“‘Science Verse,’” Smith elaborates, “is all over the place. I did some illustrations by hand, some by computer, and some using a combination of both. And it’s really hard for people to figure out which is which.

“You can show them a page from the book and they’ll say ‘That was hand painted.’ And I’ll say, ‘Actually, I did all this on the computer.’ And the next page they’ll say ‘Oh, that was done on the computer,’ and I’ll say ‘Actually, I did this by hand.’”

Blurring the Lines

To, um, illustrate how successfully he’s blurred the line between hand-painted and digital art, Smith points to two of his books that have earned a cult following: “The Happy Hocky Family!” and its sequel, “The Happy Hocky Family Moves to the Country!”

Often reviewed as parodies of Dick-and-Jane readers of the 50s, the Hocky books actually take to task primers from the 40s — Munro Leaf’s “Health Can Be Fun” and “Manners Can Be Fun.” Both books follow the happy Hockys through banal escapades coloured with prankishness.

“The paper in the first book sucked up the colour so you could see the fibers in the paper. When I scanned the old paper into the Mac, I was able to achieve that texture digitally.”

“I have a balloon. Do you have a balloon? I have a balloon. My balloon is red…POP! I have a string. Do you have a string? I have a string.”

Smith created “The Happy Hocky Family!” using the oldest-possible colour printing technique — original art printed from process-colour plates onto recycled oatmeal paper. Ten years later, he moved them to the country using his Mac and the latest digital techniques.

Side by Side

When he wrote and illustrated the first Hocky book, Smith wanted to capture the look of 1940s primers, so he created all of his stylishly retro art and smiley-face stick figures on separate plates and combined them on press.

By the time he began the sequel, he says, “all the old-timers who did that technique were gone, so I did the entire book on the Mac. If you compare the two books side by side, you’d never know they weren’t done with the same technique.”

To create the digital Hocky Family, Smith scanned a sample of the oatmeal paper he had used for the first book into his Mac. “I built my Photoshop layers on that background and basically followed the same red-yellow-blue-black technique. I added a few more colours, but I still kept it bold and graphic, and I drew everything in the computer.”

Creating Digital Textures

Smith particularly liked the way the paper in the first book “sucked up the colour so you could see the fibers in the paper coming through the colour.

“When I scanned the old paper into the Mac and changed the density of the paint bucket,” he says, “I was able to achieve that texture digitally.”

Smith is amused that reviewers fail to guess what technique he used for his new Hocky book. “I didn’t say I did it on the Mac,” he says, “so when they said I used a silkscreen or wood block technique, I thought was a nice compliment.”

Freedom to Create

When he collaborates with Scieszka, Smith says, “people assume that there is much more of a give and take, like we sit in a room together and hash out ideas. Which isn’t the case at all.

Next page: Flying Squirrels, Turkeys & Bobcats