How Not To Draw a Graphic Novel

When Papercutz Editor Jim Salicrup told me earlier this year that he’d chosen me to illustrate Stefan Petrucha’s hilarious new 50-page full-color graphic-novel parody of the Harry Potter series I nearly flipped my wig! I told Salicrup: “No artist could ever do justice to THAT—especially ME!” I immediately hung up the phone and locked myself into the bathroom and wouldn’t come out! I told my wife, “If the phone rings again, don’t answer it!” I made her slip plastic-wrapped slices of American cheese under the door. In the afternoons I asked for and received Premium Saltines– slipped under the door one at a time– on an old postcard with a picture of a moose on it. Since I was in the bathroom, I had plenty of water. All went well for several months. There are hundreds of old comic books on a shelf in the bathroom and I idled away weeks at a time in heavenly bliss—reading old copies of Mad and eating cheese and crackers with not a care in the world. The phone rang a few times, but whoever it was gave up after a dozen or so rings. Life was GOOD!! Then one day, at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, there was a heavy knock at the door. More of a pounding, actually. I had been expecting a near mint copy of PLOP#3 (with the Wally Wood Cover) which I bought on E-Bay for $76.84 plus $3.95 shipping. So I crept out of the bathroom and tip-toed barefoot down the long, dark hallway to the door (trying not to step on any tarantulas or disturb the bats hanging from the rafters). I cracked open the door just enough to reach my hand out and sign for the package. The FedEx girl eyed me suspiciously. Once safely locked back inside the bathroom, I used an old piece of broken window glass to cut open the package. DANG-IT!! It was NOT the copy of PLOP that I had been expecting– but a copy of a script called “Harry Potty and The Deathly Boring!” I had been out-smarted by Jim Salicrup yet again!! Now what could I do…? (what would YOU do?) –but illustrate the darn thing and get this guy off my back so I could go back to doing what I like best, which is hiding in the bathroom and reading old comic books.