Little Lit: It Was a Dark and Silly Night...

We planted a seed in some of the most fertile minds of the planet: cartoonists, novelists, and children's book artists. We asked them to start a story with the words:

It Was a Dark and Silly Night...

We wanted to know...What happened next???

What grew from the seed is this generous, chock-full, over-the-top jungle of silly comic book stories that show how rich the human imagination is. Lemony Snicket and Richard Sala imagined a dark and silly night where a young girl chases after a Yeti. Neil Gaiman and Gahan Wilson imagined a dark and silly night where kids throw the greatest party they ever had...in a graveyard! William Joyce tells us about kids whose Silly Ray saves the world from warrior florists. This collection of wild and silly imaginings will tickle your funny bone for years to come.

Featuring: Lemony Snicket andbull; Neil Gaiman andbull; William Joyce andbull; Kaz andbull; Art Spiegelman andbull; J. Otto Seibold andbull; Vivian Walsh andbull; Gahan Wilson andbull; Barbara McClintock andbull; Richard Sala andbull; Martin Handford andbull; R. Sikoryak andbull; Patrick McDonnell andbull; Tony Millionaire andbull; Carlos Nine andbull; Basil Wolverton andbull; Joost Swarte

"Not unsurprisingly, the results vary widely in tone....Like the previous volumes, this will appeal most to adults, and to visually oriented younger audiences on the verge of moving up to graphic novels." Kirkus Reviews

"This alternately cute and creepy volume lives up to its subtitle." Publishers Weekly

Spiegelman's series of Little Lit books for children continues, giving the comics treatment to stories by Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, William Joyce, and others.

The Pulitzer prize winning author of Maus and Maus II, Art Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and grew up in Rego Park, New York. He is also the co-founder/editor of RAW, the acclaimed magazine of avant-garde comix and graphics and the illustrator of the lost classic The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March. Spiegelman's work has been published in more than sixteen languages and has appeared in The New York Times, Village Voice, and Playboy, among others. He has been a contributing editor and cover artist for The New Yorker since 1992.

Spiegelman attended the High School of Art and Design in New York City and SUNY Binghamton and received an honorary doctorate of letters from SUNY Binghamton in 1995. He began working for the Topps Gum Company in 1966, as association that lasted over twenty years. There he created novelty cards, stickers and candy products, including Garbage Candy, Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids. He began producing underground comix in 1966, and in 1971 moved to San Francisco, where he lived until 1975.

His work began appearing in such publications as East Village Other, Bijou and Young Lust Comix. In 1975-76, he, along with Bill Griffith, founded Arcade, The Comic Revue. His book, Breakdowns, an anthology of his comics, was published in 1977.

Spiegelman moved back to New York City in 1975, and began doing drawing and comix for The New York Times, Village Voice and others. He became an instructor at The School of Visiual Arts from 1979-1987. In 1980, Spiegelman and his wife, Francoise Mouly, started the magazine RAW, which has over the years changed the public's perception of comics as an art form. It was in RAW that Maus was first serialized. In 1986, Pantheon Books published the first half of Maus and followed with Maus II in 1991. In 1994 he designed and illustrated the lost Prohibition Era classic by Joseph Moncure March, The Wild Party. In 1997, Spiegelman's first book for children, Open Me ... I'm a Dog was published by HarperCollins.

Art Spiegelman has received The National Book Critics Circle nomination in both 1986 and 1991, the Guggenheim fellowship in 1990, and a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992. His art has been shown in museums and gallery shows in the United States and abroad, including a 1991 show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

He and his wife, Francoise Mouly, live in lower Manhattan with their two children, Nadja and Dashiell.