SAUGUS — Author and illustrator John Patrick Green, known for his series “InvestiGators,” visited Belmonte STEAM Academy to give a talk to students.
The Saugus Public Library and Saugus School District partnered to bring Green to the school. The Saugus Cultural Council provided funding for the grant, and copies of his books were donated to the Belmonte school library from New Friends of Saugus Public Library.
Green spoke about his popular series starring alligator investigators Mango and Brash, who are agents of S.U.I.T. The series grew to be so popular that it earned a spinoff series called Agents of S.U.I.T., starring other agents.
Green dove into what he called his origin story, showing how he grew into the author and illustrator he is today.
“One of the reasons why I drew so much is because when I was young, I had very poor health. I had really bad asthma and allergies. I would get sore throats all the time and ear infections a lot. And I’d often be too sick to go to school,” Green said.
Growing up, Green loved to read comic strips in the newspaper and was inspired to start drawing his own versions of Calvin and Hobbes or Garfield.
“I basically memorized how to draw Garfield just by doing it over and over again… I was kind of fascinated by the use of words and pictures to communicate. And my parents would see me waiting for a new newspaper every single day to read these comics,” he said.
On days when Green did make it to class, he’d doodle Garfield in his notebooks, and other students started to notice. Some even went up to him at lunch and asked him to draw them their own Garfield. Eventually, Green was able to make some money by selling his drawings to his classmates until parents started calling the school, wondering why their kids were using their lunch money on Garfield sketches.
Green said that his mom had been proud of him for learning he had this skill, but had also explained the rules of copyright to him, so he brainstormed his own characters.
“When I was in the first grade, I created these characters called the Footsies. Now, they’re not famous or anything. You won’t have seen them anywhere… I knew I wanted my characters to also have something about them that was easy to remember. And I thought, ‘Well, if I gave all the characters really big feet that’s hard to miss,'” he said.
One day, Green’s brother brought home a comic book, and he realized that instead of just making comic strips, he could tell whole stories through his art and writing.
Later on, Green would go to art school, where he met Dave Roman, a man who had a very similar origin story to his, and they would craft the book “Teen Boat.” This was the start of Green’s long career in creating graphic novels.
Green would find himself working at Disney for 10 years, during which he created his books “Hippopotamister” and “Kitten Construction Company.” It was after Disney that Green created “InvestiGators.”
“I realized I liked drawing animals more than drawing people. There’s just something more fun about drawing cartoon animals. I also think it’s really funny when they wear clothing… And I like stories about jobs because they’re recognizable all over the world,” he said.
