Green Eggs and Ham, one of the most beloved and successful children’s books of all time, began as a dare: In 1957, Random House published The Cat in the Hat, whose author and illustrator, Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, used just 236 words from a list that educators had chosen as helpful in teaching children to read. Three years later, Random House cofounder Bennett Cerf bet Geisel $50 that he couldn’t write a follow-up book using 50 words or fewer. Geisel handily won the bet.
Fortunately for James Kochalka, he wasn’t limited to such a restrictive vocabulary when he was asked to write a sequel to the Dr. Seuss classic about a man who is afraid of trying anything new. In January, the Burlington cartoonist and Vermont’s first cartoonist laureate published Green Eggs and Ham Take a Hike, one of three modern sequels to Dr. Seuss books — along with The Grinch and The Cat in the Hat — penned by other artists.
“As a kid, I was a huge Dr. Seuss fan,” said Kochalka, 58, who’s known for his Johnny Boo and Dragon Puncher graphic novel series for children, as well as his daily diary cartoon, “American Elf,” which ran in Seven Days for 14 years. A two-time winner of a prestigious Eisner Award, the comic book industry’s equivalent of the Academy Award, Kochalka has taught at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, illustrated two Cartoon Issue covers for this paper, and had his books published internationally in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese.
In Green Eggs and Ham Take a Hike, Sam-I-Am tries to convince his grumpy pal, Walter Plot, to put down his video games and get into the great outdoors. But Walter is put off by the idea of encountering stinging bugs, flowers that might make him sneeze and rivers that could block his way.
Keen-eyed Dr. Seuss fans have probably noticed that Sam-I-Am’s friend in the original Green Eggs and Ham didn’t have a name. (In the 2019 Netflix cartoon series, he’s referred to simply as Guy.) When Kochalka auditioned to write the sequel — at the time, not knowing which of the three Dr. Seuss books he would be assigned — he named the character Walter Plot. His editors so loved the name choice, Kochalka said, that “they just think of him as Walter now.”
As he began working on the book, Kochalka made an intriguing discovery about Dr. Seuss’ illustrations.
“It was great to look at Dr. Seuss again and see how wildly free his art was.” James Kochalka
“The characters don’t look the same from one page to another,” he said. “He’d draw their noses different, their ears different, their fuzz different.” Such variations violate what some consider a cardinal rule in cartoon schooling: to always “draw on model” — that is, to maintain precise ratios between facial features and body parts.
But Kochalka didn’t attend cartoon school, he noted, so he has never followed that rule, either, and thinks it would limit his ability to express emotions. In a tense scene, for example, his character’s face may be scrunched up; in a joyous one, it may be more exaggerated and open.
“It was great to look at Dr. Seuss again and see how wildly free his art was,” he said.
There are a few obvious differences between Kochalka’s cartooning style and Geisel’s. Much of the appeal of Dr. Seuss books are the rhymes and cadences of the verse, which make them fun to read aloud.
“What I bring to cartooning is a narrative cadence, the transition from panel to panel,” Kochalka said. “It’s a different kind of storytelling.”
Also, Dr. Seuss books frequently include a subtext or message. The Lorax can read as a critique of unbridled capitalism and its disregard for the environment. Horton Hears a Who!, with its “A person’s a person, no matter how small,” is an appeal to treat all people equally, regardless of their stature or other superficial differences.
Though editors and reviewers regularly find a moral or lesson in Kochalka’s graphic novels, he said, it’s usually not one he deliberately put there.
Instead, his cartoons are “really about navigating the minefield of emotion and social interaction that any person goes through, whether they’re a child or an adult,” he said. “Kids get it because they feel it every day.”
Kochalka was glad to be assigned Green Eggs and Ham for another reason: His books tend to feature just two characters walking around and talking to each other, he said, “and one of them is really uptight.”
And, like all of his other work, Green Eggs and Ham Take a Hike includes aspects of the author’s own personality, including his fondness for video games. Beneath Kochalka’s living room TV set sits a plethora of gaming consoles, ranging from modern Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStation systems to old Atari and Pong systems from the 1970s.
“But I’m also the guy who wants to go for a hike,” he added.
Evidently, Random House and Dr. Seuss Enterprises were pleased with Kochalka’s first effort. He just finished a follow-up, titled Green Eggs and Ham Go Next Door, about Walter Plot’s displeasure in getting a new neighbor who is a bear. That book is due out in early 2026.
A prolific illustrator, Kochalka offered a preview of yet another forthcoming graphic novel, albeit one that is definitely not intended for children: Drug Wolf is a Batman-like character who derives his superpowers from different combinations of illicit drugs. In one episode, after a car nearly runs down Drug Wolf, Kochalka said, he melts the driver with “the enhanced body heat of MDMA, combined with the force of incomprehensible meth rage.”
Yertle the Turtle it is not.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Hamming It Up | Former cartoonist laureate James Kochalka pens a sequel to the Dr. Seuss classic Green Eggs and Ham“
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This article appears in The Cartoon Issue 2025.
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