{"id":1515,"date":"2008-12-01T00:05:51","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T06:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1515"},"modified":"2011-07-14T23:20:42","modified_gmt":"2011-07-15T05:20:42","slug":"seven-questions-over-breakfast-marshmallows-included-with-maxwell-eaton-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1515","title":{"rendered":"Seven Questions Over Breakfast (Marshmallows Included) with Maxwell Eaton III"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MaxwellHere’s Maxwell Eaton III<\/strong><\/a>. He’s rowing his way to my kitchen so that I can ask him seven questions over breakfast. Make that seven questions over “a big glass of orange juice, a big glass of whole milk, and a bowl of dry cheerios.”<\/font> Maxwell adds, “if I could somehow suck more nutrients out of that meal than actually exist, I\u2019d probably eat it three times a day for the rest of my life. Oh and please add a cup of coffee with way too much artificial creamer in it. But make it a small cup, because if I have too much, I\u2019ll have to throw in the towel on drawing for the day. Shaky hands!”<\/p>\n

Well, OF COURSE, I’m going to have coffee, the brown life-blood, and he deserves it after that strenuous rowing adventure. I’ll take good ‘ol-fashioned half-and-half, thanks very much, but—as a courteous hostess—I’ll have “way too much artificial creamer” on hand for Maxwell. See him again to the left here? He’s excited about his new book and is ready to chat. In fact, this is Day One of a blog tour Maxwell is undertaking; scroll down to the bottom of this interview for the remainder of his blog tour schedule. I’m happy to be kickin’ it all off here at 7-Imp. <\/p>\n

Maxwell Eaton III is the creator of the the Max and Pinky<\/em> picture book sagas, two of which have been covered here at 7-Imp (here<\/strong><\/a> and here<\/strong><\/a>), all published by Random House, and what Kirkus Reviews<\/em> has called “a warm affirmation of budship.” Max and Pinky are best buds<\/strong><\/a> (“Always have been. Always will be”). Pinky loves Max just a little bit more than he loves marshmallows. Which is a lot.<\/p>\n

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And they both love adventure. They are also superheroes<\/strong><\/a> — Mighty Max! And, uh, his stubby sidekick, Pinky. Together they have battled snow monsters, embarked on an Adventure Day or two (every Saturday is Adventure Day, don’t you know?), played in gooey brown mud puddles, stopped falling meteors in their tracks, encountered polar bears in deep blue ponds, and saved whales. And one of them may or may not have been carried away by evil bunnies and the other gotten his head stuck in a fencepost. Max and Pinky have a host of other friends, including the aforementioned polar bear<\/strong><\/a>; a horse named Chuck, who likes to refer to Max as “some bald kid”; some groundhogs<\/strong><\/a>; and a mouse, often perplexed by Max’s knock-knock jokes. The nefarious bunnies are NOT our friends. <\/p>\n


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Chuck’s stall from the barnyard pages<\/strong><\/a> of Maxwell’s site<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

In their newest adventure<\/strong><\/a>, Max and Pinky are out to solve a mystery: They’ve painted the barn a lovely shade of red, but the next morning, it’s another color altogether. “Whoa, Nelly!” yells Pinky, and they re-paint, try to guard it during the night, only to awake to see that it’s been painted again — this time an alluring plaid. They set out to solve the mystery and find the painter; this involves questioning their pals and a blueprint for one very creative barn alarm, involving splashing chickens, a bowling ball landing on precisely the right spot of a seesaw, and many strings and fans. <\/p>\n

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The Max and Pinky<\/em> tales, rife with character asides (usually very deadpan), bold colors, and many visual jokes (usually via speech balloons), are fun and funny. But what really makes it all work is the heart at the center of the stories: The tight friendship between Max and Pinky. For the new title, released in October by Random House, Publishers Weekly<\/em> writes that Eaton “once again elevates goofiness to fine art. He gets considerable comic mileage out of his simply drawn characters and their dialogue balloon remarks. Even more to his credit, he makes an admirable statement about the nature of friendship without ever turning preachy.” And I say: This goes for all the Max and Pinky<\/em> tales, which are also—in my experience—big, ginormous kid magnets. To boot, as The Bulletin for the Center for Children’s Books<\/em> put it, the books are offbeat, irreverent, affectionate, wry, and imaginative. <\/p>\n


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In this January ’08 NPR interview with Maxwell<\/strong><\/a>, he shares that he began sketching the characters of Max and Pinky on bar napkins while he was working as a ski bum in Colorado. “Kind of out of boredom almost, I was just doodling and I came up with this character… who finally became Max. I needed the pig to say something, and think something, and show a little sarcasm, observing these ridiculous things that Max was doing… and finally it was just ‘Max and Pinky.'”<\/p>\n

So, let’s get the basics from Maxwell while we set the table here for our seven questions over breakfast, and I thank him very much for stopping by. <\/p>\n

Oh, and a Quick Note About the Two Spreads Below From The Mystery<\/em>: The colors are off. Now, I didn’t have time to ask Maxwell or Random House about this or to ask them to re-send the images. And I didn’t want to go without them. And<\/em> I didn’t want to get into PhotoShop and make the colors right myself, lest Maxwell take that oar of his and whop me upside the head for messing with his art, which you kinda couldn’t blame him for if he did. Even though Maxwell told NPR in the aforementioned interview that he’s colorblind and relies on his computer and an art director at Knopf to assist him with colors, it’s not his fault that the colors are wonky in these spreads. It’s just some weird computer phenomenon. So, for those two particular spreads, just pretend that the barn is red, not purple, and that Pinky is…uh, pink<\/em>. (Hence, the name.) Not light purple. Max’s shirt is really<\/em> red. Etcetera. Etcetera. Thanks. <\/p>\n

Onwards and upwards then . . . <\/p>\n

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7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: Can you list your books-to-date?<\/font><\/p>\n

Maxwell<\/font><\/strong>: <\/p>\n