In this episode, author and illustrator Aaron Blabey talks about the creation of The Bad Guys, his hit book series with Scholastic. The series inspired the 2022 computer-animated film of the same name from DreamWorks Animation. Aaron describes the series, which follows the adventures of a hapless gang of criminal animals who finally do good, as “Tarantino for kids.”

The impulse in creating the series, Aaron tells host Suzanne McCabe, “was to make sure my son had a book to read that was fun.”

The author and illustrator, who was an award-winning actor in Australia in a previous life, is also the creator of the Pig the Pug series and Thelma the Unicorn.

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Highlights:

“Mr. Snake is my favorite of the ‘Bad Guys’ because he’s the one who struggles the most with the journey, which makes him the most interesting to write.”

“Mr. Wolf and Mr. Snake are two halves of me…. I think we all have it—your optimistic side and your pessimistic side.”

“When kids saw the cover with the guys in the suits, with a shark and a wolf and this title, The Bad Guys, I think there’s this sort of frisson of ‘that looks a little bit naughty.’”

Of his teenage sons’ view of him: “’It’s just Dad in the garage. How hard can it be?’”

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