If you caught the "Might Delete Later" reading event the other week on Thursday, August 7, at Remnant Brewing, then you may be familiar with children's book author and illustrator, Jef Czekaj.
Czekaj is a Somerville native, having resided here for more than 20 years, and moved to Arlington during the pandemic.
"I still kind of consider Somerville my 'creative' home," said Czekaj. "I love to do my creative work (drawing and writing) out in public, so you'll often see me at the Somerville Library or a coffee shop like Diesel."
Czekaj started writing and creating at a very young age. He wrote and illustrated his first story, The Magic Car, when he was in first grade. Though his mother did not save the original copy of The Magic Car, he does still have a memo from his elementary school principal thanking him for sharing his "latest" book (The Magic Car). Czekaj shows this memo when he does author visits to elementary schools now.
"I tell kids that when I became an author," said Czekaj.
Czekaj attended Binghamton University, which was called SUNY Binghamton when he was there, and graduated in the early 90s. He majored in Linguistics, which was discontinued as a major after he left.
Czekaj began self-publishing zines and mini-comics in the mid-90s.
"Zine culture was thriving, so you could send your creation to punk zines like Maximum Rocknroll. If people thought your zine sounded good, they would put two dollars in an envelope and send it to you," said Czekaj. "Eventually, I started going to comic conventions and selling my mini-comics that way. I consider those mini-comics, which were about R2-D2 in a rock band, to be my first published works."
His first "real" published book, however, was a book he illustrated about the digestive system, The Quest to Digest, written by Mary Corcoran. The book was published in 2006.
"I honestly never even thought about making children's books, but a children's book editor who lives in the Boston area saw a poster that I had made and tracked me down," said Czekaj. "She told me that she thought my style would be perfect for a book she was editing, and that book became The Quest to Digest."
Czekaj has published 14 children's books, including: Hip Hop & Don't Stop, The Circulatory Story, Unite or Die, Grandpa and Julie Shark Hunters, and many more. His favorite book to read to children is Cat Secrets.
"To read the book, kids have to pretend to be cats," said Czekaj. "So, as the book goes along, kids have to meow, purr, and do other cat-like things to try to convince the cats in the book that they are cats."
Currently, Czekaj is concentrating on doing a weekly comic strip called Thought Leaderz (https://czekaj.com/thoughtleaderz.php), which is about "2 alley cats that find a pair of glasses in the trash and are then mistaken for business and technology experts. Things quickly spin out of control."
Czekaj grew up loving newspaper comic strips like Bloom County and The Far Side, and considers this series his attempt at doing a good old-fashioned comic strip. He hopes to publish them in a book format one day, but is focused on getting new episodes of the comic out weekly right now.
Thought Leaderz is what Czekaj presented at Remnant Brewing's "Might-Delete-Later" event.
"I was a little nervous about it since it was the first time I was presenting the comic in public. Plus, I was the only visual artist," said Czekaj. "I was relieved when people laughed at things that I thought were funny."
Want to see more of Jef Czekaj and his work? Good news! He will be holding an event on September 27. at the Somerville Museum called: Escape From The Somerville Museum.
"It's going to be a bonkers combination of puppets, videos, music, and local history," said Czekaj.
During the pandemic, Czeekaj started making a bi-monthly children's show that was aired on the Somerville Public Library's YouTube Channel. The show was a combination of puppets, music, art demonstrations, and animation.
As part of the show, Czekaj started making music videos for songs, many of them specifically about Somerville.
"For example, I wrote a Guns-N'-Roses-style song called Who Wrote 'Mary Had A Little Lamb'? about the possible connection between that iconic poem and Somerville," said Czekaj. "The director of the museum, Stephanie Marlin-Curiel, came across the videos online and thought that they would be a great thing to present there. It should be fun for people of all ages!"