Some of you guys know – and by “some of you,” I mean those of you who are either married to or play in a band with one of us – that Lakeland tattoo artist Jack “J.R.” Sprouse and I have been working on an idea for a series of children’s books for a while now.

They’re not really standard children’s books, per se. They’re readers, meant to be shared by the parents who are fans of the material with their kids from the time they’re old enough to hear ‘em and ask questions until the kids can enjoy the stories and illustrations and vocabulary themselves. We’re really psyched, the main idea came from J.R. and his wife Cindy one night over cocktails a couple of years ago and I was immediately motivated to do something with it.

Well, the first story and part of the second are done, and J.R. has settled on a great, stark, evocative drawing style to use, and the first few drafts of illustrations have flown back and forth, and I think we’re just about ready to roll with pitching this thing. Not sure exactly where it will end up, our dream is to do the whole series of nine books – a school year’s worth of stories for the characters – with a publisher that will go whole hog, with reading-comprehension games, let us read in schools and get the kids to play the parts of the characters, totally do it up. But if it doesn’t happen, we’ll definitely find a way to get the stories and the fun out there.