Just Me and My New Company. Or so might be the title of the next book in iconic author/illustrator Mercer Mayer’s decades-long career, with the announcement today that he has established a new business venture to extend the reach of his IPs beyond publishing. 

Mayer is partnering with digital producer and game designer John Sansevere to launch TWELVE/30, which will focus on exploiting his kids book catalogue of more than 300 titles across all consumer products and entertainment media categories. The pair first worked together in 2012, using Sansevere’s New York-based game studio Dancing Penguins to develop an educational kids app called Little Critter: Where Is My Frog. 

Also based in New York, their new joint-venture’s daily business and overall strategy will be overseen by Sansevere as managing partner. First up for development is Mayer’s Little Critter franchise, a long-running book series that’s ripe for extensions in consumer products and animation. 

The first Little Critter book was published in 1975, and the franchise now features 200-plus titles that have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide. Aimed at kids ages two to six, the stories center around the adventures of a friendly and sometimes mischievous critter who deals with common childhood challenges like nightmares, potty training and growing up. 

Ahead of officially forming the company this month, its co-founders signed their first licensing agreement in September. They will create a new series of Little Critter books for early readers with HarperCollins, which currently publishes 54 Little Critter titles and has an option to pick up more under the new deal. 

TWELVE/30 also plans to develop a series of six-minute Little Critter animated shorts, which are currently being written and storyboarded. And other Mayer IPs earmarked for new business include the 11-title Little Monster book series and the author’s first published picture book from 1967, A Boy, A Dog, and a Frog.