A series of graphic novels about Sir Ladybug, a group of early readers starring bold, brash Fox—several of which have earned Geisel awards—and a Caldecott Honor winner titled Mel Fell are just some of the works that have emerged from Corey R. Tabor’s studio in his 10 years of picture book making. In Cranky, Crabby Crow (Saves the World), creatures approach laconic Crow with friendly invitations (“Wanna scatter trash all over the street with me?” Squirrel asks) but each one is dismissed with a contemptuous “KAW!” What exactly is Crow’s problem? Suddenly, a red phone box on a nearby telephone pole rings, and Crow is off on a secret mission to save the planet from certain destruction. PW spoke with Tabor from his home in Tacoma, Wash., about picture books that go off the rails, the ever-present threat of asteroids, and grumpy people who make quiet contributions to their communities.
Was Cranky, Crabby Crow a story that had been percolating for a while, or did it arrive fully formed?
This was one of the rare stories that arrived all at once. My favorite kind! For contrast, I’m currently working on a story that I started and then put away eight or nine years ago. Crow was always a crow, and I knew from the beginning that he was going to have a very important secret mission.
It starts out like a “let’s be friends” story and then turns into something wildly different. Was that how you saw the set-up?
I’ve always loved picture books that aren’t afraid to go off the rails. And I love to throw a twist into my own stories whenever I can think of a good one. Luckily for me, this story came with the twist included.
To me, it was always more of a “don’t judge people too quickly” kind of story. Maybe the guy who just cut you off in traffic is off to save the world! Before I made children’s books for a living, I worked in a drugstore photo lab and there was this grumpy old man who came in regularly to have his film developed. He was cranky, crabby, for sure. But one day as I gathered his prints, I noticed that the photos were all of this great, big leafy tree. In each photo the tree was elaborately decorated for a different holiday. Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day... all of them. So I asked him about the tree and he instantly brightened. He told me about how, throughout the year, he decorates this tree in his front yard for the whole neighborhood to enjoy. He almost smiled as he told me about it. Almost. And the next time I saw him he was as cranky as ever. Crow is that old man—if he was also a secret agent.
There’s also the story’s revelation that the world could be under some kind of existential threat that no one even saw coming. Here, readers get to be in on the secret, and they get to go on this top-secret mission with Crow. Was that part of the plan?
That’s an interesting point—we never really learn what Crow is thinking or even what he’s saying exactly, although the other animals seem to understand him, but we do get a peek into his secret life that none of the characters in the book get to see. Kids seem to love dramatic irony—and it’s one of my favorite ways to add humor to a story.
About the existential threat: I was surprised to learn while I was working on this book that it’s not all that rare for asteroids to narrowly miss Earth. It seems our continued existence, when it comes to giant space rocks, is a matter of chance.
It seems as if the artwork has more background (like the sky washed in blue) and more penwork detail (the telephone box) than some of your earlier books; is that so? Did you try any techniques that you haven’t used before?
I try to illustrate every book a little differently than the ones before. I wanted this book to look like an old, action-adventure, secret agent comic book—or how I imagined one of those might look. I didn’t have any specific references in mind. So I drew all the lines and all the blocks of color digitally on a tablet, then printed them out at a smaller scale in black-and-white on an old laser printer. This added all kinds of little organic flaws, and also those little halftone dots that I associate with old comics. Then I scanned everything back into my computer and assembled and colored it digitally.
One challenge was figuring out how to draw the cutaway illustrations of Crow’s secret hideout. I’ve loved cutaway illustrations since I was a kid, and my son loves them too, so I had to include those. I made a lot of decisions while drawing this book based on what I thought my son would get a kick out of; he’s six and has great taste in picture books.
Did Crow take some time to emerge from sketching, or did he arrive just like that—with that sassy floating eyebrow?
I drew so many different versions of Crow. I think I spent several weeks drawing hundreds of crows before I found one that felt right for the story. For me character design is a lot like coming up with story ideas—they either arrive fully formed, all at once, or else they take ages to figure out. Crow was definitely the latter.
I think I actually had the whole dummy sketched and written before I finally figured out how I’d draw Crow. There was a stand-in Crow who looked more like a real-life crow but was missing the floating eyebrow and the attitude. My critique group saw that first, very ugly version of the book.
What made it so ugly? And what did they say?
My critique group is great, and they’re always good for ideas, encouragement, and inspiration. I made the first version of this book as quickly as I could, just to get the ideas and the story down, and that’s the version they saw. I made it all in Photoshop, drawing with my mouse on my computer, stick-figure style. One of my critique partners joked that it looked like I had made it in a very old version of Microsoft Paint.
Did Rebecca Sherman [Tabor’s agent] make any suggestions that changed the story, or was it more like, you showed it to her and she said “Wow, this is great!” and then went out and sold it?
Rebecca is fantastic. Our level of collaboration really depends on the project. When I started working on Sir Ladybug, for example, I’d never done a graphic novel and felt out of my depth. So I wrote and sketched out the first chapter and sent it to Rebecca. She gave me notes and guidance and encouraged me to keep going. Those books wouldn’t have existed without her.
With Crow, I already had an open contract for a picture book with Donna Bray, my longtime editor at Balzer + Bray, who is also fantastic, so I sent the dummy to her first. She’s who I collaborated with the most on this book. Donna had a bunch of very good ideas for small changes, and with picture books small changes make all the difference.
Do you remember one or two?
There’s a transition at the end of the book where Crow returns to Earth—spoiler!—and Donna helped me figure out the pacing of that. And there’s this cat character, Cat, who has a lot to say, and Donna really helped me get Cat’s dialogue just right.
Some of my other collaborators were Dana Fritts, who has art directed and designed almost all of my books, and Virginia Duncan, my current editor.
How did Dana Fritts contribute to the book’s look?
Dana’s a brilliant designer; one thing that comes to mind is the cover typography. She’s responsible for that lovely, eye-catching purple-pink gradient and the big, bold type.
And how did the book end up with Virginia Duncan?
This book started with Balzer + Bray, which was an imprint of HarperCollins at the time, and the imprint that had published all my previous books. But then towards the end of making the book, Balzer + Bray moved to Macmillan. So all my books under contract with HarperCollins were transferred to Greenwillow, one of their other imprints, and Virginia Duncan became my new editor. Virginia edited the final art, worked with Dana and me on the cover, and did all the other behind-the-scenes things necessary to get the book ready for publication.
What about the story pleases you the most?
I like that nobody solves Crow’s grumpiness. Crow is grumpy, but he’s also a lot more than that. He contributes to his community in his own way. I also like that when Crow is in his rocket—another spoiler!—we just see his grumpy eye—eyebrow included—peeking out the window. That always makes me chuckle.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on my next picture book, which is called Bear for a Day and is a very different kind of book than Cranky, Crabby Crow. It’s semi-autobiographical-ish. I’m at the stage where I’m experimenting with how I’ll make the final art and having lots of fun with it. I’m also working on a new picture book/early reader series with my friend Dalton Webb—I’m writing, he’s illustrating—called Wally Mammoth. And I’m illustrating a picture book by Nicholas Day called A Riddle of Eels. Phew, I think that’s everything.
Cranky, Crabby Crow (Saves the World) by Corey R. Tabor. Greenwillow, $19.99, May 6 ISBN 978-0-06-337358-7
