Bill Joyce: Rocket Puppies and How to Survive 'Stay-at-Home'

Writer, illustrator and Oscar winning film maker Bill Joyce talks about his latest projects, how he's working during the Coronavirus "stay-at-home," and more.

Joyce begins by addressing the problems, not only for himself, but for everyone, in dealing with the changes in lifestyle brought about by COVID 19 quarantine. "I have to say that the first couple of weeks, I just wasn't in the best frame of mind. I kept saying, 'What is happening?' But I found just sitting around and worrying about it was making things even worse and that the sooner I could get to work the better."

He then talks about trying to turn the negative of the situation to his artistic advantage. "I tried to keep in my mind that doing things other than worrying could be my life saver. I'm lucky! I have this outlet! My job is to make up stories and sometimes the stories I make up are even funnier or sillier than the reality that we're going through and sometimes they're even more dark. But all those journeys in my mind helped me get my mind off of what was actually going on, this terrible story that we're going through."

Joyce then describes how his work of late, though as prolific as ever, runs the gamut of emotions, both joyful and bleak. "There's one called 'Rocket Puppies,'" he says, with a smile you can hear through the phone, "These puppies, who have rockets, come to our planet to cheer us up! And the first line of the book came to me. 'The world was in a really bad mood when the Rocket Puppies showed up.'"

"We've been through tougher spots," Joyce says about the current state of the country and world. "We're tough people. We've been through tougher spots. This is going to pass. My advice is to be patient with everybody. We've made it through World Wars and we've made it through Great Depressions and we'll make it through this."