Mother, Son Keep Book Deal All in the Family

Argyle sheep, fanged sea monsters, fat ferocious beasts, tubular trees with spikes and stripes--many of artist Michael Paraskevas’ visions are found nowhere in nature. They do, however, inhabit a growing number of children’s books by Betty Paraskevas, his collaborator--and mom.

This Saturday, “The Art of Michael Paraskevas” and books by the mother-and-son creative team go on display at Storyopolis Art Gallery and Bookstore. The exhibition kicks off with a reception for the artist and author, which will include “ER” star Anthony Edwards reading the Paraskevas team’s new book, “The Tangerine Bear.”

As an illustrator, 36-year-old Michael Paraskevas’ work has appeared in newspapers and magazines, from the cover of Time to Esquire, Sports Illustrated and the New Yorker. But his children’s book career now dominates, a change that came about in 1989 when he asked his mom to collaborate on a cartoon he was doing for Dan’s Papers, a weekly regional magazine in New York.

“I said, ‘Why don’t you write this and I’ll just draw it?’ ” Paraskevas said from his Long Island home, which he shares with his mother. A year later, Betty Paraskevas came up with a regular character for the cartoon, “Junior Kroll,” “a little kid in a bow tie with a cereal bowl haircut” who made such a hit, Michael Paraskevas suggested a book collaboration.

With the sale of their first book, “On the Edge of the Sea,” things “sort of snowballed.” Since 1993, the pair’s output includes “Shamlanders,” three Junior Kroll books, “Monster Beach,” “Gracie Graves and the Kids From Room 402” and “The Ferocious Beast With the Polka-Dot Hide,” all published by Harcourt Brace.

The Paraskevases are also overseeing many book-related projects in development as animated series and videos, plus toys and dolls based on the books’ characters.

Their collaborative style lends itself to prolific output.

“We have ideas for books, then I do a sketch, she’ll start writing, I’ll start drawing characters, and then we sort of see if it meshes,” he said. “Then we pick the book that we want to do next from a bunch of things we’re working on.”

Their latest, “The Tangerine Bear,” from HarperCollins, has been picked up by Book of the Month Club and is receiving gratifying critical attention. The soulful tale about a toy bear no one wants because of his accidental upside-down smile who ends up part of a rather unexpected family looks different than past books, with its textured acrylic, painting-like illustrations.

“That’s my response to what my mother writes,” Paraskevas said. “The whole idea of Junior Kroll was much different in temperament than ‘The Ferocious Beast,’ for instance, and the way my mother wrote ‘The Tangerine Bear’ lent itself to being nailed down and finished looking.”

Paraskevas’ childhood artistic influences were eclectic: caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, Mad magazine’s Mort Drucker, Hilary Knight’s “Eloise” drawings, “Winnie the Pooh’s” Ernest H. Shepard--and his mother, whose background is in theater and lyric writing.

“If you look at all the books, the illustrations look like little stage sets, like little backdrops for performers,” Paraskevas said.

As an adult, Paraskevas credits artist Robert Weaver, an instructor at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, with influencing him the most. “His whole thing was taking a sketchbook and drawing on the spot--don’t use a camera. That’s where all that journalistic work came from. I still like doing that, only I really like doing the children’s books. You get to create a whole little world.”

Is it tricky, working with Mom?

“We play off each other really well,” Paraskevas said. . “For the ‘Ferocious Beast’ book, she said, ‘Why don’t you make [the beast] something big and polka-dotted with four legs?’ I drew a bunch of things and then she said, ‘That looks good.’ ”

“We do get along,” agreed Betty Paraskevas, who was called to the phone by her son. “Of course,” she added, “the trouble is you work 18 hours a day, because you’re so close by when you have an idea.”

“We’re successful, that’s part of it,” Michael Paraskevas said. “That makes it easier. If we were completely unsuccessful, we’d probably be yelling at each other,” he joked.

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BE THERE

“The Art of Michael Paraskevas,” Storyopolis Art Gallery and Bookstore, 116 N. Robertson Blvd., Plaza A, Los Angeles. Hours: Mondays-Saturdays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Reception, Saturday, 4-6 p.m.; Monster Beach Mask Craft, 4 p.m.; Anthony Edwards reading, 4:30 p.m.; book signing, 5 p.m. Free, except $6 craft fee if participating. (310) 358-2525.