Charles Ogden is an avid camper and fisherman. He collects insects and has traveled in pursuit of various specimens to the North Pole, the Souh Pole, and Poland. Mr. Ogden and his insect collection make their home in a cool, dry, preservation-friendly environment, far removed from prying eyes.
Rick Carton has been drawing longer than he's been walking. In his Chicago studio he has a cherished collection of every pencil ever worn down to a nub during his lengthy artistic career. He has never formally studed art; instead, the art community has diligently studied him. They are yet to release their findings.
1. The Most Pleasant Town in the World
If you had grown up in the charming town of Nod's Limbs, you probably would have been extremely happy. After all, everybody else in Nod's Limbs is extremely happy, and that sort of thing is contagious, like a head cold or a yawn.
Nestled into lush, green hills on the banks of the Running River, the town looked more pleasant than the prettiest postcard. True, the Running River was not much more than a creek, and the trees on those green hills were occasionally blighted by nests of cuckoo wasps. But all in all, everything about the place was utterly delightful.
Delightful to a point, however. For -- it must be mentioned -- things had become wondrous strange in recent months, ever since the day town founder Augustus Nod had walked out of an underground cavern, alive after two centuries alone in darkness.
In many towns, this event might have been met with disbelief, but not so in Nod's Limbs. Here, townsfolk found it easier to simply accept this marvel without getting bogged down by questions such as "Shouldn't he be dead?" and "What miraculous substance could have kept him alive all those years?"
With these complex and worrisome questions safely ignored, the citizenry could concentrate on what they did best: celebrating. And celebrate they did. The town's new motto, "Everything Nod Is New Again!" manifested itself everywhere: Nod's original candle factory, the Waxworks, was being restored to its former glory; Rickets Road had been renamed Augustus Avenue; ice cream vendors sold Chocolate-Covered Nod Pops from their pushcarts; and Augie was fast becoming the most popular name for both baby boys and girls.
Change was afoot in other ways, too. The mayoral family, who had ruled in a continuous chain since Nod's time, had been disgraced and banished the day the old man reemerged. Now, for the first time in the history of Nod's Limbs, the upcoming mayoral election had more than one name on the ballot, and neither of them was Knightleigh.
Odd, too, was the town's new attitude toward the practice of mischief. In years past, when something went awry -- such as a giant pitcher of maple syrup spilling over the town, or jet turbines blowing a blizzard of confetti through the business district -- the citizens did their best not to question it. The less said about these unseemly events, they reasoned, the sooner life could return to normal.
These days, however, the townsfolk had a new definition for "normal." A new spirit had come over them, a spirit of merry misbehavior and mischievous monkeyshines.
Most likely this new attitude could be blamed on Nod's return -- for, after all, how should one react when madmen walk the earth centuries after being given up for dead? How should one react when cherished civic leaders prove to be liars, thieves, and would-be murderers? How should one react when the entire status quo is flipped upside down? In Nod's Limbs the answer was this: accept it. After all, one could continue to seek a normal life, as long as "normal" meant that covered bridges sometimes went aloft.
As Edgar and Ellen were revealed that day to be the driving force behind most of the mischief the town had ever experienced, the twins were elevated quite logically from "irregular nuisances" to "status quo."
And the status quo was something to be taken very seriously in a town like Nod's Limbs.
Text and illustrations copyright © 2008 by Star Farm Productions, LLC
