It’s fitting that cartoonist Chris Monroe sat down for an interview with me at a coffee shop filled with artwork. Monroe talked about her career as an artist while enjoying a cup of coffee at the Studio Café, a funky, fun spot in downtown Duluth, not far from her studio on Lake Avenue.
Monroe has authored and illustrated 17 books, and her work is licensed to Silvergate Studios. She may be best known for her children’s book, Monkey with a Tool Belt, or her long-running comic strip “Violet Days.”
Monroe grew up in Duluth and graduated from high school in 1980. Like many young artists of her generation, she left for the Twin Cities, attending the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. At the time, she said, Duluth felt like it was “dying on the vine,” while Minneapolis offered energy and opportunity.
“I loved Minneapolis,” she said. “I thought I’d never come back.”
She stayed in the Twin Cities for 18 years, working as a freelance illustrator for magazines and commercial clients—including projects for companies like Coca-Cola and Dayton’s—before returning to Duluth in 1998. When she returned, she brought her son with her and found a place to rent, but artist work started to dry up after her two agents retired.
She then found a job at Marshall Hardware in Lakeside, where she served as the toy buyer. She thought it was odd that there wasn’t a tool-using animal, as she was selling both tools and toys at a hardware store. That’s when she began her Monkey with a Tool Belt series of books. The books are published by Lerner Publishing Group, which produces titles for pre-K–12 readers.
Long before she worked behind the counter at Marshall Hardware, Monroe had already left her mark there—though not in a way she’d recommend.
As a child, she had her eye on a small glass animal with a broken ear, the kind of odd, imperfect object that seemed to linger on a shelf. Convinced no one would buy it, she took it home, broke the other ear, and tried to pass it off as something she’d “found in the alley.” Years later, she turned the moment into a comic about guilt and what she calls her “transparent” childhood logic.
When she eventually applied for a job at Marshall Hardware as an adult, she walked in to find that very comic clipped out and taped on the wall. She confessed on the spot. The store hired her anyway.
In a recent phone interview, Steve Marshall, owner of the Marshall Hardware, spoke of his former employee as a “terrific person.” He attended Lester Park Elementary Grade School, Ordean Middle School, and East High School with Monroe.
That Spark
“She was very artistic as a young girl,” said Marshall. “I remember Mr. Miller, the art teacher, saying, ‘You have that spark.’” Monroe designed the cover of their high school yearbook the year they graduated.
As a hardware store employee, Marshall said, “She was great to work with. She had real-world experience in how to use tools,” referencing her cartoon character Chico Bon Bon, the monkey who also knows how to use tools.
Netflix & Silvergate
Now you can watch Chico Bon Bon on Netflix as an animated series.
Monroe said the path from book to screen was largely out of her hands.
“Monkey with a Tool Belt was optioned by a production company years before it ever became an animated series,” she said. “They owned the rights to potentially turn it into a show, and I think annually they would pay us—me and my publisher, Lerner Publishing Group—to hold onto that option.”
Eventually, the project moved forward, though not in a straight line.
“The company that originally bought my book was British, and then it was sold to an American company, and now it’s Sony Pictures Television,” she said. “They took all their intellectual property with them in the sale.”
The animation itself was produced by Silvergate Media, a studio known for children’s programming. “Silvergate—they’re behind shows like Octonauts—they were the ones producing it,” Monroe said.
The series ultimately landed on Netflix, where it reached a wide audience.
“The show did well. Millions of people watched it. Internationally, it did fantastic—more than I could have ever believed. Apparently, right now it’s huge in India.”
Even so, Monroe noted that the experience was a mix of excitement and adjustment. “It’s very different than the books. I wrote one episode, which was really fun, but overall, it’s a collaborative process. I didn’t have a lot of control.”
“People think it’s made me a millionaire,” she said, “but it hasn’t. I’m grateful and appreciative for the opportunity.”
As Monroe approaches retirement age, she said she has no plans to stop creating. “Artists don’t retire—they just keep making things,” she said.
She plans to continue taking baby steps forward. She also has another project in the works, but she said she needs to keep quiet about it.
