By FRED KRONER
Rob Witzel got his inspiration at school.
It didn’t materialize from any of the traditional means, such as participating in an interactive class project or from studying a string of mathematical equations on the board or even from reading the classics.
It came in 2006, during his junior year while sitting in a study hall at Danville High School.
“Instead of doing my math homework or studying for my next physics test – like I probably SHOULD have been doing – I doodled and made a silly little comic strip,” Witzel said. “I showed my friends. They enjoyed it, so I would periodically do this.”
During his teen-aged years, the concept for ‘Super Penguin’ was born.
It took years for the character to be fully developed.
“I went off to college, and started my career in the restaurant business (with McDonalds) and didn’t do anything with my old comic strip,” Witzel said, “but kind of like a song that you can’t get out of your head, Super Penguin would pop up from time to time and never really went away.”
It was really more of a pleasant memory than a direction to take his life.
That is, until he shared it with his then-girlfriend and now-wife, Halley, when they started dating in 2015.
“Super Penguin found his way into a date-night conversation,” Witzel recalled. “She loved it and encouraged me to revisit it.”
Witzel remembers resisting the original invitation.
“It took some convincing,” he said. “Being an author was something I’d always wanted to be, but not something I actively went after.
“I worked on it some, but never took it all that seriously. I’d use my job as an excuse, and struggled with low self-esteem, so I assumed nobody would be interested, and any attempt at publishing would likely fail.”
Witzel needed to see a sign to spark his movement forward on the project. One day, the sign passed right in front of his eyes.
“A few months later (after sharing it with Halley), I was running the North Vermillion (Ind.) McDonalds and my supervisor at the time requested I go with him to a meeting in Decatur,” Witzel said. “I wasn’t all that excited, but I did it because my boss asked me to.
“I enjoyed my job, but was never passionate about it.”
Witzel didn’t need to be concerned about topics of conversation during the nearly 90-minute drive.
“My boss also had a reputation as a talker,” he said. “So here I was, with an annoying boss, headed to a meeting I didn’t want to go to, for a job I wasn’t all that excited about.”
That was the low point of Witzel’s day.
“My boss was in the middle of a rant about ‘the future of bitcoin’ and while half-listening, I said a quick prayer, ‘Is this really what I’m going to spend the rest of my life doing?’” Witzel said. “No sooner did the inner-prayer leave my brain, a big truck passed us on our left.
“On the side were pictures of Clifford the Big Red Dog and other Scholastic Book characters. This was a life-changing moment for me, and felt too big and obvious to NOT be a message from God on what I was REALLY supposed to be doing.”
Light bulbs began popping in his mind. He now had a purpose for his spare time.
“Since that car ride, I worked on my story when I could,” Witzel said. “I started and stopped, started over a couple times, and erased what I had.
“I listened to several audio books to pump up my self-esteem and sought out ways to encourage myself to keep moving.”
The process was time-consuming, as well as – at times – frustrating.
Witzel thought he could see the finish line approaching in March, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdowns were becoming companions in the same sentence.
“I had a vacation planned to Florida (at the outset of COVID),” Witzel said. “I almost canceled it, but then I felt an uncontrollable urge – another message from the big guy upstairs – and I was about 75 percent done with the book.
“If I had one week of nothing to do but write, I could finish.”
That’s what he did.
Today, Witzel is a published author with what he hopes will be the first installment of a series of Super Penguin adventures.
Getting from Point A to Point B consisted of traveling a winding and time-consuming path.
“I came home, had some friends and family help me edit, and I started learning how to get my story published,” Witzel said. “I looked at several publishing company websites. I’d go to Walmart or Target and flip to the front pages about who published certain books.
“Based on different criteria, I narrowed it down to two that I sent my story to.”
In December, 2020, he submitted his manuscript to those publishers.
He was pleasantly surprised by the responses he received.
“In a couple weeks, I heard back from both with offers to publish ‘Super Penguin,’” Witzel said.
In January, 2021, he signed a publishing contract with Dorrance Publishing Company, from Pittsburgh, and – before the inevitable delays interceded – had a target release date for late 2021.
The process then slowed to a crawl. Again.
“There were various delays in 2021, and some more editing with the publisher’s involvement,”Witzel said. “Working with an artist for the cover took some time.”
After completing the first full draft, he had spent the remainder of his free time in 2020 working with Danville’s Cindy Peck editing the manuscript.
The book was officially completed in February 2022, and moved to printing.
He now understands the overall picture of becoming an author better than he did when he first started writing.
“I think the biggest thing I learned was just an appreciation for the process,” Witzel said. “It’s really difficult to find the time and discipline to write a book, and it feels like that’s a finish line of sorts.
“But in reality, you’re just getting started. There’s a lot more parts to the process than I anticipated, and it’s been a lot of fun to learn.
“I also learned the value of patience. Some things took longer than expected, but I’m still very happy with the end result.”
His book is a light-hearted fantasy and a quick read.
“The characters exist in an ‘alternate Earth’ where humans don’t exist and animals have evolved to be like humans,” Witzel explained. “They have jobs, drive cars, and like our lead character, become super heroes.
“The lead character is Paul Frost, a penguin who works as a sportswriter in Eagle City.”
Frost works diligently to unearth what would be a major sports scandal.
“He begins to investigate a point-shaving scandal, and soon realizes the corruption in the city is so much bigger,” Witzel said. “He joins a team of vigilantes and becomes ‘Super Penguin.’
“I’m a huge comic book and pop culture fanatic, so the book is riddled with references to those things. It’s a light, fun story that’s packed with action and unique characters.”
His debut book is not geared to a particular audience.
“I tried to write the story for anybody and everybody that enjoys super hero stories and never wrote it to cater to one age group over another,” said Witzel, who was born in Las Vegas and moved to Danville with his family in the summer of 1999.
He wasn’t totally unfamiliar with the nuances of journalism.
Witzel spent time as a free-lance sportswriter for the Danville Commercial-News and worked alongside Eric Westfall (at WRHK 94.9, KRock) as a color commentator for high school football games.
For much of the last decade, Witzel has worked in various positions at McDonalds. He started full-time in 2011 as a crew chief.
Witzel worked his way into management and ran the Georgetown restaurant for most of 2014, then served at the Classic Rock N Roll McDonalds from early 2015 through early 2018.
Since then, he has been an Area Supervisor overseeing the Classic Rock N Roll in Danville as well as restaurants in Georgetown and Covington, Ind.
The 33-year-old Witzel also serves on the Board of Directors for the Vermilion Valley branch of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
The best place to order a physical copy of the book is through Witzel’s website SuperPenguinBook.com.
All books ordered through the site will be signed before they are shipped. Books are priced at $11. Books may also be ordered from the publisher’s website. Ebooks can be ordered from the publisher’s website as well.
“In the near future, books may be available through other means, but that isn’t official yet,” Witzel said. “Books are currently in ‘presale’ until I receive the first shipment (which are expected soon).”
He has sold more than 100 books so far through the presale, which started on Nov. 20, 2021.
As the readership grows, Witzel expects to garner more comments and reaction. What he has received thus far has been positive.
“I’ve written a lot about Super Penguin on my blog (a portion of SuperPenguinBook.com) and I’ve received a lot of excited feedback,” he said.
Witzel also plans to sell books at various events. He has scheduled appearances at three conventions, starting with the Indy Pop Con from June 3-5, and followed by signings at Indy FanBoy Expo and RaptorCon in Evansville, Ind.
Super Penguin has a presence on both Facebook and Instagram. Witzel shares updates on the book and other events there.
He hopes his first book won’t be his last. He is planning on a sequel.
“I’m in the early stages,” Witzel said. “I’ve got a bunch of notes scattered around my office, and about two-thirds of an outline.
“I’m hopeful to start writing the manuscript in another month or so.”
