One of the things about the graphic novels, especially with the Dog Man series is that I think it’s interesting to watch the characters from Captain Underpants grow up through their artwork. And so George and Harold are getting older, they’re getting more mature, they’re now in fifth grade and even their idea — their spelling is improving. Their spelling is actually perfect now. And their ideas are getting deeper and showing a little bit of maturity.
The last book, the one that just came out, A Tale of Two Kitties, is actually based on a Charles Dickens’ story, A Tale of Two Cities, at least with the themes. There is a theme in that novel about basically redemption through self-sacrifice, and I really loved that idea, and I wanted to take that idea and put it into the new Dog Man book.
And so George and Harold are actually borrowing themes from classic literature and turning them into silly stories. And the one that — the book that comes out in December is actually based on East of Eden by John Steinbeck. So they’re going off in very mature directions.
