When you open a graphic novel and are immediately greeted by a food-based class system, and a city called Foodtopia, you know you’re not in Kansas anymore – you’re in Aw, Nuts!: The Crumbelievable Adventures of Peanut & Jelly, the wildly funny new graphic novel from Max Beaudry, David Perry and Mad Cave’s Papercutz imprint. Equal parts hilarious and heartfelt, the book follows best food friends Peanut and Jelly as they navigate a deliciously absurd world filled with crunchy wordplay and surprisingly relatable themes.
We caught up with Max and David to talk about their creative journey, the not-so-subtle genius of peanut butter, and the serious message behind the comedy.
Let’s dig in.
BROKEN FRONTIER: First of all – I have to ask – peanut butter and jelly: the perfect sandwich combo, or overrated?
DAVID PERRY: Y’know, when I was a kid, one of my trailer park friends introduced me to a combination that sounds like a caricature of a real sandwich–something you’d see exaggerated in a cartoon. It was peanut butter and brown sugar. You toast the bread first, of course, ’cause this is how you make the best peanut butter sammich of any kind. But if you haven’t tried it, and you’ve retained the refined and discerning taste buds of a ten-year-old boy, I do highly recommend it; it’s gritty. And if you want to keep the PB&J, I also very highly recommend putting an anise pizzelle (wafer cookie) right in the middle. Gives it a great flavor and a crunch!
MAX BEAUDRY: Overrated? Blasphemy! They’re the perfect pair! Although, I do love peanut butter sandwiches of different varieties: peanut butter and banana with cinnamon, peanut butter and melted dark chocolate, and even peanut butter on a hamburger (yes, it’s good).
BF: Now that’s out of the way – we want to know more about you! Have you always wanted to get into graphic novels? What graphic novels or creators have inspired you?
PERRY: Actually, I’ve always wanted to get into animated television. My whole life’s dream, since I was about five. Funnily enough, Max and I seem to have swapped our experiences! He always wanted to be an author of fun comics, but he ended up starting in writing for animation. I always wanted to be a writer/designer for an animated series, and I’m getting my start in comics! I’m still relatively green in comics, believe it or not, but my illustration influences abound. At an early age I loved Looney Tunes (Chuck Jones in particular) and The Simpsons; I was known for drawing everybody like a Simpson character. Later in life I developed others, like Jhonen Vasquez, Milt Kahl, Anthony Holden, Jamie Hewlett, Anna Cattish, Luigi Lucarelli, Satoshi Kon, Al Hirschfeld, and various comic illustrators for the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics. Oh, and I studied environment painting mostly with the work of Sylvain Sarrailh.
BEAUDRY: Yes! I’ve wanted to be an author since I was a little peanut. I was obsessed with Captain Underpants, Calvin and Hobbes, and the Magic Treehouse books, and would spend my elementary school days writing, and sometimes drawings, my own stories. But as it happened, I ended up writing for TV and film before I ever had my first book published — which is Aw, Nuts!
BF: Could you give us a brief rundown of the premise of Aw, Nuts?
PERRY: I’ll let Max field this one, mostly, but the initial plan for Aw, Nuts!–what I was initially commissioned to do–was illustrate the characters and world for an animated series concept. I’d done a previous concept’s pitch bible as a comic, and Max loved how it turned out, and so we did the same with Aw, Nuts!. What we ended up with was a graphic novel!
BEAUDRY: Foodtopia is a sprawling metropolis inhabited entirely by anthropomorphized food characters. And every morsel falls somewhere on the Foodtopia Pyramid (aka the social ladder). At the Top — the fancy upper crust. In the Middle — the average doughs. And at the Bottom — the not-quite-ripe, the dreamers, the well…odd. This is where we find Peanut and Jelly, best food dudes who work at the Crumb Dump. They may be lowly crumb collectors now, but Peanut is certain they can make it to the top. It’s his dream! But when the duo accidentally set loose a giant man-eating Crumb Feeder into the city, that dream looks shakier than an uneven soufflé! The book follows their calamitous adventure to get the Crumb Feeder back to the dump before the city is destroyed and they get fired!
Yanno, a tale as old as time.
BF: I love the concept of a food-topian universe – it’s so creative and visually fun. How did you come up with it? And do you have a favourite food?
PERRY: Good question for creator Max, but on my end, when I received the script for Max’s idea, I felt like we had a perfect formula for a classic series right off the bat. It ticks several boxes that make for an iconic IP. First, it has two buddies, one who’s a bit more the straight man and the other who’s a bit more wacky and fun. A dynamic as classic as Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy, Lucy & Desi! Second, we had an iconographic universe (Foodtopia), like the underwater world of Spongebob or the low-camera sprawl of Rugrats. And thirdly, we had a meaningful theme in the commentary on social hierarchies. It really has everything a great series needs, whether it’s for comics or television.
BEAUDRY: Well, as we’ve established, I love peanut butter. And, when I was working at Nickelodeon, I wanted to pitch a show with a funny high concept. So, I did a terrible drawing of a Peanut, and then an even worse drawing of a Jelly splat, and thought, okay these guys are ridiculous, maybe there’s something to them! I asked myself where they lived and thought — a food world of course! Then I wondered what they do in this world, and that’s when I thought of the Food Pyramid. What if it was not about nutrition, but social hierarchy. What if these guys, like most of us, just wanted to get to the top — to feel like they matter. It felt like a motivation that was relatable, but also totally ridiculous. Then I spent the next weeks filling out the cast by doodling a new food character a day and assigning them a personality. (My cubicle was covered in Post-It drawings.) And I never really stopped.
I love all kinds of food! I’ve travelled a lot, lived in Asia for a spell, and there’s very little I won’t try. I’m a big fan of mediterranean cuisine (I am Italian) and love stews!
BF: As well as being super funny, there’s also a more serious subplot going on in Aw, Nuts! about social hierarchy. Was this something you always intended to be there, or something that naturally occurred when writing about a ‘utopia’?
PERRY: This one’s all Max! I just appreciate that it’s there, haha. I think it’s very important for a children’s IP to have a genuine message that gives the property meaning and relevance, without being too ideological about it. Retaining humility and humor is really what makes it a positive influence, and Max is very good at this.
BEAUDRY: It was there from the beginning. I was thinking about a motivation for these characters, the engine of the series, and it felt accurate to this age demo — but even for adults. The more we live our lives online, the more it feels like we’re born behind, always playing catch up with everyone else that we perceive is doing better. It’s exhausting and mostly untrue. That’s why the message of the series is that the people you surround yourself with, and the adventures you have, are way more meaningful than your social status.
BF: There are a LOT of puns in this comic, and each one hits the home run. My particular favourite might be ‘the glitz and ham’. Do you use puns on the daily IRL?
PERRY: Max has a problem. I really believe that we’re only getting a piddling fraction of the puns of which the man is capable of unleashing upon the unsuspecting public. In his quest for comedic kingship, we are all but innocent frystanders–collateral hammage, if you will. He could be the patron saint of puns if he’d just get off his duff and perform three miracles already. But one thing I adore about working with Max is that he lets me pitch my own visual gags, too, and lots of them made it into the comic. I got to really shine on the background gags, in particular all the absurd business names littered throughout Foodtopia. You don’t grow up loving The Simpsons without gaining a deep appreciation for sign gags, and I crammed ’em in any chance I got.
BEAUDRY: I do…in my head at least. I think my family would stage an intervention if I was always speaking in puns. I love play on words, and working in children’s television, you spend a lot of time crafting them for episode titles and jokes, so it becomes a very strong mental muscle. However, with great pun power, comes great responsibility. You want to make sure they stand out by picking just the right spots to use them. It’s a real science that doesn’t get talked about often.
BF: Can we expect more PB and J adventures in the future?
PERRY: I sure hope so. This was a blast to work on, and now that I’m more practiced, it’ll only get better from here!
BEAUDRY: I hope so! That’s up to the publisher. But I do have many food-centric, pun-laden stories that are ripe and ready to be harvested!
BF: How can we keep up to date with you, and all of the cool stuff you’re doing?!
PERRY: You can find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, my portfolio website, and if you wanna see my own personal big project (just finished a 163-page screenplay!) you can take a peek at Mallory Bash.
BEAUDRY: Like any morsel trying to get to the top, I’ve got Instagram, a LinkedIn, and even a website. Feel free to check ’em out!
You can buy Aw, Nuts! here
Interview by Lydia Turner
