Click on "Old Mr. Mackle Hackle" to see a slide show of the book's illustrations.

"Old Mr. Mackle Hackle" will be available in April 2005 from Little, Brown & Co. (a div. of Time/Warner) and can be purchased at your local independent book store or online at:

"Old Mr. Mackle Hackle" is living proof of what I think is one of the best things about being an artist: it allows you to change reality to suit your fancy. The world can become anything you want it to be.

The way the world in the book turned out is only one of billions of ways it could have been. As the artist, I changed things: normal everyday chickens become pink and blue chickens, they read the comics, and live in a house with a man who looks like none you will ever meet in "real" life.

It began like this: the story was first a song by Gunnar Madsen. My agent knew I had been looking for the perfect silly song to illustrate, and sent his CD to me. The minute I heard it, I loved it! I loved all of Gunnar's songs and the joyfully insane way he sang them. I knew I would like to become involved with the kooky characters in the story, and that it would be a fun book to illustrate—and hopefully one that kids would have a lot of fun with. I could even imagine Gunnar singing along as I turned the imaginary finished pages.

At first, everyone—including myself and Gunnar—assumed that Mr. Mackle Hackle was an old farmer who raised chickens. Until one day, as I was doodling and fiddling around with ideas for the sketches, a funny old guy in a bowler hat came out of my pencil. He was sitting in a fancy chair, with a chicken on his knee—and the chicken was playing a ukelele and singing. Well! That was the beginning of the eccentric old man in the book, who keeps chickens, and chicken games and chicken toys, in his odd Victorian house (luckily, this was fine with Gunnar).

You will see, if you close your eyes and listen to the song, or just read the words to the story, that Mr. Mackle Hackle could look like anything. And the story could take place anywhere... on a houseboat!... over the moon!... in a tomato! As an artist, the sky is the limit; you can go as far as your imagination will take you.

Of course, as an illustrator, you are required to illustrate the story, so you aren't as free as a painter would be, to do exactly what you want. Because of this, my advice to kids—and adults too—would be to just draw and paint for joy and experimentation; then if sometime you decide to illustrate a story, pick your story carefully. Better yet—make up your own and illustrate it!

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Albert Einstein

"To accomplish or create anything, it must first be imagined."
A nony mouse

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