Trace Beaulieu brings us Silly Rhymes

 

There are some people in the world that exude a level of awesomeness that many of us uber-geeks aspire to. One of those people just happens to be a friend of mine for over a decade now and one of the creators of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and member of the amazing Cinematic Titanic. I'm not one to name drop, or by any means be boastful of connections. But there are times when you realize some of your friends have a cult following and huge fan base, it makes you step back and say wow, that is so cool and well deserved.

 

Yes, I could go one for days about the many talents of Trace Beaulieu and how wonderful he is and what a hilarious movie riffing master he is. But we are here today to talk about his new book. That's right, he has a new children's book that is absolutely wonderful. Oh sure, of course you are going to say it's great, your friend wrote it. I'm here to say that if this book was sent to me without his name on it, I would love it all the same. Illustrated by the talented Len Peralta, this book is a dark morsel of delight. If the great Roald Dahl was still with us, he might even have a copy of this on his nightstand. 

Can you tell us a little bit about Silly Rhymes and what inspired you to write it?

Trace Beaulieu: I had a bunch of these rhymes sitting around for years. There were maybe half a dozen or so that I had just tossed in a pile of other scraps of writing and ideas. I'd take them out now and again and think about doing something with them, and I thought that I would have to illustrate them myself. That seemed like a daunting task so back in a drawer they would go. I met Len Peralta, who is a wonderful artist. As Len and I got further into the project it became clear that we would need more rhymes so I wrote some new ones and expanded a few others to make them a bit meatier. I really don't know where the initial spark came from. I guess I was in a silly mood. I had an old Remington 5 typewriter back then and I really loved typing these little bits and pieces on that thing.

I love that Silly Rhymes is taking the it's okay to vomit all over your brother mentality, did you tone anything down in the book that you thought might be too much? If so, what?

TB: I wrote what I would have liked to read when I was a kid. This book might not be for every child. That’s really up to the parent to decide. Len has kids from ages two to sixteen and they all got a kick out of it.

There is one rhyme, “Winkle Tinkle” that in my head was about a kid, but when Len drew it he turned it into an adult. I really didn’t mind the change and I think that taking one dark child-oriented story and changing it to a dark grown-up story might have softened it a bit.

Writing a rhyming book for children is considering one of the hardest things to too. Did you have any reservations in tackling this? Was there a lot of rewriting?

TB: There is always rewriting, although, there was one that came out fully formed: the “Becky Webber” rhyme. That one is based on something that really happened to me in kindergarten. I did change the name on that one, so it, too, had a rewrite. Yeah, there is always rewriting.

I didn’t know rhyming books were viewed like that. My ignorance, I guess. I just wrote what I liked, and then Len and I put the book together. We didn’t calculate ahead of time that the world needed another rhyming children’s book. We wanted to work together and things just jelled. There is a great quote I just read attributed to R. Buckminster Fuller, “Dare to be naïve”. It’s worked for me in the past.

The few illustrations I have seen are wonderful. What brought you and Len together on this project?

TB: I met Len at Dragon*Con in 2009 when I was there with Cinematic Titanic promoting our shows and DVD’s. He had just done a book called “There’s a Zombie in My Treehouse”, written by Ken Plume and John Robinson. I really liked the illustrations in the book and asked Len if he’d like to work on a project. The idea I had pitched to him at the time was about a wood tick. He immediately sketched a little idea for the main character wearing a straw boater and spats, and dancing with a cane. Did I mention this is a musical? I hadn’t worked out the whole story at that time and kept stalling Len. Then he sent me some of the illustrations he had done for another book, called “Very Grimm Fairy Tales”, and it had a little character vomiting copious amounts of, well, vomit. I loved it and it reminded me of these rhymes I had. I thought it would be a good way to bite off little bits of a project and we could build the book as we went and sort of “accordion” the size to fit our time and budget. I’d send a bit off to Len and he would turn around a pencil sketch right away. I was thrilled to get such a fast response, and the stuff Len sent back was absolutely wonderful. There were a few ideas that I already knew I wanted a certain way, but for the most part Len took my stuff and ran with it. It was a very collaborative partnership. Len is great to work with, and very “yes, and how about this?” 

Do you have plans to write more children's lit, if so, what will you be writing about?

TB: I want to get back to this story about the wood tick. It’s not just about a tick, but about the other disgusting insects, bugs and things that live just outside, some inside too. It will be very educational, funny and gross.

I told Len about another story I have that takes place in the circus. This one isn’t very gross, except there are a few clowns. I’d love to see Len attack the circus world with his illustrations.

What were your favorite children's books that you read growing up?

TB: I loved Dr. Seuss’ “The Cat in the Hat”, “Green Eggs and Ham”…all of those. The Charles Addams cartoons from the New Yorker. Our library had a collection of those and I loved them. I think I moved on to MAD Magazine and the MAD books pretty early. My brother had those around. Later, my mother gave me a subscription to MAD. How great is that?

I would say that is pretty fantastic! I want to give a shout out to my mother who bought me Famous Monsters and Fangoria magazines when I was growing up. Thanks for supporting my love of the macabre, Mom!

Thank you so much, Trace, for stopping by the Asylum. I hope for great success with Silly Rhymes. I can't recommend it enough. Order Silly Rhymes here: www.tracebeaulieu.com/sillyrhymes

I would also like to give a big Thank You to Len Peralta for supplying us with his fantastic images. Check out Len's site here for more of his amazing work and lots of other goodies.