Master That Universe. Master It, I Say! A Discussion of All Things He-Man with Stephan Pastis and Will Henry

I’m going to level with you: I was a weird kid. Back in the 80s I owned a fair number of She-Ra action figures. Sure, I did. But you know what else I owned? He-Man figures. And not a few. A LOT. Weirder still, I may have watched the live action film when it was released (go, Courtney Cox!) but rarely did I get to see the animated series. You would think that might be an impediment to reading the brand new Skeletor Ate My Homework (The Adventures of He-Man and Porter #1) (releasing today!) by Stephan Pastis with art from Will Henry. It. Was. Not. Which makes sense, honestly. If you’re going to introduce a whole new generation to He-Man (and that recent movie had to have helped) it’s best not to lean too heavily on well-established lore.

On a related but unrelated note, here’s a fun fact. At the last American Library Association I got to interview and hang out with some pretty swell folks. Shannon Hale. Jon Klassen. Carole Boston Weatherford. Daniel Nayeri. All lovely. But you know who I was MOST excited to meet at some point? Friggin’ Stephan Pastis and Will Henry. Why? Because I am a HUGE newspaper comics nerd, y’all. I’m serious. Years ago I was lucky enough to attend a dinner with Stephan (to promote Timmy Failure #1) and he regaled the table with tales of hanging out with Berkeley Breathed and Gary Trudeau. For a nerd like me (we got to talk POGO!) it was heaven. But Will Henry? Dude, if you’re not buying the Wallace the Brave comic compendiums from Andrews McMeel then what are you even doing with your materials budget? Henry was my white whale, and getting to meet him? *chef’s kiss*

Okay, so these two newspaper comic superstars have come together to work on my childhood playmate He-Man. As strange as it may sound, that means that I was kind of the ideal person to interview the two of them about this book. And yeah, I know, I know, you’re going to need some context for this. Don’t you even worry. I got your back. Here’s the description from the publisher:

Porter Avery is just your average boy from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with your average boy problems: he’s got a math test he definitely should be studying for (he isn’t), and a dad who’s making him go to bed (he doesn’t want to). But when a magical malfunction takes Porter from his very everyday attic into the very not-everyday realm of Eternia, he’ll find that problems with homework and helicopter parents pale in comparison to, say, an epic battle between He-Man and Skeletor that may or may not determine the future of the entire planet??!

Will the heroes of Eternia rally around their earthside visitor, or will Porter get turned into mincemeat for Skeletor’s pet Panthor sooner than he can say “By the Power of Grayskull?”

Man. I love my job.

---

Betsy Bird: Stephan! Ah! What a delight to get to lob questions at your head today. So I did not have on my bingo card for 2026 Stephan-Pastis-makes-an-IP-80s-cartoon-character-his-own.

Stephan Pastis: Hahaha, neither did I! But it turned out to be super fun making other characters my own. Particularly the evil ones!

BB: You’re handy with a pen yourself, so I was surprised that Will Henry was the man who got looped into all of this. Whence Will?

Stephan: Oh, man, I know my limitations, and it would have been crazy hard for me to draw all those characters, not to mention worlds. After all, I draw a stick figure Rat and Pig for a living. So when Mattel asked me to write and draw it, I suggested Will as the artist.

BB: Hm. I dunno. That seems like too short an answer. Let me ask the man in question. Will! Boy, am I curious about how you got looped into this project. Tell us everything! Did Stephan pitch it to you personally or did you get a sense of it another way? And why did you agree to do it with him?

Will Henry: Yes! Stephan did give me a phone call one day, completely out of the blue, to see if I’d be interested in working on a book together. It was a delight chatting comics with a cartooning pro, but when he mentioned the project was Masters of the Universe-related, I couldn’t say no. I’m an ’80s kid who grew up with He-Man and the gang, and the chance to work with Stephan and draw Skeletor? Who could pass that up?

BB: You know? Fair. Plus, it seems to me that a key component of this story was the act of playing with toys. What Porter plays has real world consequences for the people of Eternia. Stephan, was that your idea from the get-go, or did you come to that idea a little later in the writing process?

Stephan: Well, my idea from the get-go was to introduce a little kid into the MOTU universe. My argument for him was that he would be a child’s entry into this world. And my editor at Mattel was okay with that. And then as I was writing, I stumbled upon the idea that the stuff he does when he plays has reverberations in Eternia. It felt like there was a lot of room to run with that.

On that note, I try not to plan out my books too much in advance. I just come up with five plot points (opening, end of Act 1, middle of Act 2, end of Act 2, ending), and then see where it goes as I type. For me, too much outlining takes all of the mystery and fun out of it.

BB: Oh yeah, fair. Plus the plot of this book melds nicely with that of the Barbie movie. Now Will, I don’t really recall you ever doing your own version of already existing characters before. How did you go about figuring out the “look” of each of these characters? And were there multiple attempts with some more than others?

Will: It was unusual at first to interpret another artist’s characters, but now it feels like second nature. There have been so many different interpretations of these characters over the years that I had a lot of reference material and design elements to draw from. I ended up leaning heavily on the original cartoon and the action figures, mostly because that simplified style is parallel to my own and carries the humor better.

I worked with the folks at Mattel for a couple of months to make sure the designs felt appropriate to the characters. And yes, characters like He-Man, Skeletor, and Teela were scrutinized a bit more, simply because they’re so prevalent throughout the book.

BB: You tend to have your more famous He-Man characters and then you’ve got the bit part guys in the wings. Who amongst these was your favorite to draw?

Will: Ram-Man. It has to be Ram-Man. He’s got some great scenes in this book, and there’s just something about his design and look that makes me smile. 

BB: Oh, 100% The Ram-Man parts were literally the best. Oh! Hey, Stephan, can I ask you about the chapter titles? Kids probably aren’t going to get half the references (I swear to god, I can’t believe you named one “The Florida Project”. I love that). Of course, in my experience, authors have a tendency to get a little pushback when they pull off this kind of thing. Did all your chapter headings get approved or did some get axed along the way?

Stephan: Hahaha, there might have been an Ingmar Bergman film title that was nixed when I did Timmy Failure, but I think I’ve pretty much gotten away with almost all of them. Titles are always my nod to the adults who might be reading the book to kids. I love that you notice them.

BB: Dang right. And since you’re dealing with a 1980s cartoon character/action figure, there has GOT to be a whole community out there obsessed with He-Man lore. Did you have to deal with that at all? Or did you just figure the best plan was just to dive right in and devil take the hurty feelings?

Stephan: I did feel a responsibility to them, so I watched over a hundred episodes of the series in all its various iterations. That might have taken me more time than it did to write the book itself.

Also, it was valuable to me as a writer because  I would pick up little nuggets along the way (e.g. Ohhhh, Beast Man has the power to do THAT?). Then when an editor would say, “I don’t think Beast Man can do that,” I would say, “See 2002 series, Episode 42”, sort of like I was quoting scripture.

BB: Nice. So the book is heavily illustrated, but it’s still a middle grade novel at heart. Will, who gets to decide where the art goes in? Is that all you or do you work with the Art Director (and even Stephan) to determine the best placement. And do you write the jokes for the illustrated sections or is that still Stephan?

Will: I work with an art director on some edits and size requirements, but for the most part, Stephan decides what aspects of each illustration are needed. For example, I might get a note like, “¼-page size, Skeletor on the left beating Goat-Man with his staff,” and then I’m able to draw the scene in whatever way I think will be funny, dramatic, or fit whatever tone Stephan is going for. I’m also in charge of the cool sound effects!

The placement of these illustrations on the page is pretty important, especially when it comes to the humor. A misplaced image could spoil a punchline or confuse the reader as they move through the story.

BB: That’s awesome. And Stephan, I just really liked how you tackled the character of Prince Adam in this version. First, making the fact that he even IS He-Man an open secret to everyone but his dad. Second, giving the kid in this story the power to imbue in Adam a skillset of his own. Was that in an initial draft of the book or did you come up with it along the way?

Stephan: Along the way! I’m so glad you liked it, because as far as I could tell, nobody in the series had ever explained why it was that the King was just about the only person in the palace to not know who his son really was. Then I thought—why doesn’t Prince Adam just tell him? And my answer was that Adam wanted to be loved for who he was, not for who he became when he held the sword.

BB: And is this book a one-off or are there more He-Man stories planned in the future?

Will: This is the first in a three book series.  At the moment I’m finishing up book 2 and I’m really looking forward to the first pass of book 3.

BB: All right! Well, finally for the two of you, what’s next for you? What else are you working on?

Stephan: Pearls Jubilee, a book that comes out in November celebrating the 25th anniversary of my comic strip, Pearls Before Swine. Thank you, Betsy!

Will: I see a nap in my future. But beyond that, I have a new Wallace the Brave book coming out in September, titled All Hands on Deck. And hopefully I’ll be at Rhode Island Comic Con, chatting comics with my fellow Rhode Islanders!

---

Good men. Good interview.

Huge thanks to both Stephan and Will for taking the time to answer my questions today. Thanks too to Hannah Boardman and the team at TvS Media Group LLC for helping to tie this all together. Skeletor Ate My Homework (The Adventures of He-Man and Porter #1) comes out today so no need to wait for it. Good for what ails ya.

Filed under: Interviews