The Making of a Ding Dong Cover

My apologies to Herbert James Draper, may he rest in peace, and to altar boys everywhere. Not all of you are ding dongs.

Our cover design choice for The Ding Dong Altar Boy has garnered attention. We received one particularly nasty text asking, “Did you really do this?”

Yes. We absolutely did.

Most of the attention has been positive. It’s an arresting image. It’s funny. And it raises questions. All things an author would hope for in a book cover.

I stumbled upon the 1909 painting one day while scrolling through Pinterest. The painting is entitled The Light of Faith, and it radiates a quiet reverence, capturing a moment of innocence, tradition, and spiritual solemnity.

Of course, none of these things describe my brother, the voice behind The Ding Dong Altar Boy. Still, something about the painting drew me in.

Herbert James Draper, a British artist, lived from 1863–1920 and came from the late Victorian/Edwardian art movement, often associated with Romanticism and Classicism. One internet source said this: “While much of Draper's work involves grandeur and mythology, this painting offers a rare intimate, sacred moment. It elevates the everyday experience of faith and liturgy into something noble and worthy of artistic attention. The title, The Light of Faith, might refer not just to religious belief, but to the hope and purity found in youth.”

There is hope and purity found in youth, but if you’ve ever been a kid—or if you’ve ever had a kid—you know that along with that hope and purity comes a streak of naughtiness a mile wide.

Fortunately for me, this image was in the public domain, therefore free to use. I downloaded the painting onto my computer and added the title and subtitle. I liked the cover initially, but it wasn’t quite right. It captured all the sacredness of childhood without the realities of mischief. And if you’ve already read The Ding Dong Altar Boy, you’ll know that in Donald’s case, he took mischief straight into mayhem.

I imagined myself as an impish little kid (though to be honest, this wasn’t a hard stretch for me), and I stumbled upon an obvious solution: vandalism. Before I knew it, I’d added a pair of devil horns to the poor innocent altar boy—but soon I’d created a new problem.

It looked like a horror book.

Stephen King might be impressed, but the general public would walk away with nightmares rather than a good chuckle. That wasn’t my intent. What else could I add?

Googly eyes seemed the obvious solution.

What better than googly eyes to bring a level of ridiculousness to an image?

With a couple of copy-and-paste clicks, the googly eyes were in place, and the cover was finished.

I’ve spent hours upon hours designing other covers. And this one? It came together in no time flat.

In the end, that’s kind of the whole point of The Ding Dong Altar Boy, honoring the sacred while embracing the silly. This cover may not be traditional, but neither are the stories inside. It's a wink to our childhoods, to the mischief we got away with (and didn’t), and to the idea that even the holiest moments can include a little chaos. If nothing else, it makes you look twice—and maybe laugh while you're at it. Which, let’s be honest, is exactly the point.