‘Off the Mark’ cartoonist launches ‘Marty Pants’ book series

To paraphrase a line from the American classic "Ghostbusters," when someone asks you if you want to be an author, you say "Yes."At least that's what Mark Parisi figured when he got a note from the children's editor at HarperCollins asking exactly that, even if writing books wasn't exactly on his radar."I never thought I'd be writing books," says the longtime Melrose, Massachusetts, resident, whose book "Marty Pants: Do Not Open!" -- a text-and-cartoon novel in the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" [...]