Poo Crew Adventures Q&A

We love a Q&A on the FCBG blog, especially when both author and illustrator get involved. James Turner and Steve May are the duo behind Poo Crew Adventures, a new graphic novel series and we are so pleased they found time to answer our questions.

Why poo? Who came up with the initial idea to create a graphic novel around this topic?
James: I loved the idea of a book about a poo teaching us facts because it felt so naughty, like it shouldn’t really be allowed – so of course I wanted to do it! (Note: since I didn’t actually come up with the idea, I’m slightly dodging the question – hope that works!)

Steve: Well, because poo is the most important thing in the world OBVIOUSLY! I was actually approached by the publisher to draw the book & my initial reaction was “You want me to draw a book about WHAT?!?!” But upon seeing James’ (Turner – the writer) brilliant initial text I realised how much fun we could have doing the book! It’s also something that secretly everyone’s inner child finds funny – something that you’re not usually supposed to mention which adds to the fun. The attraction of books like this (& something like Fungus the Bogeyman when I was a kid) is the slightly forbidden nature of the subject which makes it much funnier!

There are so many facts mingled with jokes- was it easy to strike the balance between them? 

James: I think books that are all facts can be a bit boring, so I made it a rule – for every fact there has to be at least one joke! And with Ploppy’s mischievous character it was always easy to think of a silly thing for him to say every time the professor tries to be serious!

Steve: I think the joke / fact content works perfectly – you enjoy the story & the hilarious situations so much that you completely forget that you’re actually LEARNING THINGS! There was a balance between when I could just go crazy with the drawings & occasionally draw something approaching a proper diagram.

Why do you think graphic novels are so popular with children?

James: Graphic novels can be a great stepping stone for struggling readers because all the images help you understand the action even if you’re having difficulty with the words – and then that helps and encourages them to understand what the words are saying!

Steve: There’s something immediate about graphic novels, & for less confident readers even if you can’t read every word you can still usually follow & enjoy the stories. The pictures draw you in & encourage you to want to read more. I started off reading Batman comics when I could barely read but I loved the comics so much it made me really WANT to be able to read more!

Is this the first in a series- what can we expect next?
James: There’s a whole universe of facts out there for the Poo Crew to discover, so they could go anywhere … but personally I’m hoping it’s dinosaurs!

Steve: What’s great about these characters is that Professor Poo & Ploppy could go ANYWHERE – so who knows (but we do have some dinosaurs at the end of the book which would be rather fun to draw!)

Did you have to do some research into this topic to get things right?
James: I did lots of research on poo facts for this book! I read lots of other books and did a lot of research online – there were so many facts about poo that we couldn’t even fit them all in!

Steve: I was quite lazy & left James & the rest of the gang to most of the reference but there were lots of visual things I needed to do reference on. I know a 1975 Armitage Shanks toilet when I see one now!

What was the most interesting fact you discovered?
James: I’ve been telling all my friends every disgusting fact that I’ve learned, but my favourite is that skipper caterpillars can shoot their poo up to 150cm – which means that if the caterpillar was human-sized it could fire its poo from the halfway line of a football pitch all the way to the goal!

Steve; Possibly that wombats do SQUARE poos! How cool is that?!?!

 

 

Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Federation.