'Captain Underpants' Returns

Fans of brief-and-red-cape-wearing superheroes unite! More Captain Underpants books are on the way.

Author Dav Pilkey is planning to write four more of the wildly successful children's series. The first new entry, The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future, is due out in August with a print run of 1 million copies from publisher Scholastic.

"I think fans of Captain Underpants will be very happy with this new book," Pilkey said Thursday. "It has all of the action, laughs and ridiculousness that kids love, plus all the unapologetic irreverence and questionable potty humor that grumpy curmudgeons love to complain about. It's got something for everybody!"

Pilkney's new book is the first Captain Underpants in four years. Pilkney stated that he and his wife "had to take some time off to care for my father, who had terminal cancer."

The triumphant return of "Captain Underpants" probably won't be celebrated by everybody. In 2002, the American Library Association ranked the "Underpants" books top amongst those most frequently complained about by parents and teachers. That year, Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants was removed from an elementary school in Page, N.D., after a parent objected to the "innuendos" contained therein.

The "Underpants" series, which started in 1997, has north of 45 million copies in print.