Onset artist John Cardinal designs greeting cards by day, is collaborating with other artists on a macabre high school drug story, and now he’s making his first foray into children’s literature.

Cardinal recently had his illustrations published in the children’s book “I’d Rather Be Riding My Bike,” written by Eric Pinder.

For this new enterprise, Cardinal involved his family in the process.

His kids’ drawings can be seen on chalkboards in the background throughout the story, and his wife Bethany helped organize a book-signing at Best Friend’s preschool where she works.

Cardinal spent ten years working as a graphic designer and has published comics with independent publishers. For his day job, he works as the lead press operator for Marian Heath Greeting Cards.

“I’ve been developing myself as a comic book artist for awhile ... so I brought a lot of that sensibility to this,” says Cardinal.

The book, which is written for children ages 3 to 6, tells the story of a young boy who endures school, chores, family time, and more while he daydreams about just being able to hit the road with his bike.

Cardinal and a couple of friends recently established their own publishing company, Tryptic Press, and published their first book “Chroma,” which is an anthology or various artwork by a number of artists. They were supposed to showcase their work at Boston ComicCon, but it was postponed until August due to the Boston Marathon bombing.

Cardinal says he gets inspired by all kinds of things and people, but when he was young, his inspiration came from within the family.

“When I was really young, my grandparents were antique dealers, and I think seeing some Saturday Evening Posts, and Norman Rockwell stuff” influenced him insofar as he saw the way pictures could tell a story.

Cardinal is careful to separate his “kid-friendly” work from the more adult fare of his comic-writing pseudonym “Monsta.” Currently, he and his friends are working on what promises to be a harrowing tale based on a situation in Plano, Texas that occurred in the early 2000s. Cardinal says it was around that time that heroin took over the landscape, and is a “high school drug story,” according to Cardinal.

“The story surrounds the beginning of what happened when those drugs entered the area,” Cardinal explained.

Check out Cardinal’s illustrations for adults and children at www.monstaville.com.