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“Dan loved it and said he thought we could run with this, and offered to sign me,” Tatulli recalled. He wrote several chapters of what would become Desmond Pucket and submitted them to Dan Lazar at Writers House.
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Since Tatulli is “always looking for something else to do and it sounded like something I’d enjoy,” he decided to take a stab at an illustrated novel. Also, the bits of information in the short chapters of our books track almost like a comic strip – with a beginning, middle, and ending.” And we’re childish to begin with – that’s how we think. “Those of us who do comic strips are used to writing and editing ourselves daily, so the illustrated diary notebook format is right up our alley. “Stephan told me, ‘You’ve got to get into this – it’s the perfect venue for us,’ ” said Tatulli. Two friends who moved from syndicated cartoonist to illustrated novel author encouraged Tatulli to follow suit: Stephan Pastis (the Timmy Failure books) and Rick Detorie ( The Accidental Genius of Weasel High). That took a long time, but it did happen.” “That was my bread and butter, but I always did comics on the side, trying to turn that into a career.
LIŌ TV
“Though cartoons have been part of my life from the get-go, I also did animation along the way whenever I could, and started working in graphic animation for TV shows and corporate videos,” said Tatulli, who is a three-time Emmy-winning animator and filmmaker. His comic strips are syndicated by Universal Uclick, a division of the company, and his comics collections were published under the Andrews McMeel Publishing imprint before the launch of AMP! Tatulli is hardly new to the Andrews McMeel Universal family. Due October 1 from AMP! Comics for Kids, a line of middle-grade titles from Andrews McMeel, the heavily illustrated novel is a first for both the author and the line, which has focused on comics collections since its debut in fall 2012.
LIŌ SERIES
This is the madcap premise of Desmond Pucket Makes Monster Magic by syndicated cartoonist Mark Tatulli ( Heart of the City Liō), the first novel in a series starring the eponymous prankster. A shrieking rubber goblin in the teachers’ lounge toilet? Battery-operated motorized worms in the cafeteria mashed potatoes? Both are the handiwork of sixth-grader Desmond Pucket, who is known for his horror special-effects wizardry until he is forced to mend his gory ways and – even more horrific – sign up for dread extracurricular activities.