Marty Pants is a children's book series by Mark Parisi, creator of the Off the Mark comic strip.
The series follows the life of the titular Marty Pants, a young boy with dreams of being an artist. He likes to make art, any time, any opportunity. He also has something of a rather vivid imagination that often leads him to jump to wild conclusions about certain things.
The book has three books in the series:
- Book 1: Do Not Open!
- Book 2: Keep Your Paws Off!
- Book 3: How To Defeat A Wizard
Marty Pants contains examples of:
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Parker's dad doesn't like her having boys over. She says that if he catches one, he'll use their skins and bones to make furniture.
- Brick Joke: In "Do Not Open!", Marty spends some time inside a jail cell for drawing Officer Pickel's wife as a female Snoopy. While there, he writes "Don't Mess With Marty" on the wall. Later on in the book, Salvador gets arrested for apparent vandalization (Marty was writing "Save The Planet" on the wall, and the police believe that they were Salvador Ack's initials), Marty imagines him in the cell, seeing the message on the wall.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Mr. and Mrs. Pants don't approve of Erica dating Salvador, referring to him as "That hoodlum". She eventually breaks up with him when he starts to bully Marty in front of her.
- Dull Surprise: Mr. McPhee's smile in reaction to his students liking his novel can hardly be registered.
- Groin Attack: Erica does this to Salvador in the first book when she breaks up with him after seeing him bully her little brother. As Marty puts it, she kicks Salvador "where no guy wants to be kicked".
- It Runs in the Family: Roongrat seems to have inherited his mother's physical appearance, and her penchant for fibbing.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Marty's friend, Roongrat. He's often spouting things that are just factually not true in the slightest. Marty's made it a philosophy that, whatever Roongrat says, the opposite's true.
- It's revealed in "Keep Your Paws Off!" that Roongrat apparently inherited this trait from his mom.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Simon Cardigan's favourite character to draw was changed for the book to avoid lawsuits. In the book, he's "Anenomebob Trapezoidshorts".
- Protagonist Title: Marty Pants, of course.
- A Rare Sentence: Marty has a few listed in "Do Not Open!".
- I'm not putting lipstick on rats!
- I am putting lipstick on rats.
- Let's all smell monkey butts.
- My sister is a ray of sunshine.
- The Shrink: Parker Fedora aspires to be a psychiatrist, and Marty is her favourite subject to psychoanalyze.
- Signs of Disrepair: Happens in the first two books.
- In "Do Not Open!", Marty's intended entry for the school mural contest was a picture exposing Mr. McPhee as an alien, with a picture of people holding hands across the world. The top part gets ripped off by the time anyone actually sees it.
- In "Keep Your Paws Off!", Marty made a poster warning people away from the Full Moon Festival. It was a picture of a werewolf (intended to be Marty) saying "It'll be a wild night!", with "Don't go to the full moon festival! On Saturday at 8:00", and "There's no telling what could happen!" written below. However, Jerome chewed the "Don't" off the poster, which Marty didn't notice until AFTER he'd already photocopied and distributed it.
- Teens Are Monsters: Salvador Ack, or as Marty calls him "Peach Fuzz", is a teenager who likes bullying Marty every chance he gets.
- Theme Naming: Marty and his friends all have last names that are all based on parts of clothing: Marty Pants, Roongrat Mitten, Parker Fedora, and Simon Cardigan.
- Title Drop:
- The title of the first book, "Do Not Open!", is the title of a file on Mr. McPhee's computer where he keeps records, tests, answers, and his novel.
- The title of the second book, "Keep Your Paws Off!", is written on the front of Erica's diary.
