Art Collectors Flocking to William Joyce’s Madcap World

William Joyce’s world is peopled with baseball-playing dinosaurs and bespectacled frogs. It is a place of vast objects, anti-gravity machines and jam sessions with Duke Ellington.

With his madcap ‘30s-era quirkiness, the best-selling children’s author-illustrator of “Dinosaur Bob” and “A Day With Wilbur Robinson” appeals not only to delighted children and parents but also to serious art collectors.

Joyce’s nostalgic oil and acrylic fantasies, filled with the golden haze of childhood summers and comic oddities, are currently on display through mid-April at the Every Picture Tells a Story gallery in Hollywood.

Collectors are buying them “like hot cakes” for up to $12,000, said a gallery spokesman. A pittance compared to Van Gogh millions, but a tidy sum in the fast-growing children’s book art market.

What inspires the 34-year-old Louisiana native’s style?

Art Deco, movies and music of the ‘30s, classic illustrators such as Maxwell Parrish and N. C. Wyeth, “Little Orphan Annie” and “Dick Tracy” comic strips, “growing up in a household where anything seemed possible at any given time” and “the delirious musings of my childhood,” Joyce said.

“Dinosaur Bob,” for instance, was Joyce’s “revenge for King Kong dying and Old Yeller getting shot.” When Bob, a benign brontosaurus, meets civilization, “everything turns out OK.”

“Bently & egg,” Joyce’s most recent book, is a departure of sorts. The story of a “singing, drawing frog who rescues this egg . . . sprang forth from places unknown,” and bewildered him, until his wife, Elizabeth, explained: “ ‘Bill, this is about you being a dad, silly.’ ” They had just learned they were expecting their first child.

“The further along I got on the book, the more apparent it became, especially the more egg-shaped Elizabeth became,” he said joking. “Bently looks so much like me it’s awful.”

Joyce has mixed emotions about his success with collectors. “It’s very flattering to come in for a show and sell these pieces for that much, but it’s hard to let them go because I always miss them. I’d rather have them in my house.”

On the Mississippi: The Serendipity Theatre Company has scored with a mature, well-staged adaptation of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” at the Coronet Theatre.

Written by John Urquhart and Rita Grossberg and directed by Katy Henk, the production doesn’t water down the violence--the scene where Huck’s drunken father beats him is too real for young children.

It doesn’t add any overt preachiness against 19th-Century acceptance of slavery, either, but makes interesting use of subtle silences to underscore the wrongness of it.

Three adult professionals and two experienced older teens make up the quality ensemble: Brad Bredeweg and Mark Conley stand out as Huck and the runaway slave Jim; Erick Weiss is top-notch in his multiple roles.

Elizabeth Jee is fun, although she brings a certain dithery Southern sameness to her various roles. Meanwhile, in a supporting role, Josh Wheeler is just right as Tom Sawyer.

Wrapping up this quality package are Ken Realista’s silhouetted riverbanks set and his superb light design, Lyle Brooks’ evocative sound and Randall Perry’s just-right costumes.

“Huckleberry Finn,” Coronet Theatre, 366 N. La Cienega Blvd., Fridays, 7:30 p.m., Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 p.m., Sundays, 1 and 4 p.m. through April 5, $12; $6 for children 13 and younger. (213) 652-9199). Running time: 90 minutes .