On a gloomy, sunless day – where it felt the sky had not woken up yet – I made my way to Scholastic’s London offices to meet the bedrock of my childhood: Dav Pilkey. Young readers often assume that the authors behind their favourite books are actually humourless old farts that have only met about two children in their lifetime. Although I discovered this not to be the case a long time ago, I still didn’t know what to expect. Dav Pilkey, as it happens, is a charming, thoughtful and humble man with a brilliant imagination and a lot to say. Having not picked up a Captain Underpants book in a long time (The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future remains my favourite along with the Super Diaper Baby series), I went along to represent site members Cragger and Crist Heart Dahl and pose some of their questions to the man behind the Captain Underpants series.
Cragger
How do you pronounce your name?
It’s Dave and the reason, I think, people get mixed up is because it’s spelt “Dav”, which is untraditional. I used to work at Pizza Hut – do you have Pizza Huts here in the UK? Well, this was more than 30 years ago and I was a waiter at Pizza Hut. They made a name tag for me and they had a little label-maker so when they were making my name and they punched in D – chickuk – and A – chickuk – and V – chuckuk – but when they got to E – urggh – it didn’t work, so it’s just Dav. I don’t know why that’s stuck but everyone’s started calling me Dav and spelling my name like that but, yeah, it’s been Dav ever since.
What gave you the idea for the first Captain Underpants book?
My second grade teacher in year two (I was about eight) used the word “underwear” one time in class when she was talking to us. She said “underwear” and everyone in the whole class burst out laughing and she got very angry and she was like, “boys and girls, underwear is not funny!” She completely freaked out and we all laughed even harder and I just remember thinking that it’s an amazingly powerful word that can make everyone laugh, I should do something with that. So I took out a pencil and a piece of paper and I drew a superhero in his underwear and I called him Captain Underpants. He’s been with me ever since.
Were you like either George or Harold when you were at school?
Yes – George and Harold are both based on me and I was exactly like them. I had – well, still have – ADHD: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and it’s quite common nowadays. It was not as common when I was a child. They didn’t even have a name for it back then but I was diagnosed as extremely hyperactive and I also have dyslexia. So George and Harold are both based on me. They don’t get along very well with at school, their teachers don’t like them very much, their principal hates them and that was basically my childhood so I’m writing about myself. I never hypnotised my principal! That part I made up.
Captain Underpants has lots of clever tools and powers. Which is your favourite?
If I could have one of the superpowers Captain Underpants has then I’d like to fly. I think that’d be pretty cool so I have to go with flying.
Which do you think is the funniest comic that you have ever written?
The funniest one, I have to say, would be Super Diaper Baby 2: The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers. My favourite part of that is that there’s a chapter that’s a parody of How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss, which is one of my favourite books and I got to dismantle that and do an entire parody of it so I think that’s probably the funniest one I’ve done.
Did you always want to become an author and how did you become one?
I didn’t always want to become an author only because I didn’t know I had any talent for writing. I went through primary school and secondary school and I had no idea I was good at it. It was only when I got to university that I had a teacher who pointed out – well, she thought – I was very good at writing. She suggested I write a children’s book because she always saw me doodling, drawing pictures in my sketchbook when I was supposed to be taking notes, and so she said, “why don’t you combine your words and your pictures and make a children’s book?” And so I made my very first children’s book that year and it was published.
And was that Captain Underpants?
No, that was a book called World War Won and it was about a fox and a racoon that get embroiled in an arms race, and it doesn’t sound very timely nowadays but back when I wrote it – which was the mid-1980s – we were embroiled in the Cold War at the time. Everyone was talking about nuclear freeze and they were all worried about that there was going to be a nuclear holocaust. So, yeah, it was much more timely in the days I wrote it.
Can you give me any advice about how to become an illustrator of books?
The best advice I can give you is practise, practise, practise. Illustration is like any other talent – shooting a basketball through a hoop or playing the piano – because the more you do it, the more you practise, the better you get. I’ve been drawing ever since I could pick up a pencil and I wasn’t that good when I was a child but now I see lots of kids in my lines that are so much better than I was at their age but the thing with me is that I kept practising and the more practise I did, the better it got.
Can you tell us a little about your next book?
The twelfth Captain Underpants book is going to be my next. It comes out next summer and the villain is George and Harold’s gym teacher – is that what they say in the UK? PE teacher? OK so he’s their PE teacher and he’s not the smartest of characters. However, he accidentally ingests a piece of rock from outer space that makes him very, very smart and he develops an odour that takes over the minds of children. It’s up to George and Harold and their copies from themselves –there’s two Georges and Harolds as you can see in book number 11 – and they have to save the planet with the help of their thirty year old selves. They go into the future and find themselves in the future and so there’s actually three Georges and Harolds in the next book and it’s not at all confusing, though!
Crist Heart Dahl
Of the books that you’ve written, which is your favourite?
Probably The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future because it’s the one that’s closest to my heart.
When you were a young boy, were you as adventurous as Captain Underpants?
I doubt it, I don’t think so. However, it depended on the day you caught me because I was very hyperactive as a kid and also it was in my head a lot, too, so sometimes I can be very quiet and reflective, at other times I was just bouncing off the walls so it depended on the moment.
Which is your favourite children’s book?
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak because it’s something that I loved as a child but it was also forbidden because my mother was afraid it would give me bad dreams so she didn’t want me to read it, which made it more appealing to me. I wanted to read it so I had to sneak it all the time. They had a copy of it at my church and every time no one was looking I would grab Where the Wild Things Are and go and hide behind a desk and I’d look through it. It was so wonderful; a great book on its own but also the forbidden element made it all that more attractive to me.
When was Captain Underpants and The Attack of The Talking Toilets illustrated?
It was illustrated in 1997 or 1998 although that was also based on a comic, which I made as a child. None of the Captain Underpants comics I made as a child survived my childhood because they were either ripped up by my teachers or sometimes my friends would take them home and lose them but I do remember the Talking Toilets appearing in a childhood comic.
Patrick
Would you consider a third sequel to Super Diaper Baby?
Oh, yes, definitely! I hope there will be dozens of sequels to Super Diaper Baby. I love Billy and I love Diaper Dog and, to me, they’re very close to my heart so yes, I hope to do many more.
So, they’re making a movie of Captain Underpants. Have you had much connection with the film?
I haven’t although DreamWorks Animations who are making the film have been very kind and welcomed my participation and asking my advice and things, but I feel like it’s not my area of expertise. I’m a book writer and an illustrator, I don’t know anything about filmmaking so I feel like “they are DreamWorks Animation, they don’t need anyone telling them how to make a movie. They’re quite good on their own.” So I’ve decided to let them take care of that and I’m focusing on my books.
Are you not worried they might represent it unfaithfully? You can get not very good film adaptions of books.
I have seen some film adaptions that were so close to the original book that there were no surprises left for me and I found myself bored during these films. So I’m actually very excited because I know it’s partially based on my series but they’re also doing some of their own things so I’m very excited to see it when it comes out.
- Dav Pilkey’s latest masterpiece, his 11th epic novel in the Captain Underpants series, is Captain Underpants and the Tyrannical Retaliation of the Turbo Toilet 2000 – which available from the Guardian bookshop.
