It's the story of Bobby the Bob-Tailed Coon, so called because of the fact that this particular raccoon has no tail. According to the article, the adorable miscreant was captured while attempting to steal cat food from the barn of one Fred Kreger, an Illinois cattle rancher. Mr. Kreger attempted to rid himself of the thief by driving it out a few miles from his ranch and releasing it in the wild... only to find the same no-tailed raccoon return to his barn to be caught once again. So Mr. Kreger drove the creature out 12 miles, then 20 miles, again and again to be released in the wild, only to catch the same bob-tailed raccoon back in his barn, every time.
The reason I link to this story is because it resonates. There is something about this story that connects with people in the way that only myth or Jungian archetype can do. The story of a man who attempts to rid himself of a troublesome animal that keeps on coming back over and over again is an elemental tale as old as humanity, expressed perhaps most famously in the popular children's song, "And the Cat Came Back," as well as in such popular culture icons as the Energizer Bunny.
So I've decided to make this into a children's book. The inspiring persistence of our raccoon hero to return time and time again in his untiring quest to steal cat food is the kind of lesson our children need to read. And the plot element of having the hero be a raccoon that is missing its tail is a perfect touch. It's almost like a metaphor for children today, many of which are growing up in the modern world without tails.
In fact, it's almost as if the journalist who wrote the article had a children's book in mind when writing the article. The triple-spaced, one-sentence paragraph format of the news article literally writes the text of the children's book for me! Nothing more is needed except to add a page-sized illustration for each sentence-paragraph!
Seriously. Take each sentence-paragraph from the Bobby the Bob-Tailed Coon story I linked to at the beginning of this post and simply add an illustration. How hard is that? I could knock that out using MS Paint. Five, maybe ten minutes tops:
Capturing the perspective is kinda tricky. Bobby is supposed to be in the foreground with Fred Kreger behind him about fifty yards away and the barn maybe twice that. Instead, it just looks like a gigantic raccoon is attacking a floating man who happens to be the same size as his barn.
Of course, the most important element to capture effectively was the tail stump. This is Bobby the Bob-Tailed Coon, and that missing tail is his trademark. Therefore, any image of him needs to include the signature tail stump or you ruin a key element of the character franchise; how else would we know that his tail isn't just tucked behind him? The problem is, of course, that the character is facing us, and so the most intuitive place to put the tail stump in this situation would be between his legs... which would have looked obscene. I wanted to avoid obscene imagery as much as possible in a children's book, so I moved it (the tail stump) over to his side and labeled it with an arrow so that there would be no confusion. There is no way to mistake it now for anything other than the remnants of a tail or else a trapezoid-shaped piece of shrapnel lodged Bobby's left kidney.
Overall, I think this picture kicks ass. If I were a kid, I'd read a book like this over Harry Potter any day. And the best part is, with the text already written for me, I can bang this whole thing out over Labor Day weekend and have a million-dollar manuscript children's book ready to take to a publisher by Tuesday!
Of course, some ot the text might need a little touching up, such as the name of the rancher, "Fred Kreger." It's very similar to Freddy Krueger, which might get me sued for copyright infringement. Since my plan is to sell a book that consists of another man's story told entirely in words that I've lifted from another writer without attribution, copyright infringement is something I should probably try to avoid as much as possible.
2 comments:
But you MUST . . . must end with those final words of the 'smitten' reporter. . . .
. . . "you go, bobby."
you go, indeed!
I would like to purchase your book for my kids. Have you finished it yet?
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