Paul Gilligan jumps in the deep end with ‘Boy vs Shark’

Here’s my chat with Paul Gilligan about his new YA graphic novel ‘Boy vs Shark’ from Penguin Random House, and more.

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Based in Toronto, Ontario, Paul Gilligan writes and draws the syndicated comic strip Pooch Café, which has been twice nominated by the National Cartoonist Society for best strip. Weaned on Mad magazine, super-hero comics and “Bloom County,” Paul attended Sheridan College for animation and illustration and took comedy writing at the Film Institute in Ottawa. He joined The Ottawa Citizen newspaper as its on-staff illustrator, where he won awards in both illustration and design, and also found work in advertising, editorial cartooning, storyboarding, comic books and animation, and finally set up shop in downtown Toronto as a freelancer, where his roster of illustration clients included Time, Entertainment Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, Disney, and Wired. He’s the author-illustrator of the graphic novel series Pluto Rocket and the chapter book series King of the Mole People. He’s developed a number of animated TV series with places like Sony Animation, The Cartoon Network, YTV, and The CW, and has contributed cartoons to MAD Magazine, Harvard, and Reader’s Digest. His newest graphic novel is Boy vs. Shark.

The story of Boy vs Shark goes like this: “In the summer of 1975, 10-year-old Paul Gilligan doesn’t have a whole lot to worry about other than keeping his comic books untarnished, getting tennis balls off roofs and keeping up with the increasingly bold stunts of his best friend, David. And then Jaws comes to town. Suddenly everyone is obsessing over this movie about a shark ripping people to pieces. And if you haven’t seen it, not only are you missing out, you’re also kind of a wimp. Needless to say, Jaws leaves young Paul a cowering mess, and underlines the growing gap between him and David as well as the distance between where he stands and the world’s expectations of a boy’s ‘manliness’. And when Jaws himself becomes a kind of macho Jiminy Cricket for Paul, what is a scared and overwhelmed boy to do?”

You can discover more about Paul Gilligan on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/paul_gilligan/

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