Joe Marciniak, master artist who designed cover and inside illustrations for Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, has followed up with an incredibly lighthearted front cover for The Roving I.

The cover features a walking cartoon body of me, Woody Weingarten, the author, replete with à-propos pot belly — and uses a real photo for my head, replete with elongated, cartoonish nose. The whimsical illustration represents the tone of many of the 70 favorite columns I have selected for the collection (which I, for fun, refer to as florilegium, a word I admit I’d never heard of until a few weeks ago).

BAIPA, the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association, elected Joe’s Grampy cover best in the 2021 children’s book category. The fantasy, not incidentally, was co-authored by my granddaughter, who was eight at the time it was written, 70 years different in age.

The Roving I contains scores of my memories — including my partner earning a slot in his Little Black Book, a woman carrying her sister’s “miracle baby” inside her for nine months, and Robin Williams transforming himself into a talking vagina.