Literary website Quill & Quire has a great interview up with George A. Romero about Humongo Bongo, by Alison Lang.
A snippet of Q&A: Legendary horror director George A. Romero on his first (and only) kids book
How did you end up illustrating this children’s book?
George A. Romero: They said, “Well, go ahead and illustrate,” and I said, “Okay, but it won’t be good!” And it turned out to be good enough.
This is a children’s book, but it seems to also have a very serious message.
GR: I meant it to be a parable about over-population, greed, and all of the terrible values that we humans have. That’s all it was meant to illustrate.
Did you think back to any books you read as a kid while you wrote the story?
GR: As a youth, the first actual novel that I ever read was Something of Value. It’s about the Mau Mau Uprising in Africa. That’s the topic, but what it’s about is basically families that are torn apart. It’s almost an anti-apartheid thing.
