Jesús Trejo is a comedian, the creator of the Showtime special Stay at Home Son, and an actor on the TV series Mr. Iglesias and Teachers. His picture book debut, Papá’s Magical Water-Jug Clock, illustrated by Eliza Kinkz, received a Pura Belpré Honor and was a 2023 PW Flying Start. Trejo and Kinkz spoke via Zoom about their new companion picture book, Mamá’s Magnificent Dancing Plantitas, Mexican cultural representation, and the uplifting power of comedy.
Jesús Trejo: Hey Eliza, I love seeing your studio back there. It’s always so cool—and it radiates creative energy.
Eliza Kinkz: I feel like my studio is my safe place. Just coming here, every corner of it is me. I feel so fortunate to have it. Sometimes I’ll talk with young artists who see my space and I’m like—just have patience. Don’t beat yourself up that you don’t have this right now. Do you feel that way with young comedians, that they’re always in a hurry?
Trejo: We want this stuff so bad. We’ve dedicated our adult lives to storytelling. And I do find when I meet a young writer, comedian, artist they’re rushing. I use gaming analogies. You can pass the game, but you want to get all the coins along the way. I’ve tried to experience every facet of the journey, and I appreciate it.
Kinkz: I really appreciate the success we’ve had this year since Papa’s Magical Water-Jug Clock was published. I like savoring it—every crumb of pan dulce—so there’s none left over.
Trejo: Late last year, I was cleaning out old folders my mother kept with drawings of mine. It nearly brought me to tears. In one, I wrote: I wanna have my own office... and I was reading that in my own office!
You’ll get there. I don’t think creativity likes it when we say, “chop chop, hurry up.” It says, “Uh-Uh-Uh...”
Kinkz: I talk about it like a staircase. You can be stuck on a step for a while, but you have to sit there and think about how to move to the next step. I had a lot of art and stories that weren’t working. And for you, was it jokes that weren’t there yet?
Trejo: Seinfeld has an amazing quote: “Only 5% of what you write is funny so if you want a lot to be funny, you have to write a lot!”
The older I got, the more I realized that you’re not competing with anyone. This is a one-person force. Can I be better than the last thing I’ve done?
Another game analogy is Mario Kart. It feels like playing the level where you’re racing against your ghost; it doesn’t matter who passes you, it has no bearing on the end result. It’s irrelevant. You’re trying to beat your best time.
Kinkz: Such powerful imagery. When you lose focus and start looking at what characters around you have achieved, you have to put on your blinders! Focus on what you can do, and create at this moment. Focus on your own lawn!
Trejo: Yes, the grass is always greener! Mowing a lawn with my dad as a kid, I remember cutting it too low and now there’s a chomp in the grass and it looks terrible and I’m getting upset. Dad said, “The great thing with grass: it grows back. That’s life. You have to repeat mistakes until you learn.”
Kinkz: We all figure out our own settings through trial and error. There are always adjustments to make, whether in art or writing.
Trejo: I feel with writing or jokes, there’s so much to keep in your mind—and never a right time to walk away from it. When is the time to step away from that drawing?
Kinkz: It’s like when your set is riding high and you want to stop and leave the audience wanting more. Any piece of art can be overdone. I look at an art piece [and ask], is it readable? Is there still a lot of life in it? But then I get picky and I start questioning, is this color too dark? Does it have joy? Is it legible? I want the joke to immediately come through. I think of myself as an illustrator for my audience—kids. I think of them first, and look from their viewpoint. If they find it enjoyable, I’m finding it enjoyable. But it’s so hard to step away.
Trejo: In a performance, you can be doing well and you get the signal warning you to get off stage in two minutes. Do I have enough time to keep going or do I rush? Sometimes you make decisions in the moment. You want to keep going because you don’t know if you’re going to get another big note.
When I submitted the final manuscript for Mama’s Magnificent Dancing Plantitas, it was after my mother’s funeral service, and I’ll never forget the text message you sent:
“Hey Amigo, just wanted to let you know that your new version of Plantitas is so funny. Sometimes I think in times of tragedy, we can produce our best material as it’s when our minds go into hyperdrive of trying to cheer ourselves up. ❤️ I mean, plant funeral… I’m going to make this a legendary picture book spread.”
Sometimes these unfortunate things bring out the best in a creative. After my mom’s funeral, I decided to cap off the book with the plant funeral. And you, Eliza, had nothing but great words. From one artist to another, to get that from you, that was so meaningful and I hope that other collaborators get to experience that kind of back and forth.
Kinkz: Comedy exists to cheer us up, to bring us back. When we’re in that low, our comedy goes into overdrive and we work to get people back up there. When I saw that plant funeral at the end, that spread was one of my proudest picture book moments. It offered so much comedy gold. And with us both being Mexican, I added in all those Mexican elements: the shawl, people wearing sunglasses….
Trejo: Our humanity together seems to resonate well with kids. I’m grateful not to have lost the inner child perspective.
Kinkz: We both have that inner kid. We’re both giving it our all and sharing the dance floor. Whatever you’re doing, I’m into it.
Trejo: So true. It’s the perfect dance floor: I can walk away and I didn’t step on anyone’s feet!
Kinkz: I felt sorry for your dad when I was dancing with him. He was wonderful and patient.
Trejo: That was quite a thing to be able to go to ALA and be there with your family and mine, for us all to connect together and go on that stage for the Pura Belpré Honor. Who would have thought we’d have that award experience under our belt with the first book?
I’m excited to see where this journey takes us. As long as the book resonates with young readers, I feel like my job is done.
Kinkz: Me too! It’s so touching. Going to the schools and seeing kids, like in Reading Rockstars in Texas, say, “This is me. This is my family. My mama loves the telenovela!” I can’t wait to see kids’ reactions to this new book.
Mamá’s Magnificent Dancing Plantitas by Jesús Trejo, illus. by Eliza Kinkz. Astra/Minerva, $18.99 Sept. 10 ISBN 978-1-66265-106-9
