BOOKS & AUTHORS : 2-Headed Dragon Has Its Good, Bad Side

In 1950, when Lenerd Thomas was 18, his older brother gave him two cartoons he had drawn for an art school assignment: One was of a knight with a lance aimed at a two-headed dragon, and the other was of just the dragon.

Thomas not only hung the cartoons on his bedroom wall, but the whimsical two-headed beast inspired him to write a three-page poem.

“They just struck me as really fun characters,” Thomas says. “One head did look very sweet and the other looked very angry.”

Over the years, as he developed a successful commercial printing company (L.T. Litho and Printing Co. of Irvine), Thomas kept the framed cartoons on his den wall but forgot about the poem.

Then, about a year ago, the Laguna Beach resident ran across the poem in his desk and, as he says, “it just kept kind of rattling around in my brain.”

Thomas, whose only other attempt at writing was an unproduced screenplay in the early ‘60s, sat down and began writing a children’s story, in verse, based on the two-headed dragon in his poem.

“The whole story just sort of came to me,” said Thomas, 58, the father of four grown children and now a grandfather. “It’s one of those things: Once you start in on it you can’t stop. The kids read it and said, ‘This is great. Let’s do something about it.’ And we did.”

The result is “Sir Lacksalot and the Two Headed Dragon,” a 48-page, illustrated children’s book that tells the tale of an over-the-hill knight who has kept the countryside free of dragons except for one: the fearsome two-headed dragon: Poof Puffer, the friendly head; and Power Puff, its fire-breathing counterpart. (As in all children’s tales, goodness triumphs over evil.)

The hardback book, which Thomas self-published (L.T. Litho; $16.95), features full-color illustrations by Yakovetic, an Anaheim commercial artist who has done work for Walt Disney Studios and other studios.

Thomas hasn’t begun selling “Sir Lacksalot and the Two Headed Dragon” yet, although he test-marketed it in two Orange County children’s bookstores, and in both cases, he said, the copies sold immediately.

He was even more encouraged by the response the book generated at the recent American Library Assn. meeting in Chicago, where he had an exhibit booth.

“The enthusiasm was really overwhelming,” said Thomas, adding that 1,200 posters of the book’s two-headed dragon were quickly snapped up by ALA members. “They loved the character and they loved the story.”

Thomas said he has been in touch with different organizations to handle the sale of “Sir Lacksa-lot” in bookstores. He’s also in the process of lining up a Chinese manufacturer to produce stuffed two-headed dragon dolls, which he plans to sell for about $20 each.

By June, he expects to have three more books featuring Sir Lacksalot and the lovable green beast ready to display at the annual American Booksellers Assn. convention.

The story line for the next one--”Puff-Puffer Meets the Savage Sea Serpent”--was created by Thomas’ 22-year-old daughter, Janice, a UCLA theater arts graduate who is now pursuing an acting career in New York. Although her primary job on the first book was to edit her father’s manuscript, Janice also did some of the writing. “She had some great ideas that worked better than what I had,” said her father.

The next two books are currently being polished and, Thomas said, a fourth and fifth book are in outline form.

When Thomas retires from his printing company in a few years, his two sons will take over running the business. But if his two-headed dragon tales do well, he has no intention of retiring from the writing life.

“I’d love to, as a pastime, write stories,” he said. “It really is a lot of fun, and it’s very rewarding.”

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