The History of Underwear With Professor Chicken

“Packed with information, hilariously but accurately (well…except for the chickens) illustrated, Hannah Holt and Korwin Briggs’ A History of Underwear with Professor Chicken is sure to wedge its way into the annals of history-based picture books.”

Author: Hannah Holt | Illustrator: Korwin Briggs | Publisher: Roaring Book Press

The story of this book, for me, starts around a decade before it came out, when my dad wrote a lovely little story about a chicken saving Christmas. For an assignment in college, I decided to illustrate it, the first step of which was to fill a few sketchbook pages with various chickens, to see which was the best. It was a process of evolution, and just like with the evolution of real chickens, each generation moved further from the fierce dignity of its ancestors and closer to being a bowling pin with legs.

I drew those chickens for that assignment, and again for $5 a pop at an art fair, and again as gifts, as doodles, even as a book pitch. And meanwhile, the rest of my portfolio veered further and further into informational images about history, science, and toilet stuff. So, you can imagine what I thought when my agent told me someone had written a book called “The History of Underwear With Professor Chicken,” and asked if I wanted to illustrate:

“I was made for this.”