Halloween
Happy New Year from Li’l Nosferatu!
Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to 2026! And welcome to my “year-end wrap-up” blog post for 2025. Look, before you say anything: yes, I’m writing a “year-end” post the day after the year ended. Which is probably against the rules, but as I’ve learned over the years, I don’t like rules. Rules are stupid. Also, I was busy yesterday.
So. Here are some of the best things that happened to me in 2025:
I wrote many, many books. Most of them were for kids. Some of them were for adults. Here are the titles of some (but not all) of those books:
The Encyclopedia of Curious Rituals and Superstitions.
The Fantastic Four Little Golden Book.
Stitch: Out-of-This-World Numbers.
Also, in January of 2025, I began working as a writer and narrative designer for an upcoming video game called Shadows of Dawn, which is being developed by Next Player Games. Currently, I’m still working on the game with the good folks at NPG.
And as you may recall, back in 2023, I wrote two episodes of the animated preschool series Hey! Fuzzy Yellow. In 2024, one of the episodes began airing and streaming. But starting in 2025, both episodes (“Boomerang Jelly Car” and “Sculpture Jam Abstract”) began airing and streaming. I wrote the scripts and the song lyrics for both episodes. As of this writing, Hey! Fuzzy Yellow still hasn’t begun airing or streaming in the US, but it’s available in various countries in Europe, Central America, and South America.
I also wrote the script for a Passover-themed children’s audio drama, titled “Mort the Misinformed Morsel of Matzah,” which was released in the spring of 2025 as part of Yoto’s 5-Minute Spring Holiday Stories collection. The title character, Mort, was even voiced by a friend of mine, Eli Schiff!
And there are several other projects I worked on throughout 2025, some of which will come out this year. I announced one of them, 96 Facts About Chappell Roan, in my previous blog post. (That book comes out on January 13th.) But I’ll announce some of my other upcoming projects ASAP. Please keep checking this site for more info!
BTW, I wouldn’t have worked on any of the aforementioned projects without the book editors, video game producers, and TV showrunners who gave me these writing gigs in the first place. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who hired me in 2025 (or really, anyone who hired me at any time, ever). And I mean that.
You may also be wondering about the “Baby New Year” photo which adorns this blog post. See, to usher in the new year, I’ve put a “2026” sash around a puppet I built. I call him “Li’l Nosferatu.” If you’re obsessed with me (and why wouldn’t you be?), you’ll notice that I’ve occasionally posted pics of Li’l Nosferatu on social media during the past couple of years. For today’s purposes, Li’l Nosferatu is playing the part of Baby New Year.
Someday, I’ll explain the backstory behind this puppet, because there is indeed quite a bit of backstory there. Basically, I built the puppet for a project which never came to fruition. But more on that some other time.
And to anyone who’s reading this, I just wanted to wish you the best for a wonderful new year!
Happy Thanksgiving from “Pumpkin Spice”!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! And to celebrate the holiday (while also shamelessly plugging a recent project), here’s a cropped image from the “Thanksgiving dinner” spread in Pumpkin Spice, a children’s book which was written by yours truly and illustrated by the super-talented Monique Dong. Pumpkin Spice is out now from Penguin Random House. (In other words: Plug-Pluggity-Plug!)
Pumpkin Spice is out now from Penguin Random House. It’s available at bookstores everywhere, as well as HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.
Here’s what critics are saying about Pumpkin Spice:
“Dong’s warm, cheerful illustrations enhance the cozy fall vibe…A lightly enjoyable seasonal pick that will find a place in fall displays.”—School Library Journal
“…a fun-filled sensory exploration of the sights, sounds, and especially smells that make fall great.” —LitPop
“This board book will be much-loved by everyone who enjoys pumpkin spiced… well, everything… each autumn.” —Kids R Us
“Rich with sensory detail, Pumpkin Spice makes a great introduction to fall for little bookworms.”—Bookstr
“Teachers who teach in early education classrooms will want to add this delightful board book to their collection of fall picture books.”—HubPages
“This sweet board book explores autumn through the senses…with lush illustrations sure to grab attention.” —Cracking the Cover
And here’s a look at the complete, un-cropped “Thanksgiving Dinner” spread from Pumpkin Spice:
Last but definitely not least, if you’d like to see all of the other books I’ve written for Penguin Random House (even the ones which don’t involve talking gourds), click HERE.
A Truly Monstrous Portfolio
Before I was a professional writer, I was a cartoonist. That is, a gag cartoonist. I used to draw one-panel gag cartoons for a variety of publications. Hey, who knows? I may even start drawing cartoons again. I might even end up doing that soon. Maybe sooner than you think. Am I trying to hint at some upcoming project that hasn’t been announced yet? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. But if the answer IS yes, you’ll hear about it first on this site. Until then, I weary of this game, this charade, where I act all cagey and weird and evade giving direct answers to questions I myself have posed. I mean, what am I doing here? Arguing with myself over hypothetical nonsense? That is not the purpose of this blog post. The purpose of this post is…something to do with cartoons. (I’m pretty sure of it.) Also, today is Halloween, and I’ve drawn quite a few cartoons about monsters. Speaking of which…
The other day, I was going through a batch of my old cartoons, and I thought I’d post some of my personal favorites. Some of these were published, and others were not. Does publishing them on my website now make them “published”? I don’t know. The Internet is a vast untamed wilderness. (Um…yay?) Anyway, let’s get into it, shall we? Yes, we shall:
Okay, so this “Mr. Potato Salad” cartoon was first published in the August 2008 issue of Nickelodeon Magazine. I drew this during a period when I was obsessed – OBSESSED, I tell you! – with Mr. Potato Head, and I drew a whole slew of cartoons involving that little plastic tuber with the interchangeable facial features. Some day, I’ll post them all here. But that day is not today! Moving on…
This “Vampire Nerds” cartoon was published in the October 2006 issue of Nickelodeon Magazine. (That was the Halloween issue. But you probably already realized that.)
And this “Creature of the Blue Bayou” cartoon was published in The Fortean Times, a magazine from the UK which is all about strange phenomena like UFOs and Bigfoot sightings. Notice the “Arie Kaplan” credit typed in really small print along the lower left-hand side of the panel. You’ll ALSO notice that I didn’t specify WHEN this cartoon was published. As in, what year. That’s because it was published a LONG time ago. And of course, to fully understand and appreciate this cartoon, you have to know who Roy Orbison was. (He was a rock star. Google him. It’s okay, I’ll wait.) You also have to know that there was once a really popular Roy Orbison song called “Blue Bayou,” and that this is a cartoon depicting Roy Orbison as the titular “Creature of the Blue Bayou” (a pun on the classic horror film Creature From the Black Lagoon). But you understood that, right? Right? (Right?)
This “Ship In A Bottle/Ask For Directions” cartoon was published in the August 2008 issue of Nickelodeon Magazine. Yup, the same issue that also featured my “Mr. Potato Salad” cartoon. Now, this “Ship In A Bottle” cartoon was published in color when it appeared in Nick Mag. But I can’t seem to find the color version of the files for this cartoon. All I could find is this scan of the black and white line art. So the B&W version will have to do for the time being. Anyway, you’re probably asking yourself, “What’s ‘monstrous’ about this one?” And the answer is, “Not much, really.” But it does seem like the kind of cartoon Rod Serling would draw, if Rod Serling drew cartoons. It’s a bit Twilight Zone-ish. And people watch Twilight Zone episodes on Halloween (sometimes). Is that a stretch? Yes it is. I don’t care. This is my website, after all. If I want to post it here, I get to post it! Get off of my back! Geez! Moving on…
This “Frankenstein/Boy Scout” cartoon is unpublished (well, as of this writing, anyway – again, unless posting it on my site COUNTS as publishing it). Why is it unpublished? I honestly never submitted it to very many places for possible publication. Which honestly, I regret. But hey, maybe I’ll send it around and see if I CAN get it published, because I really like it. And I know that the monster is not actually NAMED “Frankenstein,” he’s just “Frankenstein’s Monster.” But the boy scout can’t say “Frankenstein’s Monster, no!” Why? It’s too wordy. Nobody talks like that. He’d say “Frankenstein, no!” It just flows better, as a line of dialogue.
Okay, I don’t even know where this “Monsterfont” cartoon would even be published. I mean, there’s no real gag or joke here; it’s just a font where each letter is also a monster. I think I submitted this to Nickelodeon Magazine back in the day, but it was rejected. And obviously, I don’t blame them for rejecting it. As I said, there’s no real gag or joke here. But even still, I have a soft spot in my heart for “Monsterfont.” I just like it, okay? I wish it was a real font.
And that’s it! Those are all the monster-themed cartoons I’m sharing today. I’ll probably put up another blog post at some future date where I’ll share some of my other cartoons (both monster-themed and otherwise). But this is it for now. What did you think? Feel free to let me know, either via email or if you see me in person. Or by carrier pigeon! Or message in a bottle maybe? The whole “message in a bottle” thing could make a comeback. You never know!
BTW, if you’re reading this on the day I’m posting it (October 31, 2025), I hope you’re having a Happy Halloween!