Making of "Green Eggs and Fran"

2 years ago I drew this Dr Seuss style Vincent for a bonus panel:

I was really pleased with it and wanted to do more.  I envisioned it being like "Green Eggs and Ham", where Fran begs Vincent to eat his dinner, but he still ends up refusing.  Being our resident poet, I asked J to write me a story I could illustrate.  He did, but honestly... it was TOO GOOD!  Dr Seuss rhymes are charmingly clunky and his excellent poetry didn't quite fit.  I wasn't really sure how to ask him make his poem less good, so I thanked him and re-shelved the idea.

Then a couple of weeks ago my oldest was sick and miserable.  I was grabbing at straws trying to cheer him up when our dog, Captain Harlock, came and sat on 7yo's teddy-bear.  I made some dumb rhymes like: "Cap sat on Ted!  Ted is not your bed!"  7yo cracked up and we started riffing ever more terrible Dr Seuss lines.

Inspired, while 7yo napped, I stole all the Dr Seuss books.  It really was much easier than I'd assumed!  I made a list of all the ridiculous ways Fran could tempt Vince to eat his dinner (dessert, money, bribe, toy, ketchup, movie, for me) and then used a website to find rhymes and write a poem.  By the time 7yo woke up, I had one to read him and he loved it -especially the ending!

Next came the artwork.  I used my previous technique of finding close matches in the books, chopping them up and drawing over them:

I had to use a little bit of artistic license on some of them because Dr Seuss animals do look pretty weird!  I made their ears bigger and gave Fran her distinctive cheek tufts.  I found that Dr Seuss doesn't really distinguish between male and female bodies (at least not in his kids books!) but he does like giving females frillier clothes, so I added collar to Frans purple top.

The idea for keeping the last panel in the usual style came to me as I was contemplating how tired I was of drawing in Seuss style!  Not only would it be easier, but it would add to that "snap back to reality" feeling the flat "no" was supposed to elicit.  Initially I kept the eggs and ham as green, but 7yo said I should make them real colors and have it like she was just playing around calling them that to entice him to eat them.  It was a good point and I changed them! 

Since finishing the comic, it's entered into the 5yo's bedtime book choice.  You can't really get much higher praise than that! :)