The Double Disappearance of Walter Fozbek by Steve Senn: A Review and Appreciation

While moving from heavily illustrated books to chapter books, I had a few milestone books that I loved. To name a few: The first few books of The Little Vampire series by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg (My Friend the Vampire, The Vampire Moves In, Vampire in Love, etc…); the Bunnicula series by James Howe; the Soup series of books by Robert Newton Peck; and the one I’m going to talk about today, The Double Disappearance of Walter Fozbek by Steve Senn.

The Double Disappearance of Walter Fozbek (the version I had as a child was the Avon Camelot, 1985 paperback) by Steve Senn is a book I remember quite well from my early years of reading (although the name eluded me for YEARS). This book also introduced me to Science Fiction. I think I was a curious 9-year-old at the time when I picked the 1985 paperback up at a local bookstore. The sight of a boy waking up next to a dinosaur in the other twin bed in his bedroom – both with shocked looks on their faces – was enough for me to get it.

The story involves a human boy waking up one day in another dimension exactly like his own except this new-to-him universe is populated by anthropomorphic dinosaurs (human-acting dinosaurs). In this other dimension, humans are extinct and the dinosaurs do the exact same things that humans did in Walter’s home dimension. Much time is spent disguising Walter to look like a dinosaur so he doesn’t freak out the dinosaur population. Later the pseudo-science of inter-dimensional time travel is explained down to a fourth or fifth grade level. I remember being utterly fascinated and accepting it all as fact (major willing suspension of disbelief). There isn’t any “magic” involved, but it isn’t ultra-real science either. Just stuff kids can digest. This book made me interested in Fantasy and Science Fiction and shortly after it I was reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series and Piers Anthony’s Xanth series.

Although I had no idea of it at the time, Steve Senn illustrated this book too (he didn’t do the paperback’s cover though, just the inner illustrations). The very cute line drawings were one thing that I really remembered about this book.

In 2009 a local bookstore of mine sadly closed and sold off their inventory. While filling a $5 bag of books I found a green hardcover of The Double Disappearance of Walter Fozbek without a dust-jacket. The cover looks like green, bumpy, leathery dinosaur skin (probably just leather-like). It also has an embossed picture on the front board of what looks like a happy dinosaur on it. I had no idea that this book had been in hardcover and my paperback was lost long ago. Of course, I purchased it the green volume. I even put a picture on Amazon of it.

Sometime in 2010, I figured out that Steve Senn is also known as Oscar Senn (I think Steve or Steven is his middle name, but I’ve read somewhere that Oscar is his middle name too). I found his website and wrote him a fan letter. We emailed back and forth and he sent me a picture of the original illustrated (by him!) dust-jacket for The Double Disappearance of Walter Fozbek hardcover (since mine was missing a dust jacket). I shared this picture on Amazon too.

The dust-jacket clearly states “Written and illustrated by Steve Senn.” During these conversations, it was pointed out to me that the “happy dinosaur” embossed picture was actually put on the book upside down by the publisher. I turned my copy over, and lo and behold, a very normal looking triceratops!

Further research uncovered that in 1985, there was an animated special of this book on CBS Storybreak (hosted by Robert Keeshan AKA Captain Kangaroo). I haven’t seen this animated short (about 30 minutes or less), but I’d love to.
 

The cover of the 1985 paperback (at the top of this blog) is by Tom Newsom and is based on an inner illustration by Mr. Senn that he drew in 1980.

Tom Newsom is a prolific artist. I have a ton of books with his art on the cover (Lynne Reid Banks’ The Indian in the Cupboard, James Howe’s Celery Stalks at Midnight, Ellen Conford’s Diary of a Monster’s Son, three more of Mr. Senn’s books, and many more). He also has painted some pretty popular Santa Claus art.

If you really enjoyed this book, there are two more written in the same universe…so to speak. Not the dinosaur universe, but Walter’s “normal” universe. These books are Ralph Fozbek and the Amazing Black Hole Patrol (Avon Camelot, 1986) and Loonie Louie Meets the Space Fungus (Avon Camelot, 1991: Steve Senn writing as Oscar Steven Senn). Both feature boys having science-fiction-y fantastic adventures and are quite fun.

That's all for now.  Join us next time for... RRRAWWWWRRR!   AAAaaaaarrrrggghhh!!! Dinosaaaaaaurrrrr! I've gotta run... fast!

Oscar Senn AKA Steve Senn: A Bibliography and Introduction

Oscar Senn (AKA Steve Senn, Oscar Steven Senn, Steve Oscar Senn, etc…) as he is known to his friends and family, is best known as an author (mostly as "Steve Senn") and artist (as "Oscar Senn"). He was born in Americus, Georgia in 1950 and was raised in Dawson. He went to school at the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida. He worked for The Florida Times-Union and the Miami Herald newspapers as an illustrator (I’d love to see these). He also worked as an Art Director in Jacksonville, Florida. He moved to Los Angeles, California for a while where he was also an Art Director, and I believe he currently resides in Jacksonville, Florida again.


Being a "book" blog, I will be mostly focusing on Oscar/Steve's books.  ha ha.

His first book, writing as Steve Senn, was The Double Disappearance of Walter Fozbek (Hastings House, 1980) and it is one of his best known books. I have a blog that will be posted later about it on here. It is about a boy who wakes up in a different universe that is exactly like his own… except everything that was Human is now Dinosaur. The book was released in paperback format from Avon/Camelot five years later (1985). Later that same year, there was an animated CBS Storybreak episode of it. Mr. Senn illustrated the cover (of the hardcover version) and the book itself. The paperback’s cover looks like it was done by Tom Newsom (one the GREAT unsung heroes of the illustrator world; if you have a lot of kid’s paperbacks from the 80’s you probably have some of Mr. Newsom’s work… or even if you have some Celestial Seasoning’s boxes in your cupboard!).

Next came Mr. Senn’s books for young Science Fiction / Fantasy readers, the Spacebread series of books; Spacebread (Atheneum, 1981) and Born of Flame: A Spacebread Story (Atheneum, 1982). They are about a swashbuckling interstellar cat named Spacebread and her adventures in the universe. These books are Sci-fi/Fantasy for young adults, and kids should eat ‘em up… if you can find them. The covers were painted by the author, and the first book, Spacebread, is illustrated Mr. Senn too. The character of Spacebread is based on a real Persian kitty that Mr. Senn had for several years in the mid-seventies. As far as I know, the two Spacebread books have only been available in hardcover.

A Circle in the Sea (Atheneum, 1981) came next. This book is hard to find at an affordable price, but the story is excellent. I just interlibrary loaned it because I finally gave up the search. Stupidly, I didn’t write down the copyright info before I gave it back! I believe it is so hard to find because so many who have read it LOVE it so much. The author told me that this book is his “best stuff in print.” It is about a girl who receives an ancient ring that gives her the power to transfer her essence/mind into the body of a dolphin named Breee. An “adaptation” of this book was reprinted in a textbook called Blueprints by Virginia A. Arnold and Carl B. Smith (Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989; part of the Macmillan Connection Reading Program) under the title “A Gift From the Sea” (which is the title of one of the chapters of the book).

I compared these a bit when I had A Circle in the Sea from the library. The 20 page “adaptation” is very short and it cuts out some of the scarier elements (like how the ring was still attached to a finger!), and it is newly illustrated by Warren Chang. The original hardcover’s dust-jacket was painted by Mr. Senn and it is beautiful. I believe A Circle in the Sea was released only as a hardcover.

Next: In the Castle of the Bear (Atheneum, 1985). This is a tale that can capture many imaginations and possibly even disturb you a bit too. It is about a young boy, Jason, who secretly writes poetry and how he deals with his inner demons including his mother’s death and a possible witch named Lauren who also happens to be his new stepmother. As a “child of divorce” I can see how this book could really effect and fascinate some readers, but I’ve always had loving step-parents (yeah… more than one) that I’ve never had ill-feelings about (but I also didn’t have a parent die first). Jason’s emotions are strong, and Mr. Senn conveys them in his words very well. The front of the dust-jacket is painted by Mr. Senn, and the back of the dust-jacket has an illustration featuring “the Bear” also drawn by Mr. Senn. Also, if you have this book, take off the dust jacket and look at the beautiful copper colored foil-stamping on the book cover. Nice. I believe this was released only in hardcover.

After that comes a sequel (well, sort-of) to Double Disappearance called: Ralph Fozbek and the Amazing Black Hole Patrol (Avon Camelot, 1986). If you’ve read Double Disappearance, you will recognize some of the characters (like Dr. Krebnickel and Ralph himself who were both in Double Disappearance!). Mr. Senn illustrated the book, and Tom Newsome did the cover of the paperback (no hardcover was released as far as I know). This book also features Loonie Louie Fabmyer who got his own book in this series in 1991. Also in this book, the town gets a name “Fogville” (I really don’t remember it getting mentioned in the first book), because of the name of the town and the changing main characters, this could be called The Fogville Series. Mr. Senn’s illustration style choice changed a bit in this book.

The next book by Steve Senn is The Sand Witch (Avon Camelot, 1987). The title, an obvious pun, tells us that there is a witch in this book… and she lives on the beach. Running in at less than 100 pages, this book is a quick read. Don’t let the silly title stop you, this book is a fun jaunt. Two kids, Frick and Jenny (yes, I said “Frick”…odd name) become obsessed over the possibility that their neighbor is a witch, but that is only the beginning of this story. The Science-Fiction twist in this book really thrilled me as a younger reader. Again, Steve Senn’s inner illustration style choice changed; this time they remind me of Ron Barrett’s style). Tom Newsom’s cover painting is very fun, and it also is based on a couple of Mr. Senn’s inner illustrations. Paperback only.

Steve Senn’s last published book for children was another Fogville book, Loonie Louie Meets the Space Fungus (Avon Camelot, 1991) which was written under the name Oscar Steven Senn. Because of the name change, I totally missed this book growing up. Okay, that was a lie, I was too busy reading Piers Anthony and Christopher Pike to notice a “kid’s book.” I didn’t realize this book existed when I first started researching Steve Senn in 2009. It is the second sequel (so to speak) of The Double Disappearance of Walter Fozbek. The cover is illustrated by Tom Newsom again, but this time, sadly, Mr. Senn did not illustrate the book at all (which may have been a budgetary choice made by Avon Camelot). Paperback only.

In September 2010, Oscar Senn had an art exhibit called The Hard Time Saints. In collaboration with this event Hedgehog Books released a very limited dust-jacketed hardcover called The Hard Time Saints: Miraculous New Work by Oscar Senn. It is about 20 pages and is filled with the art that was displayed and his own thoughts on each piece. The idea behind these paintings originated in the Catholic Holy Cards, but these are more “common saints.” Oscar Senn’s write-ups are awe-filling and the artwork will enthrall you. He even includes the “cast-off” black and white pictures (purchased at flea markets mostly) that some of the paintings are based on. I bought my copy directly from Mr. Senn (and he signed it “For Robert – Blessings from a weird universe”). If you go to his website and contact him, he may have others left for sale or you can order it from the blurb website. Hardcover only.


Here are the names of some of Osacr Senn’s award winning but uncollected and possibly unpublished stories: “The Blood of Eden” (2003), “The Unexpected Guest” (2006, AKA “An Unexpected Guest” available on his website), “The Wall” (2002) and “Squeeby Rolic” (2006, available on his website).


Since his last children’s book, Oscar Senn has been mostly making a name for himself in the art world. His paintings are things of beauty! Many of his paintings feature the world from a child’s perspective and point of view. His turtle ones alone could easily make an award winning children’s book (he has had many turtle pets). He is represented in Los Angeles by Couturier Gallery on La Brea. In Florida he is represented by Fairfax Gallery in Ponte Vedra. He was featured in Fresco Fine Art Publications’ 2008 book Picturing Florida : From the First Coast to the Space Coast by KahrenJones Arbitman and Susan Gallo, Edition 3 of The Artful Home: The GUILD Sourcebook of Residential Art (2005, GUILD LLC). Every once in awhile, you will run into a spot illustration in a book like his small illustrations for The Alphabet that Changed the World: How Genesis Preserves a Science of Conciousness in Geometry and Gesture by Stan Tenen (North Atlantic Books, 2011). He even wrote a chapter in Donna Hicken’s book The Good Fight (Closet Publishing, 2004). Pathways to Awareness: How to Chart Your Own Spiritual Freedom (Hedgehog Books/Mystic Books, 2005) by David Keel featured Oscar Senn’s layout and design (and he may have done the cover art).



Surprisingly, you may also run into his stuff on your child’s toy shelf (or a fellow cubical dweller’s shelf in the case of his Pet Peeves plush stuffed animals or his Star Wars and Star Trek designs!).

Cellephant

Let me put it this way… Oscar Senn does Design Work (like Logo Design and Toy Design), Fine Art Painting, fiction writing, illustrates, and probably a million other things. Talent ooooooozes from this man’s pores! Give his books a try (or give them to your kids to try). Give his art a gander (I’d buy some if I could). I hope to see more from him in the future. Go to his website and check out more info: http://www.originalsenn.com/


PS: Mr. Senn, if you’re reading this, please give the possibility of e-publishing your out-of-print books a deep thought or two.

PPS:  He even illustrated the Stephen King/Peter Straub dust-jacket for the French hardcover edition of The Talisman, called Le Talisman Des Territoires:



An Interview with Neil W. Rabens: Author, Illustrator, Game Inventor, Musician, Parent, and More

Many of you read my previous blog here, and know that I am a fan of Neil W. Rabens' book The Secret of Henry and Sam. Since that time I have emailed with Mr. Rabens on a number of occasions and discovered bits and pieces of his life that are fascinating. So, I decided to interview him next for Book 'em Bob.

BookemBob: Hello Mr. Rabens and welcome to Book 'em Bob. I am your host Robert Brouhard and it is a great pleasure to have you here today. As you know, I had the delight of growing up with a book you wrote and illustrated called The Secret of Henry and Sam. Little did I know, I also grew up with a game you co-invented called Twister (“the game that ties you up in knots”). First, I just want to say thank you for these two wonderful childhood experiences. There isn’t much out there as far as biographical information goes… So, to introduce people to you, please tell us a little about your life. Where and when were you born and where did you grow up?

NeilWRabens: I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1929. I was the youngest of five, and I grew up during the depression years. My dad, Fred T. Rabens, kept his job but had his wages cut. He was a blacksmith for a milk company when they still had horses. He had natural mechanical abilities and became a mechanic when trucks replaced the horses. Incidentally, Dad had a patent in his name #2343578 (look it up)! It was a vending machine that would drop your item down when you put in a coin. Up until then you had to lift a lid and slide your beverage out. He was not a particularly good business man in spite of his creative mind. After the patent ran out, these machines were all over the place and he never benefited from it. He worked ten hour days sometime and would come home and work on his machine. When Dad passed away they told us that there were tools hanging in the shop that no one knew what they were for. When he came across a problem he used his blacksmith savvy to make a tool to fix this or that. I might add that he served in WW1 as a blacksmith when they still had the cavalry. All in all, I had a pretty happy childhood with a lot of friends and pets: dogs (one from the time I was one year until I buried him when I was about seventeen), cats, a black ram and even an alligator.

BMB: An alligator?

NEIL: Some guy sent it to his wife as a joke and she gave it to us. It didn't live too long or I might still have it. I had a baby woodchuck that I would carry around in my shirt. This of course made me very cool with my buddies. I had him all one summer but he ran away in the fall to hibernate. My mother had a high tolerance for animals. Her dad was a vet, or, as they called them then, a horse doctor.

BMB: Wow, Neil. Your dad sounds like he was a very interesting man, and I can see how some of those pets would make you popular with the curious kids. How did you start inventing games and who did you work with?

NEIL: In 1965 I got a job with Reynolds Guyer Agency of Design in St. Paul. They were going into games as a sideline and hired one Chuck Foley to head up that division. They hired me to work with him mainly as an artist. At the time they called me, I was working in New Richmond, Wisconsin as a cartoonist /designer doing art for children’s swimming pools and inflatable toys. Guyer had a few mat games that they intended to produce themselves but Foley suggested they contact established game companies on a royalty basis. I came up with the hand and foot concept and called it “Pretzel” which was later changed to “Twister.” Foley added some changes and it became what it is. He was the one who sold it to Milton Bradley for Guyer.

BMB: So, besides Twister, what are the names of some of the games you helped create, and are any still around today?

NEIL: Some of them can still be found on the Internet. Animal Twister, Grab a Loop, Bing-Bang-Boing (BMB NOTE: “The Bounce-a-Dilly Watchamagame with the Bingaroony Sound”... “The first open end action game ever created”... you gotta see this commercial), and Pie Puzzles. Others were: Battle Ball, No Go, One more Time, Stats (the safe dart board), Traffic Jam, and a few others. Plus a few toys (these were all done after we left Guyer). Foley made the first plastic handcuffs (they were light metal things up to that point). I can't remember who bought them but I think it was Cadaco.


BMB: I can’t honestly say that I have heard of any of them. Do you have any kind of ownership of Twister? Why or why not?

NEIL: No. The day Chuck and I applied for the patent we signed over the rights to Guyer. Foley had a verbal agreement with Reyn Guyer Jr. for a certain percentage, but when the money started to come in, it was not honored. Foley then resigned, got a backer, and I went with him. We started our own company which we called Research and Development (R & D). We worked together until the early 70's. The energy crisis of that time affected the toy industry somewhat, plus Foley's wife became ill with cancer. She passed away and he had nine children. We suddenly folded up and I was unemployed.

BMB: Oh, no. What did you do then?

NEIL: I went into sales, which was a huge mistake. I was completely out of my element, and there were a few rough years. Twister sold over 70 million games up to 2004 and I don't know how many since. If I could have had one half of one percent of the retail price it would have been nice. But nobody said life was fair. Foley became quite bitter and retained a lawyer and did get a little something. I got nothing, but I have a wonderful wife of fifty years and all my children are successful and life has been good. That's worth something.

BMB: Family can certainly make a person rich with its own rewards. How did book writing and illustrating enter the picture?

NEIL: The wife and I had a story hour in our church in a fairly rough part of Minneapolis. The children were not acquainted with the usual Bible stories, so I started making up contemporary stories that they could relate to. I would draw on a large pad while my wife told the story. I believe the first one was The Secret of Henry and Sam. Years later they ended up at Standard Publishing as books and were published. Two of the story hour kids, a brother and sister (9 and 11) ended up living with us as foster kids. They were the first of thirty-seven foster kids over the years.

BMB: Thirty-seven!

NEIL: Yes. We also had three of our own and adopted one of the foster children, a beautiful red headed baby girl. She was a year old when we got her and parental rights were taken from her parents when she was three… So we kept her. She is now in her early thirties. I should write a book about some of our experiences. The longest we had one child was three years and the shortest was three hours.

BMB: Sounds like it would be a great book. Entertaining and probably heart wrenching too. Besides the children’s swim pools and inflatable toys, did you do any illustration work prior to the books you wrote in the late 1970s?

NEIL: I had designed some paint by number sets for a small company while still in art school shortly after I got out of the service This would be in the middle fifties.

BMB: Have you written any books that never got published?

NEIL: Yes, I have a few stories but they’re not illustrated yet. I enjoy the writing almost as much as the illustration, but I'm a terrible procrastinator.

BMB: Yeah, I know what that is like. If a publisher asked you to write and illustrate a new children's book today, would you do it? Why or why not?

NEIL: Sure. As a matter of fact all the book rights have been given back to me by contract and could be published again. With the exception of The Secret of Henry and Sam, which I resold to Bogard Press at a flat rate. I needed the money at the time. I would have to re-illustrate them, I think. I've been out of the loop for a long time and really wouldn't
know how to go about getting re-published. The industry is a different kind of animal than it was in my day.

BMB: I really wouldn’t know how to go about it either, but I’d love to your work back on the shelves. Who are some of your favorite children's book authors and illustrators and why?

NEIL: Maurice Sendak, Mercer Mayer, Garth Williams, the late Dr. Seuss, and the late Bill Peet. I like the different styles and that each one is easily recognizable. I also really loved the work of cartoonist Walt Kelly the creator of Pogo Possum. He was in a class all by himself… Sort of the Mercer Mayer of the comic strip world

BMB: A man after my own heart. You just listed out some of my biggest favorites! What are you currently doing to fill your time?

NEIL: I work part time at a local county history center. Both my wife and I are volunteer grandparents at the elementary school. I assist the art teacher with kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades an hour a day. I play a six string banjo (a banjitar) mostly for my own amusement but occasionally publicly. Most kids nowadays idea of “cool” music is definitely not an 80 year old guy with a banjo.

BMB: I don’t know... I think they’d secretly like it and think it was pretty cool. What kind of music do you play with it?

NEIL: I like folk songs, old ballads and hymns. Incidentally, I had a song published some years ago. An old guy from Australia had a children's ministry and had one of my books and wanted to put it to music. It was called "Jesus Loves You" and was about children from other lands. He called Standard Publishing and they told him the rights belonged to me. He called me and I said go ahead. He was operating on a shoe string so I let him have it. He sent me a tape and I misplaced it somehow. He was originally from Scotland but also picked up the Australian accent. His singing was something to hear and he played some kind of odd instrument along with it that I couldn't identify. I also gave him a song I had made up for our story hour kids and he published that too.

BMB: Neil Rabens, songwriter, toy inventor, game designer, book writer, illustrator, parent, and more. You are a man of many talents. When we were emailing you mentioned a group called Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and they sounded pretty interesting. Please tell us about the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

NEIL: I was a member last year but dropped my membership. My purpose for joining was to network with local artists and writers but most of the meetings are not geographically feasible. I'm in good health but my night driving vision is bad. I think I will sign up again though because I enjoyed being part of it.

BMB: Okay. Did you pattern yourself after any other artists or illustrators?

NEIL: Not really.


BMB: That was to the point. Ha ha. I’ve got a possible doozy for you: If you could tell or teach the children of the world anything at all, what would that be and why?

NEIL: Just the old cliché, "follow the dream" and avoid procrastination.

BMB: Well, I wouldn’t call avoiding procrastination “cliché.” That is pretty darn good advice. Feel free to tell us anything else you’d like the world to hear about you, your philosophy, life, or anything else

NEIL: I am serious about being a Christian, but didn't become one until I was an adult. I grew up in a more or less agnostic atmosphere. I was a medic in the Korean War which had something to do with my change of thinking to some degree. I worked in an evacuation hospital (something like a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, MASH, outfit) I developed somewhat of a drinking problem (now, no longer a problem for many years… I just don't touch it). For some reason, I felt guilty for coming home before the war was over. When I got out, I went to art school for a short while, got married, and booze on both our parts ended that in a few short years. Then I got a job at the county hospital where I worked as an orderly and also made ambulance runs. I met my present wife there and this is the best thing that ever happened to me (fifty years and it looks like it might last)!

BMB: Anything else you’d like to share with our readers and Internet-land?

NEIL: I'll have to add a few words about my kids of whom I'm quite proud. My oldest son recently finished 25 years in the navy and now works out of Washington for the state department. He's over in Oman with his family. He makes frequent trips to Yemen where he is responsible for the security system. He has to keep all the electronic gear in order, cameras, gates, etc... at the embassy there. Oman is fairly safe, but in Yemen, he has to go to work in an armored car. My daughter works in a hospital as a cardiac registrar and her husband is the system analyst there also. My youngest boy does virtual reality training films at a nearby technical community college. My youngest girl, that we adopted, lives in an adult foster home near us. She has some learning disabilities but she's a real sweetheart.

BMB: Thank you very much for your time Mr. Rabens. I am very glad that I got to know more about you. You are a great person, a talented man, and I am sure you are a great father too. God bless you sir, and thank you again for letting me interview you for my blog.

Neil W. Rabens is the author and illustrator of many children’s books including: The Secret of Henry and Sam, Jesus Loves You, No One but God, One Happy Little Songbird, Bunker Bear, God Made All the Animals, and Scooter Bug and the Bookworm. He is also the co-inventor of many board games including Twister. His games and books often show up on eBay and also at Amazon.com. Please find them and check them out.