According to Pingk’s biography, the debut author-illustrator ran away from the circus to join a normal family. The “uneventful environment” has certainly helped the creator’s madcap imagination, on full display in the standout Samurai Santa (Sept., Simon & Schuster), in which a young ninja and his crew engage a familiar-looking samurai in a snowball fight. We spoke with Pingk from his home in Salt Lake City, Ut. See our review here.
Can you talk about your background in art, and how you came to illustrate a children’s book?
I’ve always drawn since I was a little kid. I was one of those people who always had a story going, and I thought that’s what everybody did. It was a lifelong habit. For the last five years I’ve drawn every day. I like to keep that unbroken chain.
The way I came about illustrating the book, in 2013 – I’m a government worker in my day job – when the government shut down I had nothing to do after working full-time for 12 years. So I opened up my sketchbook. I had a lot of little ideas and scenes, and I thought this would be the easiest story to do, since it was a simple story with only four colors. It was 54 pages, naïvely. After a few months of rejection, I reached out to agent Carrie Hannigan [HSG Agency]. I was ready to self-publish, but she said, “I can sell this thing, don’t self-publish,” and true to her word she sold it.
Why ninjas and samurais and Christmas?
I think almost everything in life warrants adding ninja to it. I want to add ninja to everything. When I was a kid, I had a 14-year-old neighbor who had a pair of nunchucks. I thought he was the most powerful man in the world. I think any boy my age in the ’80s and ’90s was watching Bruce Lee and kung fu movies, and I just love ninjas. I want to ninja-fy every holiday if I can.
What surprised you about the process of making a picture book?
The biggest surprise, because I’m so new at this, is how glacially slow it is, and then it’s insanely fast. [There’s a lot of waiting for edits, then] F&Gs, and then it’s instantly a hot flash and you have to keep up with it.
What’s next for you?
Simon and Schuster hasn’t selected the next one yet, [but] I have five or six ninja books I’d love to do. I’ve got one I’m calling the “monster book.” It’s not really a monster book, but I’m superstitious about titles. It’s a [middle-grade] graphic novel about Sherlock Holmes’s granddaughter, Padlock Holmes. And on the West Coast – I’m in Utah – I’m working with my publicist to travel around to independent bookstores [this fall].
Samurai Santa: A Very Ninja Christmas by Rubin Pingk. Simon and Schuster, $17.99 Sept. ISBN 978-1-4814-3057-9
