a lawyer. I was a lawyer for 10 years before I became a cartoonist, doing litigation in San Francisco and like most litigation lawyers I hated it.
What three things would you take if you were cast away on a desert island?
I assume I can’t take people, so first of all I’d take music – if I’m allowed to bring my iPod with all my favourite music, I’d have U2, Radiohead, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan on it. I’d take some sort of reading device, ideally a Kindle so I can take all my books. I’m getting excited now to get there! And an unlimited supply of tacos (which is a Mexican tortilla, ground beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato and guacamole).
You’ve published three Timmy Failure books - are you going to keep on writing them?
No. And I won’t write as many as Wimpy Kid. It’s more than four. But I know where the series ends and I know Timmy’s not that far away from that.
Why did you choose a polar bear for Timmy Failure’s pet?
Because Timmy doesn’t have a dad, and Total is his substitute dad, so he’s big and strong but also soft and comforting and loving. It wouldn’t have worked if he was cockroach. I do watch documentaries on polar bears they are pretty cool animals, I’ve watched a lot of documentaries about them.
We like to have a snack that is themed to the book we are reading...what snack would you recommend to go with your new book?
Rice Krispie snacks, because that is Total’s favourite food. He’ll do anything for them. That’s an easy one. The ones in the book are packaged but you can make them at home.
What advice for kids who want to become cartoonists or authors?
Well, I didn’t go to art school or writing class. I had no training, so for me it all comes down to doing it everyday – even if noone looks at it. You can make all your mistakes and get better by virtue of screwing up. It’s a question of hours. I like the idea made famous by a man called Malcolm Gladwell that in almost every endeavour you become an expert after practising for 10,000 hours.
When I was a lawyer I was drawing all the time. Sometimes even in court because it looks like you’re taking notes. When I was a kid I was always drawing. I recently found an old drawing I did when I was younger. It was a really nice drawing of my mum and dad – and then I draw a mobster holding them, about to waste them both. I was a weird kid.
