The creator of “Captain Underpants” reflects on childhood inspiration, iconic villains, and reimagining the series as a manga, three decades later.

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Walking into Scholastic NYC Headquarters truly feels like stepping into a time capsule of my childhood bookshelf. Checking in at security, I spot a Harry Potter mosaic above the sign-in desk. Walking towards the elevators, I peek to my left, where there's a giant, fuzzy mural of Clifford the Big Red Dog. Looking up, a larger-than-life Captain Underpants is flying out of the wall.

Speaking of Captain Underpants — iconic author Dav Pilkey is in the building today. He's about to do a virtual Storyvoice livestream to nearly 170,000 viewers worldwide, and the Scholastic office is buzzing with excitement. A meeting room has been converted into a watch party, and I'm honored to have a front-row seat.

It's hard to believe that almost 30 years ago, millions of kids were introduced to one of the wackiest, most lovable characters in children's book history — a hero who fought for "truth, justice, and all that is pre-shrunk and cottony."

A few minutes after the livestream is over, Dav and I sit down to chat about three decades of the lovable superhero and what's next for The Amazing Captain Underpants.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Dav: I remember the kids around me laughing, and it was my teacher who inspired me. They always say how inspiring teachers are, and she certainly was inspiring.

She was telling us a story from her childhood, and she just happened to say "underpants." I wasn’t really paying attention, but I looked up and heard everybody burst out laughing. That one word was so powerful.

My big breakthrough came when I published my first book, World War Won, in 1987. The book didn’t sell very many copies, but I was doing a lot of school visits.

I would tell the kids about my childhood experiences of getting in trouble and being sent out to the hallway. I would sit there, creating. The minute I mentioned Captain Underpants, the room would explode. I thought, "Wow, maybe I should do something with this character!"

I tried many times to get it published, and it really wasn’t until the late '90s that Scholastic was willing to take a chance on it.

Dav: They always come easily to me. I think it’s because I spend most of my free time daydreaming.

I used to take my dog for three or four walks a day, and I’d usually come back with an idea. You know how dogs are — they’re always stopping and sniffing at things. I’d be looking at the sky, or whatever, and the ideas would just pop in.

BuzzFeed: Do you have a favorite villain you created?

Dav: Yeah, probably Professor Poopypants.

BuzzFeed: I loved it when he made everyone switch their names.

Dav: I think I was Gidget Hamsterbrains.

Dav: I didn't expect them to become running gags. I don’t think I planned that far ahead in the beginning. When I wrote the first book, my goal was to make this a trilogy. I really, really wanted to have three books, and I had no idea it would still be published 30 years later.

A running gag I really love is the Flip-O-Rama, because I’m not really interested in writing action scenes. It just seems kind of redundant to describe what’s happening in the illustrations.

I thought Flip-O-Rama was perfect because it takes kids out of the book for a while. You get to stop reading for a bit, then just start playing.

That was something from my childhood that my friends and I used to do all the time, and I’m really glad that I incorporated that into the series.

Dav: I remember I was not a fan of the Purple Potty Time Machine, because that was really hard to draw. It was just so detailed, and I always had to redraw it again and again.

There was a point where it got smashed, and that was the end of it. (Laughs) It was one of the happiest days of my life.

Dav: I did most of the Captain Underpants books the traditional way: pencils, inks, and I applied a gouache and watercolor wash to give the illustrations tone. The last Captain Underpants book I did digitally, but I still painted the black-and-white wash by hand with actual gouache and watercolor. I hand-paint the covers with acrylics.

I mostly do digital right now, but especially with Cat Kid Comic Club, there are all different types of art that go into it. A lot of it's hand-drawn, a lot of it's photography, and some things you have to make out of clay. Digital is really good if you travel a lot, but I’m kind of old-fashioned in that I like to do things with my hands.

Dav: I like book number nine a lot because it’s where George and Harold meet for the first time. I got to tell a lot of backstories and do interesting things with time travel.

Captain Underpants is almost not in that book; I think he’s only in like five pages. So it’s unusual, but it’s fun for me to go back and tell origin stories of characters I’ve known for a long time.

Dav: There is something. In the second book, Melvin creates a mouse from a photocopied image. In book six, Melvin has Sulu, the bionic hamster. I was thinking, "Why didn't I make the mouse in the second book a hamster? It could have been the same hamster."

I'm fixing that in the manga — we're working on the second epic manga right now. Melvin is making a photocopy of a hamster come to life, but he's actually creating Sulu.

Dav: My wife and I live in Japan, and I love going to bookstores and looking at manga. There’s a lot of children’s manga, like Doraemon, which I think is absolutely brilliant. After 30 years, I thought it would be really cool to reintroduce Captain Underpants to a new generation of readers.

It was a lot of fun because I hadn’t read the first Captain Underpants book in years, and I wish I’d done certain things in the original book. With this new manga edition, I thought, "Now is the chance to pull out all the stops and do what I wish I had done the first time."

I’m so lucky because [artist] Motojiro got the essence of the Captain Underpants story from day one. He understood the interactions between George and Harold. His artwork is fun, fresh, and energetic, and I couldn’t be more thrilled with this new manga edition.

I feel like it's giving Captain Underpants a new life, and I hope that we reach a brand new audience.

Dav: I’d like to pay tribute to the cartoonists who inspired me — Charles Schulz, Ernie Bushmiller, and George Herriman. I’m standing on their shoulders and wish I had been able to meet them to say thank you. I’m humbled and grateful to be able to do what I do today.

Dav: My biggest inspiration is that I used to feel ashamed when I was a kid, because I had dyslexia. It was a tough time in my life because no one else in the class had that, and I was the only one who had so much trouble with reading.

I think that's driven me to write books for the kid I used to be, and for any other kid out there who's struggling. I want them to find a book that helps them to associate reading with fun and with love.

Anybody else get a PHD ("Pilkey Honorary Diploma") in the mail, back in the 2000s? And, yes, I am indeed wearing a 3D Hypno Ring.

You can visit Dav's website to learn more about his work. 

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