No fair: Atwood can write and draw. Fingers crossed for a self-illustrated novel. (Images: Twitpic)
If you haven’t been paying attention to our literary matriarch lately, you may be unaware that Margaret Atwood is on Twitter, and she’s quite taken with the 140-character medium. When a Detroit nephrologist recommended two of her books to a friend, Atwood decided to contact him, then offered to design superhero Halloween costumes for the good doctor and his lady friend. Was this a joke? One might think so, but five days later, Peggy checked in with the following update:
@DrSnit and @kidney_boy: still tinkering with your outfits and magic words… can one make a crown out of painkiller pills?
A month later, Atwood delivered on her promise, posting her design for the outfit of Dr. Snit, a Flash-inspired number adapted for the female form, complete with a wand made of Tylenol capsules. (The woman can draw!) The Kidney Boy costume came two weeks later, looking suspiciously like Superman, but with a “K” instead of an “S,” and the charming additions of a bag of blood, a scalpel, and an actual kidney for a hat. Below the drawing, Atwood scrawled the following passage: “By day, a lowly nephrologist. By night, Kidney Boy—flying through the air to instantly insert kidneys, with his magic word—Nephro-Change-O!” Oh Peggy, how are you still so insatiably kooky, and how do you have such a ludicrous amount of time on your hands?
• How a famous author designed a doctor’s superhero costume [Gawker]
Clearly ‘Peggy’ is quite the polymath!
October 29, 2010 at 8:02 pm | by askPeople unaware that Atwood can draw should check out her wonderfully whimsical 1976 children’s book “Up In The Tree.”
October 31, 2010 at 9:06 am | by M.G.