Category: Comedy

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Prison Pit Book Four


By Johnny Ryan (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-591-4

Johnny Ryan is a comedian who uses comics as his most liberated medium of expression. Whether in his own Angry Youth Comix, or the many commissions for such varied clients as Nickelodeon, Hustler, Mad, LA Weekly and elsewhere, his job/mission is to create laughter. Depending on your point of view, he is either a filth-obsessed pervo smut-monger or a social iconoclast using the same tactics as Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks to assault the worst and most hidebound aspects of society.

His wild, loose cartoon drawing style is deceptively engrossing, and his seeming pictorial Tourette’s Syndrome of strips and gags involving such grotesque signature characters as Boobs Pooter (world’s most disgusting stand-up comedian), Loady McGee, Sinus O’Gynus and especially the incredible Blecky Yuckeralla (originally weekly from 2003 in The Portland Mercury and Vice Magazine before switching to Ryan’s own on-line site) will, frankly, appal many readers, but as with most questions of censorship in a Free Society, they are completely at liberty to neither buy nor read the stuff.

Ryan dubs his stinging graphic assaults on American culture ‘misanthropic comics’ and one of the most effective and honestly engaging is a simple riff on kids and fighting…

Ryan is a cartoonist with an uncompromising vision and an insatiable desire to shock and revolt whenever he wants to. In his ongoing Prison Pit series he perpetually pushes the graphic narrative envelope and the outer limits of taste with a brutal, primitive cascade of casual violence that has sprung, fangs bared, claws extended and arcanely barbed genitalia fully brandished, from his apparent obsession with casual ultra-violence, social decay and the mythology of masked wrestling. He is also a delighted devotee of the “berserk” manga strips of Kentaro Miura…

In the first volume criminal grappler Cannibal F***face (my asterisks not his) was banished to an extra-dimensional purgatory where the most violent felons from all over creation were dumped to live or die by societies which had outgrown the need for them. This barren hell-scape was littered with grotesque monsters, vile organisms and the worst specimens of humanity ever captured by the forces of civilisation. The masked wrestler was dumped there to fight and die, but his indomitable spirit and brutally battered body became bonded to a ghastly parasite, and together they thrived by killing everyone – and thing – they encountered…

In this fourth fearsome monochrome tome – which opens with the eighth uncanny episode of the unflinching epic – C.F. and his savage, semi-sentient new left arm awake in a crystalline cell and are informed they are imprisoned within the psychic confines of the insidious Caligulon. When the parasite abandons and attacks the wrestler, the result is an even more horrific monster and a temporary alliance which sees the brutal end of the mental wizards who form the ‘Brain Bitch’.

After demolishing, destroying and even consuming their foes and then dealing so-very-harshly with still more perilously paranormal priapic horrors, C.F. and his erstwhile ally turn on each other in ‘Slugstaxx’. After a horrendous clash which sees the unruly parasite devolved and returned to his rightful left arm-stump, the mighty masked wrestler then totally – and literally – screws with the massive computer behind his latest trials and returns to the Hadean wilderness where he then meets a roving band of marauding killers and proves to their juggernaut leader ‘Undigestible Scrotum’ that he was nothing of the kind…

Suddenly a strange flying machine begins to rain down devastating terror from above…

To Be Continued – and you can’t stop it…

In this non-stop welter of exceedingly excessive force, vile excrescences, constant combat challenges, scatological salvoes and sheer unadulterated graphic carnage, the never-ending Darwinian struggle of C.F. – forever beyond the reach of hope or rescue but never, ever contemplating surrender – is a macabre yet beguiling, loathsomely intriguing miracle of cartoon exuberance.

Man’s oldest gynophobic horrors and most simplistic delight in sheer physical dominance are savagely delineated in this primitive, appalling, cathartic and blackly funny campaign of comic horror. Resplendent, triumphant juvenilia has been adroitly shoved beyond all ethical limits into the darkest depths of absurdist comedy. This is another non-stop rollercoaster of brain-blistering action, profound, profanity and pictorial Sturm und Drang at its most gorge-rising and compelling: a never-ending battle delivered in the raw, frenetically primitivist ink-stained stabbings of an impassioned, engrossed child…

Not for kids, the faint-hearted or weak-stomached, here is extreme cartooning at its most visceral and pure.

…And now that we’ve placated the intellectual/moral imperative inside us all, I’ll also confirm that this book is another, all-out, over the top, indisputably hilarious hoot. Buy it and see if you’re broad-minded, fundamentally honest and purely in need of ultra-adult silliness…
© 2012 Johnny Ryan. All rights reserved.

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Hereville book 2: How Mirka Met a Meteorite


By Barry Deutsch (Amulet) – Uncorrected Proof copy
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0398-0

After years of disappointing experience I generally prefer to review finished copies rather than previews or proofs: there’s a lot that can change in the final stages and besides there’s far more to a book than content. How it feels, smells and even withstands handling is as crucial as the narrative wonderment inside.

Nevertheless when I was offered this proof copy (originally distributed to attendees of the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con) I jumped at the earliest opportunity to see how the uniquely engaging Mirka Hirschberg had continued on her path to heroic glory. Even in less-than-finished form I just had to see the second Hereville chronicle and discover exactly How Mirka Met a Meteorite…

Suffice to say it was superbly satisfying and you should all be prepared to put up with me reviewing it again once I lay hands on a proper copy…

Mirka Hirschberg is an 11-year old girl in a Hassidic family. That’s not surprising: everybody in parochial, patriarchal, rural Hereville is Jewish and Orthodox. Mirka, however, is a bit different: as well as being intelligent and argumentative, the little rebel is also unconventionally forthright, stubborn and impatient. Thanks to these unfeminine quirks she has become a bona fide sword-wielding hero, the unlikely boss of a politely, cunningly carnivorous troll who is a Guardian of Wonders and grudging Frenemies with an actual witch.

Thankfully for Hirschberg family’s already shaky reputation only three of her 8 sisters (and little brother Zindel) are party to any of this shameful situation although, as usual, stepmother Fruma probably knows far more than she is letting on…

Still, Mirka’s instinctive resistance to thousands of years of tradition (which state that girls are inferior to boys and should thus remain separate from and secondary to male pursuits and occupations) always chafes. Moreover, the strict directive that females should stick to the womanly things they are born for is now harder than ever to understand or accept…

Mirka is a warrior at heart and has many secrets to keep. She has a frivolous and forbidden book under her bed – a catalogue of fabulous beats – consorts with monsters and now has a great big sword to similarly conceal from her generally disapproving family…

Tasked with the care and training of eight girls (and, until he’s old enough, one boy), step-mother Fruma spends most of her time keeping house and drilling her daughters on how to be proper wives and mothers, but she too is forthright, disputatious and very, very wise…

After her duel with the troll Mirka was grounded for the longest time. With no other option she buckled down and even learned to knit – after a fashion – but her duties still bored her and she ached to find foes to fight and menaces to master.

In consequence Fruma took her aside and taught her chess, imparting a modicum of wisdom and lots to ponder to her wayward child.

The games result in Mirka being given her freedom at last, but no sooner does she explode out of the house than she again clashes with bully boys Yitzchok and Manis before wisely running off into the woods.

She searches out the troll and compels him to give her a fencing lesson, but baulks when it turns out to be hard, repetitive work. She also spitefully foments unrest between the macabre monster and the witch, but the scheme goes awry and the troll accidentally summons a meteorite which will smash the hag’s hidden house in 15 minutes time…

Terrified and repentant, Mirka runs a desperate marathon to warn the witch. Just in time the Weird Woman disposes of the hurtling hunk of hot rock and archly assures Mirka that the exhausted girl’s problems have only just begun…

Feeling fully a victor Mirka heads home, but that feeling fades when the two bullies pounce on her and, conveniently ignoring Negiah – the rule forbidding physical contact between unrelated males and females – start to rough her up and shove dirt in her mouth. Suddenly the brutal boys are knocked silly and, turning, Mirka sees that her saviour is herself. A faster, stronger, better Mirka…

Pushy, effusive and so very unladylike, the newcomer explains that she was originally a meteoroid sporting and having fun with her sisters in deep space until she was summoned to Earth by the troll and latterly transformed into a doppelganger of Mirka by the Witch.

Moreover, now that she’s stuck here she wants to stay and have fun – and the first step is to surreptitiously share Mirka’s life…

The idea quickly pales. Even looked after by wise sister Rochel “Metty” is soon the cause of much trouble. The double is a better student and daughter and slowly insinuates herself into the household, not just doing the dull stuff well, but also taking over all the good things Mirka actually enjoyed…

Lonely, hungry and cut off from her family, Mirka is forced to take desperate action and confronts Metty. In response the meteor maid challenges the frail human to three contests: loser to leave Hereville forever…

The battles against her new and improved double don’t go well. Metty is everything Mirka dreams of being and the forlorn, outclassed lass hates her for it. Thankfully Rochel and Zindel have a wise solution in mind, but even then the adventure isn’t over and Mirka gets taken on the ride of her life before finally getting her feet back on solid ground and safely under the full family table…

Once again combining the most admirable aspects of Jewish Identity and cultural character – Family, Faith, Honour, Courage, Loyalty and self-deprecating Humour – with rollicking adventure and supernatural suspense, this second saga of one of the best female characters in all of fiction touches every base.

Readers will experience joy, heartbreak, alienation, redemption and action-packed sheer wonder as the ideal young rebel triumphs over adversity and becomes a far better but not different person in another superb display of graphic narrative mastery.

There are many books and graphic novels dealing with “the Jewish Experience” and even some dealing with the thorny issue of Orthodoxy, but none that so adeptly show that a girl can be such a believably indomitable, tuchus-kicking, day-saving champion. Mirka is a great role model for all youngsters and hopefully the star of many more adventures in the years to come.

Text and illustrations © 2012 Barry Deutsch. Published by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved.

Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite is scheduled for a November 1st release.

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Tiny Titans: The First Rule of Pet Club…


By Art Baltazar & Franco with Geoff Johns (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2892-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: just buy it – it’s so funny you’ll burst … 10/10

The links between animated features and comicbooks are long established and I suspect, for young consumers, indistinguishable. After all, it’s just entertainment in the end…

DC’s Cartoon Network imprint was arguably the last bastion of children’s comics in Americaand consolidated that link between TV and 2D fun and thrills with stunning interpretations of such television landmarks as Ben 10, Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory and others.

The kids’ comics line also produced some truly exceptional material based on TV iterations of their proprietary characters such as Legion of Super Heroes, Batman: Brave and the Bold and Krypto the Super Dog as well as material like Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! which was merely similar in tone and content.

Perhaps the imprint’s finest release was a series ostensibly aimed at beginning readers but which quickly became a firm favourite of older fans and a multi-award winner too.

Superbly mirroring the magical wonderland inside a child’s head where everything is happily mixed up together, Tiny Titans became a sublime antidote to continuity cops and slavish fan-boy quibbling (erm, uh… I think you’ll find that in…) by reducing the vast cast of the Teen Titans Go! animated series, the greater boutique of the mainstream comicbooks and eventually the entire DC Universe to little kids and their parents/guardians in the wholesome kindergarten environment ofSidekickCityElementary School.

It’s a scenario spring-loaded with in-jokes, sight-gags and beloved yet gently mocked paraphernalia of generations of strip readers and screen-watchers….

Collecting issues #19-25 (spanning October 2009 – April 2010) of the magically madcap and infinitely addictive all-ages mini-masterpiece, this fourth volume begins on a romantic note with Deep in Like.

Art Baltazar and co-creator Franco (Aureliani) have mastered a witty, bemusingly gentle manner of storytelling that just happily rolls along, with the assorted characters getting by and trying to make sense of the great big world having “Adventures in Awesomeness”. The method generally involves stringing together smaller incidents and moments into an overall themed portmanteau tale and it works astoundingly well.

After a handy and as-standard identifying roll-call page ‘Imagine Me and You…’ finds scary blob Plasmus and tiny winged Bumblebee brighten up each other’s drab day before a similar cupid moment affects the Brain and M’sieu Mallah whilst the diligent Robin finds his attempts to finish his homework disturbed by a succession of pesky lasses including Starfire, Batgirl and Duella all caught up in a ‘Like Triangle’.

‘Dates’ sees Bumblebee and Plasmus inadvertently cause chaos during an afternoon movie monster mash and even the ‘Intermission’ after which a sly sight gag for the oldies derides the company’s many Wonder Girls in ‘Jump Rope’.

The hallowed anthropoid obsession of DC is highlighted in ‘New Recruits’ when Beast Boy chairs a meeting of the Titans Ape Club after which The Kroc Files finds ultimate butler Alfred, roguish reptile Kroc and Plasmus each demonstrating ‘How to Enjoy a Lollipop’.

The issue ends with a word puzzle and the next promises to disclose The Hole Truth about Raven, beginning with a daybreak disaster at ‘Home with the Trigons’. Raven’s dad is an antlered crimson devil – and a teacher at the School – so when he oversleeps his sorceress scion gets him to work on time by opening a few wormholes. Of course leaving those dimensional doors around is just asking for trouble…

Meanwhile it’s washday at Wayne Manor but Alfred won’t let Robin, Beast Boy or Aqualad go down ‘To the Batcave’. However even the dapper domestic can’t withstand united pester-power and eventually he gives in and learns to regret it…

Following a perplexing maze game, the All Pet Club Issue! launches when Starfire and mean sister Blackfire write home for their beloved critters Silky and Poopu so that they can go to the secret social event, whilst can-do kid cyborg actually builds himself a brace of chrome companions in ‘Pet-Tronics’…

With ‘Club Hoppin” the entire school gathers with their uniquely compatible pets and even interview some new guys – specifically the tongue-tied and thunderstruck Captain Marvel Junior and his fuzzy pal Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny. With so many members the club then has to find roomier quarters leading to a painful tryst of Beast Boy and Terra in ‘Meanwhile, on the Moon…’

There’s a brilliant vacuum-packed bonus pin-up of the Tiny Titans in space from Franco before Hot Dogs, Titans, & Stretchy Guys! finds the kids back on solid ground and wrapped up with the DCU’s many flexible fellows as ‘Offspring into Action’ introduces Plastic Man’s excitably bonny boy.

In ‘Just Playing and Bouncing’ when Bumblebee spends some time with the diminutive Atoms Family she loses control of their Teeny-Weeny, Super Duper Bouncy Ball and accidentally gets Plastic Man, Offspring, Elongated Man and Elastic Lad all wound up before helplessly watching it bowl over Principal Slade and Coach Lobo in ‘Coffee Dog Latte’.

Thankfully Robin has the right gimmick in his utility belt to set things straight but can’t stay since he’s en route to his Bird Scouts meeting where potential new members Hot Spot and Flamebird are trying out for Hawk, Dove, Raven and Talon. Sadly when shiny Golden Eagle turns up the girls want to make him the new leader…

A semi-regular ‘Epilogue’ page often supplies one more punch-line to cap each themed issue and this one leads directly into a convoluted and confounding Elastic Four pin-up which in turn precedes a spookily uproarious tale of Bats, Bunnies, and Penguins in the Batcave! Oh My!...

It all begins in ‘Ice to Meet Ya!’ when Wayne Manor’s large penguin population get into a turf war with the house rabbits and the Batcave’s regular inhabitants are displaced in ‘Driving Me Batty’. The conflict escalates in ‘All in the Batman Family’ and Robin gets a rather stern admonition from his senior partner to put things right or else…

Happily the ever-so-cute and capable Batgirl is willing to lend a hand – but unfortunately so too are the kids she’s baby-sitting (Tim and Jason – and you’ll either get that or you won’t) and the impishly infuriating Batmite…

With even Batcow helping, things son start calming down but ‘Meanwhile, at the Titans’ Treehouse…’ not all of the fugitive Bat bats have heard the good news…

Once your ribs have stopped hurting you can then enjoy a Tiny Titans Aw Yeah Pin-up by Franco before The All Small Issue! starts with assorted big kids accidentally drinking ‘Milk! Milk!’ from the Atoms’ fridge and shrinking away to nearly nothing. Good thing the Atomic nippers think to call their dad, who’s with fellow dwindlers Ant, Molecule and substitute Atoms Adam and Ryan (another in-continuity howler, fans) for a Team Nucleus meeting…

That compressive cow-juice causes more trouble in the ‘Epilogue’ before a Blue Beetle puzzle clears the mind prior to an outrageous ending in Superboy Returns! in a fairly cosmic crossover – with additional scripting from Geoff Johns.

When Conner Kent shows up all the girls are really impressed and distracted, whilst across town Speedy is trading a lot of junk he shouldn’t be touching to Mr. Johns’ Sidekick City Pawn Shop and Bubblegum Emporium in ‘Brightest Day in the Afternoon!’ When Starfire and Stargirl then buy the seven different coloured “mood rings” from the shop they and BFFs Duella, Batgirl, Wonder Girl, Terra and Shelly, are turned into Green, Red, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Violet and Indigo Lanterns!

Soon the Tiny Titans are up in the air again and ticking off the Guardians of the Universe and their Green Lantern Corps.

It all ends well though, first in an Emerald ‘Epilogue’ and then a lavish pin-up of a passel of the Pistachio peace-keepers…

Despite being ostensibly aimed at super-juniors and TV kids, these wonderful, wacky yarns – which marvellously marry the heart and spirit of such classic strips as Peanuts and The Perishers with something uniquely mired and marinated in pure comic-bookery – are unforgettable tales no self-respecting fun-fan should miss: accessible, entertaining, and wickedly intoxicating. What more do you need to know?

© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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What-a-Mess


By Frank Muir & Joseph Wright (Carousel, Picture Corgi)
ISBNs: 0-552-52105-I (Carousel)      978-0-55252-105-5 (Corgi)

Once a hugely popular franchise, the subtly superb and wryly fantastic adventures of What-a-Mess have all but disappeared from today’s library lists and Athenaeum book-shelves. Written by Frank Muir and illustrated by Joseph Wright, the gloriously engaging, dolorously delightful yarns starred a philosophically trenchant, galumphing great ugly-duckling dog and spawned 22 further books, in assorted styles and formats, as well as two seasons (48 episodes in total between 1990 and 1995) of a successful trans-Atlantic TV cartoon series.

Joseph Wright is still a brilliant but enigmatic jobbing illustrator who generally keeps to himself and lets his wonderfully manic art do his talking for him. He is most well known these days as the provider of hilariously gory perfectly perfidious pictures for the Little Dracula series of books by Martin Waddell – a task he toiled at from 1986 onwards and which again resulted in a fondly remembered American cartoon series.

Frank Herbert Muir was born on February 5th 1920 inRamsgate,Kent and spent the next 77 years of his life becoming a British entertainment legend. His formative years were spent in his grandmother’s pub, before moving toLondon.

Despite possessing an astounding vocabulary, phenomenally disciplined, cultured diction and a plummy, posh voice, Muir was educated atChathamHouseGrammar SchoolandLeytonCountyHigh Schoolfor Boys, not the public-school system he so miraculously mimicked. He proudly and often averred “I was educated in E10, notEton”…

During WWII he served as a photographic technician in the Royal Air Force and when demobbed began writing radio scripts for comedians Jimmy Edwards and Dick Bentley. This led to his teaming with life-long writing partner Denis Norden, and their creation of the venerable comedy show Take it from Here reinvented the Funny Business. Their first major innovation was the invention of iconic sitcom family The Glums, and the team quickly became a keystone and shaper of British humour (…for instance, they originally coined the much-beloved phrase “Infamy, Infamy, they’ve all got it in for me”) so when Edwards moved over to the new-fangled television medium Muir & Norden went with him…

Scriptwriter, satirist, scholar, author, performer, star of Radio and Television, Muir was also the BBC’s Assistant Head of Light Entertainment during the 1960s and followed up by becoming London Weekend Television’s first Head of Entertainment in 1969, and worked constantly and brilliantly in his many careers until his death on January 2nd 1998. Ten months later, he and Norden were joint recipients of their last of so many honours: the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Writer of the Year Award for 1998.

Muir and his family shared their home with a succession of Burmese cats and Afghan Hounds, and these latter were the inspiration for the simply magical picture book story featured here.

Prince Amir of Kinjan was a very clumsy and confused puppy. Excitable, inquisitive, rash and so very careless, the long-nosed, long-legged, pot-bellied pooch always hurtled from here to there, rolling in things, overturning objects and generally causing a sticky calamity all over the place.

There were always things trapped in, nastily glued to or even growing on him – and usually a small yellow duck stuck to the crusted fringe on his head. Even his serene, gracious and long-suffering mother so often said “What-a-Mess!” that the mucky moppet actually believed that it was his name…

No wonder the dire doggy was so confused and pondered – whenever he wasn’t rushing about, tearing furniture or eating something he shouldn’t – over what kind of beast he actually was…

This resplendent riot of frolicsome folderol then follows the scruffy scamp as he searches in the house, garden and pond for his true identity and a meaning to his life. Using observation, logical deduction and rationalist reasoning, the daft beast notes his definite physical similarities to a big fat bee, an expensive haute couture hat and a goldfish, earning the consequent ire of assorted humans, a compost heap, gravity and merciless, short-tempered ducks …

Even when, at the end of a particularly trying day – for all concerned – the pooped pup slinks home to mother and she tells him what he truly is, Prince Amir still gets a firm hold of the wrong end of the stick…

A lost classic of very clever kids’ comedy, Muir’s tale rattles along, combining delectable irony with empathy and surreal slapstick whilst Wright’s astonishingly busy illustrations convey pathos and naifish enthusiasm and idiocy with glib ease. Moreover every colourful conception is additionally crammed with deliciously bizarre background detail: madcap marginals, surreal sidebars and outrageous off-focus action involving a host of animals and far less natural characters…

Bright, brash, beautiful and brilliant, these books are a sublime treat and long overdue for a fresh release in today’s wonder-starved world.
Text © 1977 Frank Muir. Illustrations © 1977 Joseph Wright.

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Luke on the Loose


By Harry Bliss, coloured by Françoise Mouly & Zeynep Memecan (Toon Books/Raw Junior)
ISBN: 978-1-935179-05-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: the bestest book yet for keeping adults quiet and opening a world of adventure for younger kids… 10/10

Here’s another sublimely enticing yarn for early readers and older instructors possibly bored with wholesomely anodyne little tots.

Award-winning creator Harry Bliss was reared on a diet of Will Elder’s Mad Magazine cartoons and, after surviving to adulthood, started selling his own manic doodles and covers to the prestigious periodical the New Yorker. He’s also illustrated many fine and fabulous children’s books such as Sharon Creech’s A Fine, Fine School, Doreen Cronin’s Diary of… series – a Worm, a Fly and a Spider so far – as well as Which Would You Rather Be? by William Steig and the marvellously stirring Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo. This is his first comic book, but you’d never know it. Hopefully, if lots of us buy it, he’ll keep up the great work…

Opening with a handy all-ages-accessible map of the City That Never Sleeps (just remember “the Bronx is up and the Battery’s Down”), Luke on the Loose introduces a little lad with a lot of energy and a dangerous amount of single-minded determination, whose inquisitive focus and blind concentration leads him into a great big New York Adventure…

Whilst being taken for a walk with his father inCentral Park, Luke’s attention is captured by a flock of pigeons. Slipping out of his distracted dad’s grasp, Luke chases after the birds and just keeps on going…

Even running as fast as he can – which is pretty darn quick – the boy can’t catch his cooing quarry but his phenomenal progress through the urban arboreal esplanade causes a wave of commotion that leaves people, pooches and sundry other passers-by windswept and reeling…

Also reeling is Luke’s Mum once Dad telephones her…

Caught in the moment of complete absorption Luke hurtles onward, out of the park, across the bridge and into the wilds ofBrooklyn, vaulting moms with strollers, hurtling over kerbside diners and young lovers and crashing through a queue at an ice-cream stand. Unable to escape the determined pursuit the flurried flock heads up and, thanks to a handy fire-escape, so does Luke…

Raucous, riotous and riveting, infinitely re-readable and packed with overlapping gags in layers of beguiling pictorial detail, Luke on the Loose is superbly engaging, thrill-a-minute and hilariously exciting: the kind of fun tale boisterous little boys will adore in that so-brief window every day between full-speed rushing about and total sleeping shut-down…

Little girls will love it too, but probably take time to savour it rather than rocket about copying the hyper-active little star meteor …

Toon Books/Raw Junior was established by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly as an imprint of the groundbreaking and legendary alternative comics magazine, dedicated to producing high-quality comics stories in premium formats to suit pre-schoolers and beginning readers and form the first steps of a life enriched by strips and reading.

Their books of superbly superior comic tales come in three educational standards (Level 1: First Comic for brand new readers, Level 2: Easy-to-Read for Emerging Readers and Level 3: Chapter Books for Advanced Beginners) and the company enhances their publications with on-line supplements.

TOON-BOOKS.com offers follow ups like interactive audio-versions (read by the authors), a choice of languages and a “cartoon maker” facility allowing readers to make their own adventures about the characters they have just met in the printed editions. Most books also include tips for parents and teachers on ‘How to Read Comics with Kids’…

© 2009 Raw Junior, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword


By Barry Deutsch (Amulet)
ISBN: 978-0-8109-8422-6

Win’s Christmas or Chanukah Gift Recommendation: an ideal introduction to other worlds and honest heroics, not just for girls but for everyone… 9/10

There’s fair few graphic novels dealing with “the Jewish Experience” and even some dealing with the thorny issue of Orthodoxy, but I honestly can’t think of another book that features a truly likable girl-child as a bona fide hero – and a traditional, tuchus-kicking, day-saving champion at that.

Mirka Hirschberg is an 11-year old girl in a Hassidic family. That’s not surprising: everybody in Hereville is Jewish and Orthodox. Mirka, however, is a bit of a problem child.

She’s intelligent, inquisitive, stubborn and argumentative: utterly unconvinced and unmoved by the ancient yet still thriving belief and institutionalised tradition that girls are inferior to boys and should stick to what they they’re good at.

Mirka is a rebel and a warrior at heart: she even keeps a forbidden, non-kosher book – a bestiary of monsters – under her bed…

In a family of eight girls and one boy, step-mother Fruma spends most of her time keeping house and training all the daughters on how to be proper wives and mothers, but she too is forthright and disputatious. However she’s old; wise and wily enough not to show it and make waves. Every so often she also proves that she clearly knows far more about everything than she lets on…

When Mirka cunningly gets out of knitting practise again she thinks she’s won a victory, but as they walk through the woods to school little brother Zindel points out the fallacies in his sister’s ploy, citing the disastrous time Mirka told everybody she wanted to be a monster-hunting dragon-slayer…

Suddenly they are confronted by two older boys who have been persistently bullying the baby brother. Yitzchok and Manis are bigger, older and mean, but where Zindel is cowed Mirka is defiant and when her sibling is struck she responds by bouncing a rock off the attacker’s skull.

The young thugs are furious enough to break Negiah (the rule forbidding physical contact between unrelated males and females) and give chase, but Mirka evades them and rushes deeper into the undergrowth. Soon she is lost and stumbles onto a strange, tall house she never saw before.

Hereville is small, closed and insular so an unknown tower – and exotic garden – is a huge surprise… but not as much as the eerie old woman tending a tree by floating in mid-air…

Astonished, Mirka drags Zindel and sisters Gittel and Rochel to inspect the mystery manse. Although the older girls are far more concerned with propriety and their future roles as reputable wives, Zindel is appropriately astounded. However when Mirka picks one of the fist-sized grapes on the fence, a monstrous unknown creature appears. It has hooves, huge ears, a snout and a malign gleam of intelligence in its eyes. With an horrific squeal it chases the formerly-bold thief frantically through the woods, too fast for Rochel to tell Mirka that it’s only a Pig…

It certainly isn’t.

When Mirka recovers her wits she turns and attacks the monster, but it easily beats her and wickedly knocks the breathless girl into a men-only barbecue – and another shameful flouting of the rules of tradition…

The pig isn’t done with her either, and spends the following days hunting and tormenting her: constantly eating her homework, painfully butting and even framing Mirka after it destroyed Fruma’s garden. Of course no one else ever sees the beast…

Mirka’s perpetual harping on is, however, upsetting her sisters. Constantly acting up and shaming the family is having detrimental effects on the sisters’ marriage prospects and the family reputation. So to save the honour of the Hirschbergs, Mirka sets a cunning trap…

Things don’t go quite as she planned. Although the brave lass gets a noose around the swine it easily drags her through the woods before speaking and telling the stunned girl just how much it hates her for despoiling the hidden garden and how it will forever make her pay!

Livid, Mirka attacks again and the furious battle which ensues precipitates them both into a lake. Still battling mightily, Mirka loses consciousness and thinks she sees a benevolent lady cradling her, saving her…

When she reaches the bank and struggles to safety she is still holding the rope and the equally exhausted pig calls a truce, forswearing its eternal vengeance. Free, exultant and smug, Mirka boasts of her victory to her siblings, but when Zindel goes with her to see the site of her victory they find Yitzchok and Manis tormenting the still hog-tied beast by throwing stones. The plucky boy cannot stand to see such cruelty and vainly tries to stop the bullies, but when the savagely turn on him a fighting mad Mirka beats them off with a tree branch and they flee.

Freeing the far from grateful swine, the siblings are then confronted by the strange witch who owns the pig. Refusing to be in Mirka’s debt, the hag divines the lass’ greatest wish and reveals how Mirka can win a hero’s sword worthy of a true dragonslayer…

All she has to do is defeat the highly unconventional troll who currently possesses it and after some oddly fitting advice from Fruma – who apparently knows the witch in the woods and orders her stepdaughter to never see her again – plus another screaming fight with the over-protective Zindel, in the middle of the night, Mirka sets off to win her prize…

Her contraband book and Fruma’s idle musings could not prepare her for the reality of The Troll: a bizarrely erudite terror who is guardian of a host of uncanny treasures. He readily accepts her challenge for he has not yet had breakfast – and chooses as his method of combat the worst of all tests… a knitting contest…

Readily mixing the most enviable aspects of Jewish Identity and cultural character – Family, Faith, Honour, love of debate and reverence for knowledge – with rollicking adventure, sly, surreal humour, supernatural suspense and vibrant youthful rebellion, this first adventure of the redoubtable but fallible Mirka and the Hirschberg clan is a sheer award-winning graphic narrative delight.

Fascinating and subtly informative about a culture most people know too little about, How Mirka Got Her Sword is also a superbly funny and exciting page-turner (beautifully, enchantingly illustrated by a master of the comics form) and a book girls and boys will read over and over again.

This beguiling instant-classic hardback also includes a delightful Sketchbook section disclosing the secrets of ‘Designing the Troll’ to encourage readers to become creators too…
© 2010 Barry Deutsch. Published by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved.

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The Crazy World of Golf


By Mike Scott (Exley)
ISBN: 978-1-85015-356-6

With so much time on my hands these days I’m considering taking up a hobby to while away the tedious hours. So, rather than using the internet or asking a friend, I’ve started consulting old cartoon compilations in search of sage advice and scintillating suggestions and here’s what’s turned up on the top of the pile…

One of a delightful range of themed collections issued by transatlantic publishing outfit Exley in both English and American editions (including The Crazy World of Cats, the Greens, the Handyman, Hospitals, Gardening, Marriage, Sex and many others as well as real, proper sports such as Rugby, Cricket and Sailing) this winning monochrome landscape tome is the work of Mike Scott, who I’m appalled and ashamed to say I can find no biographical information on.

Even my trusty Dictionary of British Cartoonists and Caricaturists omits him and in this instance the internet has not been my friend. I’m not certain that he’s British-based or even a bloke at all, despite a delightfully authentic line in UK fashions, trivia and frustration-fuelled attitude – but his keen observation, surreal invention and loosely manic drawing style lend themselves perfectly to synthesising and encapsulating the passion and insanity of this all-weather subject which fascinates and absorbs so many normally rational folk…

Cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly sharp ideas, repeatedly poking our funny bones whilst pricking our pomposities and fascinations, and nothing says more about us than the sinister lure and apparently obsessive grip of hitting balls with sticks – especially if you have to dress up funny, learn bewildering rules and terms and buy lots and lots of over-priced drinks for strangers to properly enjoy it…

Within the pages of the Crazy World of Golf the confirmed couch-potato reader will learn the horrors and joys of fashionably appropriate attire, the “Japanese Way”, how to handle the always-bracing weather, the problem with those unfortunates who don’t play and how extraterrestrials view our bizarre practices…

There are plenty of gags considering and exploring the effects upon local flora and fauna, clubhouse politics, the misunderstanding spouse, women drivers (that’s a pun, but not a good one), golf throughout history, some useful free tips, terminology explained and many moments of sheer mind-warping whimsy. There’s even a plethora of pages proving that God loves the game, if not the players…

These kinds of cartoon collections are perennial charity shop or jumble-sale fare and if you ever chance upon an item of potential artistic amusement in such a place, do yourself a favour, help out a good cause and have a cheap laugh. It might be the start of a fresh phase in your life, courtesy of another unsung master of mirth.

As for me and my hobbies… no, probably not golf…

© 1985 Mike Scott. All rights reserved.

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‘There’s a Lot of it About’


By Geoffrey Dickinson (Columbus Books)
ISBN: 978-0-86287-253-3

Since we’re well into the snot and sniffles season I thought I’d cheer myself up with this handy handbook of ailments and medical mis-practice from one of Britain’s best and most influential cartoonists Geoffrey Dickinson, a veteran mainstay of Punch, Time, The Financial Times and many others. This is probably his best collection of gags but his second opinion on medical matters ‘Probably Just a Virus’ is almost as good but a lot harder to find these days…

British cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly clever ideas, repeatedly poking our funny bones, pricking our pomposities and feeding our fascinations, and nothing says more about us than our rocky relationship with the beloved yet dreaded agents of the National Health Service.

Award-winning cartoonist Geoffrey Samuel Dickinson was born on May 5th 1933 inLiverpool and studied at Southport School Art (1950-1953) before graduating to the Royal Academy Schools. Set on a career as a landscape painter he taught art in Croyden, atTavistockBoysSchool and theSelhurstGrammar School until 1967.

To supplement his income he freelanced as a graphic designer and animator for the BBC and began selling gags to Punch as early as 1963.

In 1966 his famous cover for the April 15th issue of Time Magazine was deemed to have officially launched “the Swinging Sixties” and London as the capital city of cool, and a year later he took a staff position with Punch as Deputy Art Editor under the legendary Bill Hewison, but still found time to freelance, working for Reader’s Digest, Which?, Esquire, Highlife, Hallmark Cards and many more.

In 1984 Dickinsonleft the humour standard to take up a position at the Financial Times, drawing cartoons for the daily and producing illustration material for the weekend supplement. He died far too young in 1988.

Within the pages of ‘There’s a Lot of it About’ – and following a pithy introduction from much-missed master of acerbic wit Alan Coren – the fit, the fat, the festering and the foolish will all learn the truth about the health of the nation in such chapters of chilling encounters and dodgy diagnoses as ‘The Waiting-Room’, ‘In the Surgery’ and ‘Sharp Practice’, before meeting stroppy secretaries, seen-it-all sawbones and formidably starched matrons as well as the puling punks, cadaverous clerks and clerics, cocky kids, goofy old gaffers, loony little old ladies, brusque businessmen and other tedious time-wasters all abusing valuable visiting hours ‘On the Touchline’, ‘At the Barbers’ and ‘At the Dentist’…

Moreover, as well as warning of ‘Student Doctors’, ‘Showbiz Doctors’ and the ‘Bogus Doctor’, we follow fully-rounded physicians into their private lives ‘On Holiday’, ‘At the Wheel’, in the garden with ‘Doctor Greenfinger’, at the ‘Doctor’s Wedding’, over ‘The Festive Season’ and on ‘The Morning After’, before examining doctors in love undergoing ‘Affairs of the Heart’…

These kinds of cartoon collections were once ubiquitous best-sellers available everywhere, but these days are perennial library and jumble sale fare – in fact I actually found this brilliant cure-all for the blues at a Hospital charity shop – but if you ever see a Dickinson (or indeed, any cartoon collection) in such a place, do yourself a favour, help out a good cause and have a healthy horse-laugh with these all-but-forgotten masters of illustrative mirth.

They’re really good for what ails you…
© 1985 Geoffrey Dickinson. 1933-1988

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Nextwave Agents of H.A.T.E. the Ultimate Collection


By Warren Ellis, Stuart Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4461-8

Even for the most dedicated fans, superhero comics can become a little samey and pedestrian, so when gifted big- name creators such as Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen decide to have a little fun with the fringes of such a ponderous continuity as Marvel’s, expectations are always understandably high.

In 2006 Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. (Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort) launched for a breathtaking and controversial 12 issue run and happily proved to be everything one could hope for…

Wry, cynically Post-Modern and malevolently mischievous, the saga borrowed shamelessly from kid’s bubblegum pop culture – especially trans-pacific animation (there was even a theme-song you could hear online and a variant issue readers could colour in to win prizes) – as well as the forgotten contents of the daftest corners of Marvel’s nigh-seventy years of existence to captivatingly satirise the genre, the medium and itself – and it was hilariously anti-globalisation, counter-Capitalist, rude, sexy and excessively ultra-violent…

H.A.T.E. is another of those numerous acronymic quasi-governmental, covert high-tech agencies dedicated to keeping us all safe in our overpriced, indolent beds – at least that was what their eccentric team of operatives initially believed.

When they discovered that their employers were in fact a fully owned subsidiary of the Beyond Corporation© and the latest iteration of diabolical terrorist cabal S.I.L.E.N.T., former Avengers Monica Rambeau (Captain Marvel II/Photon) and artificial individual Aaron (Machine Man) Stack rightly rebelled.

With ex-X-Man girl Tabitha Smith (Meltdown/Boom Boom), stroppy immortal monster-hunter Elsa Bloodstone and hyper-powered, unimaginative enigma The Captain (formerly Captain $#!£ until ostracized by all the other military-monickered mystery-men, after which Captain America punched his foul-mouthed head in and washed his mouth out with soap) in tow, they went AWOL, intending to stop their former paymasters at all costs.

Further investigation disclosed that the terrorist conglomerate was actually planning to product-test potentially lucrative BWMDs – Bizarre Weapons of Mass Destruction – on American soil and ordinary folks, so the shocked quintet promptly stole a super-ship and all the plans, determined to stop the callous campaign and take down the despicable Beyond©-ers forever…

With their increasingly deranged, suicidal and sexually outré former commander Dirk Anger in hot pursuit, the team begins its fightback in Abcess, North Dakota where the legendary giant dragon in underpants Fin Fang Foom has been awakened and… stimulated… into going on a rampage of destructive frustration…

On the streets of Abcess, hordes of Beyond©’s mass-produced vegetable warriors are attacking the citizenry and exacerbating the chaos until Elsa and The Captain intervene with their signature lack of restraint.

As property damage and general unrest spiral upwards, Monica devises an unsavoury plan and orders Aaron – a fantastic robot who despises human “fleshy ones” and has reprogrammed himself to crave vast amounts of beer – to get himself swallowed and deal with the dragon from the inside…

With no rest for the Wicked-crushers the renegade revengers then head to Sink City, Illinoiswhere brutally corrupt cop Mac Mangel has been infected with a mechanistically mutating program, transforming him into a colossal flesh and steel beast hungry to eat metal and children…

With mounting carnage everywhere, the Captain still gets distracted into an origin flashback, leaving Tabitha to deal with the Transfomer-ed Mangel in her stylishly simple yet permanent manner…

In Wyoming, the Nextwave discover a Beyond© War Garden and set about destroying the next crop of broccoli berserkers and cabbage crusaders, just as Dirk Anger and his other – still-loyal – agents of H.A.T.E. arrive in their flying citadel to unleash all the insane instruments of doom in their arsenal. However even the Drop Bears of Cuddly Koala Death, a flock of Assault Pterosaurs, Samurai Robots and Homicide Crabs cannot contain the righteous indignation of the forgotten heroes, and when Aaron counterattacks by stealing Dirk’s chic-est most secret possession the deviant Director has no choice but to retreat…

Beyond©orp’s follow-up BWMD event sees the terrorist entrepreneurs summon an extremely minor and rather young Elder God, Rorkannu, Lord of the Dank Dimension, and trade that for access to a deadly invading army of mystic behemoths that Dr. Strange fans will recognise as merciless “Mindless Ones” to decimate the town of Shotcreek, Colorado. Ready to back-up the embattled townspeople are Monica and her crew but things take a decidedly surreal turn as the monolithic marauders prove to be not all that mindless…

In the blistering last-stand battle Elsa becomes lost in fond reminiscences of her truly unique and bloody childhood, before, against all odds, the Captain stumbles onto Rorkannu and contrary to everyone’s expectations finally does something right…

When Steve Rogers became CaptainAmerica in 1941, nobody realised that a second Nazi spy stole his urine sample. Now, through most torturous and arcane paths, that last remnant of the original Super-Soldier serum has allowed the ruling elite of the Beyond© group to create whole battalions of customised metahuman champions…

When Nextwave finally track the terrorists to their inverted floating fortress they are confronted by an army of esoteric adversaries derived and developed from the misappropriated hero-pee and aligned in specifically themed teams such as The Surgery, The Vestry and The Homosexuality, but even such lethally dedicated foes as Dr. Headless, Father Pain, Dr. Nosexy, Sun King, Red Rosary and Slightly Creepy Policewoman pale into insignificance beside the reality-altering threat of Forbush-Man and his eerily familiar comrades the New Paramounts…

Once again plunged into horrifically violent combat, the Nextwave are slowly making bloody headway until the diminutive demon plunges the team into depressing and dreary alternate lives from the worst recesses of their inner visions. Sadly for Forbush-Man, nobody had ever found any evidence of intellect or imagination in Tabitha, just an overwhelming vacuity, urge to steal and need to blow stuff up…

With the end in sight the triumphant heroes invade the Beyond Corporation©’s hidden HQ State 51 just as Dirk Anger, transformed and degraded beyond imagination, arrives culminating in an even more spectacular clash before confronting the utterly macabre mastermind behind the monstrous marketing campaign of destruction; only to discover an even more bizarre kingmaker behind it all and finally bringing the hammer down once and for all…

As action comics in their purest form, the tales are laced with light-hearted lethality and superbly smutty innuendo with hints of Garth Ennis and John McCrea’s Hitman, Ben Edlund’s The Tick, Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill’s Marshall Law and Ambush Bug, with all the verve, panache and invention of the Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory, Time Squad and Kids Next Door, all wrapped up in pithy corporate sloganeering a la Better Off Ted and Joseph Goebells…

Stuffed with in-joke extras such as the faux letters pages, sketches, the original Nextwave Pitch and the lyrics for that aforementioned theme song this is a glorious comic – in every sense of the word – and an experience no modern, fun-loving fan could possibly find fault with.

“Healing America by Beating People Up” and making us laugh by taking the piss…
© 2006, 2007, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Bone book 2: Chase that Cow


By Jeff Smith (Cartoon Books)
ISBN: 978-0-96366-9-095-4

Jeff Smith burst out of relative obscurity in 1991 and changed the comics-reading landscape with his enchanting all-ages comic-book Bone. The compelling black and white saga captivated the market and prospered at a time when an endless procession of angst-ridden, steroid-breathed super-vigilantes and implausibly clad “Bad-Grrls” came and went with machine-gun rapidity.

Born in Pennsylvania and raised in Ohio, Smith avidly absorbed the works of Carl Barks, Charles Schultz and especially Walt Kelly from an early age, and purportedly first began producing the adventures of his Boneville creations at age ten.

Whilst attending Ohio State University he created a prototype strip for the College newspaper: ‘Thorn’ was another early incarnation of his personal universe and a valuable proving ground for many characters that would eventually appear in Bone. A high school classmate became a Disney animator and Smith subsequently gravitated to the field before striking out on his own, having mastered the graceful gentle slapstick timing and high finish style which typifies his art style.

He founded Cartoon Books to self-publish 55 delightful black and white issues: a fantasy-quest yarn that owed as much to Tex Avery as J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as his personal holy trinity, Barks, Schultz & Kelly. The thrilling and fantastically funny saga progressed at its own unique pace between 1991 and 2004 and since then has been collected into nine volumes from Cartoon Books (with two further collections of prequels and side tales), reissued in colour by Scholastic Books and even reprinted in Disney Adventures magazine.

At series’ end, Smith issued a monumental one volume compilation (more than 1300 black and white pages) which Time magazine dubbed “the best all-ages graphic novel yet published” and one of the “Top Ten Graphic Novels of All Time.”

Smith has won many awards including 11 Harveys and 10 Eisners. In 2011, a spectacular 20th anniversary full-colour edition of the Brobdingnagian single volume was released, stuffed with extras and premiums. If you’ve got the dough, that’s the book to shoot for…

As you can see there are plenty of versions to opt for but – purist that I am – I’ve plumped for the original Cartoon Books collection where the action commences in Out of Boneville, which re-presents the first six episodes.

Fone Bone is a strange, amorphous, yet affably decent little guy, a thematic blend of Mickey Mouse and Asterix who had been run out of the town of Boneville along with his tall and not-so-bright cousin Smiley Bone. Well to be exact they weren’t, but their dastardly, swindling cousin Phoncible P. “Phoney” Bone was, due to the sort of financial and political irregularities, misdemeanours and malfeasances that bring down presidents – and he only was running for Mayor at the time…

After an incredibly journey the trio were separated and ended up in Lost Valley: an oasis of pastoral beauty hidden from the rest of the world. Along the way Bone was adopted by a dragon he doesn’t believe in, stalked by ghastly rat monsters and befriended by a talking leaf-insect (like a stick insect but flat, not long – and very, very chatty) called Ted.

After a harsh winter living wild in the deep forest he met the beauteous and oddly compelling human girl Thorn. It was Crush-at-First-Sight and he happily accepted an offer to stay with her and grandmother Rose Ben until he could find his lost cousins. He soon came to regret it when Phoney finally turned up and started his old tricks again…

Phoney’s insatiable drive to steal, cheat and fake a buck made life pretty uncomfortable for the besotted Fone Bone, but real trouble was actually brewing in the deep woods where an ancient evil had awoken, driving the stupid, stupid rat creatures who infested the place into a frenzy.

An incredibly old, cold war was heating up again and for the humans of nearby Barrelhaven village the stakes couldn’t be higher. The dark creatures and night-haunts were waiting for the advent of their prophesied one – a small bald creature with a star on its chest – remarkably similar to the one on Phoney’s shirt…

When the assembled horror-hordes attacked the cottage their putative chosen one was long gone…

Phoney had scented money and moved to the hamlet in search of easy marks and, as Thorn and Fone raced to warn the villagers that the beasts had risen, Gran’ma stayed behind to battle the rat things. When Bone’s “imaginary” dragon rescued the fleeing pair, they retraced their frantic steps to find the feisty old biddy had survived and overcome her attackers. Moreover, Rosie and the Dragon were old acquaintances…

As the Dragon returned to the deep woods the humans (and Bone) leave the wrecked cottage and relocate to Barrelhaven, where they find Smiley has been all along, serving drinks in the local tavern. Phoney is there too – working off a tremendous bar-tab and looking to make some easy, preferably illicit cash…

This second stunning compilation collects issues #7-12 of the comicbook and also includes the contents  of premium special Wizard Presents Bone #13½; opening with Thorn and Fone enjoying the bucolic delights of ‘The Spring Fair’.

Our diminutive love-struck hero is in heaven as he strolls with the oblivious Thorn but when her attention is diverted by hunky young travelling honey-seller Tom, Bone gets into a fight with the peddler and the girl, before storming off to find his own sticky treat by raiding a wild bee’s nest in the forest – with calamitous and hilariously painful results.

Phoney meanwhile is planning to fleece the villagers with a betting scam. For years the uncannily robust and unbeatable Gran’Ma has won the annual Great Cow Race (which seemingly consists of stampeding a herd and outrunning them to a finish line) and the riotous event has become her very own yearly moment of glory.

Now the wily rogue and his gullible patsy Smiley are taking bets against her, whilst disseminating disinformation that she is ailing and past her prime. All the smart money – chickens, goats, sheep etc. – is on a dark horse “Mystery Cow”…

And with the entire village constantly asking about her health, old Rose begins to worry and doubt herself…

‘The Map’ finds Phoney’s betting booth doing a roaring trade with all bets on the as yet unseen Mystery Cow, when the battered, bruised and mightily stung Bone comes by. Appalled to see his cousin up to his old tricks, the honey-dipped hero confronts Phoney and discovers the whole plan: even though the entire village has put all their valuables on the outsider, Gran’Ma will easily win the Great Race since the enigmatic bovine challenger will be Smiley in a cow suit…

Thorn is dreaming, seeing again a time past when mysterious cloaked figures and dragons met in a cave and considered the inevitable return of a dark and deadly menace. Sharing the dream with Bone she remembers an old chart Bone found in the Great Desert and which first led him to safety in the valley … a map she drew whilst a toddler in that cave of dragons…

‘The Mystery Cow’ opens on the day of the race, and tension in Barrelhaven is at a sullen fever pitch. Rose’s confidence is still fragile though and tavern owner Lucius – who is sweet on her – finally accedes to Phoney’s constant haranguing and agrees to bet the entire business on the race. The rest of the punters are nervous though. They’ve wagered all their worldly goods against Gran’Ma on a critter no one has ever seen and Lucius suggests that maybe they should check on it…

Given a noon deadline to produce the unbeatable cow for the town’s perusal, duplicitous, greedy Phoney is starting to see some flaws in his infallible plan and Thorn too gets a moment of cold realisation when Tom blows her off for a more pliable companion…

Downhearted, Bone has retired to the woods to read Moby Dick, but after a heart-to-heart with Ted, determines to bare his soul to Thorn in a love poem.

His mood is soon lost though when a couple of Rat Creatures turn up, wondering aloud if he is fair game or the “Small Mammal” they aren’t allowed to eat as elsewhere, with noon approaching, Phoney pulls a bold stunt and again fools the oafish villagers with the crazed, unbeatable ferocity of his Mystery Cow…

‘The Great Cow Race’ is about to start and udder-draped Smiley has his instructions to finish behind Gran’Ma, but Phoney’s greed gets the better of him when he circles back to his booth to find Lucius at last ready to bet the bar. Unfortunately the doughty old buzzard wants to place it on Rose to win – and the odds are now 100 to 1…

With vivid memories of his last tar-and-feathering, the bovine bookmaker hurtles to intercept Smiley and tell him to win at all costs and as the herd thunders by with Rose in the lead, Bone appears, running his own desperate race. At his milky heels are the two starving and stupid, stupid Rat Creatures.

Sadly where there are a couple, inevitably the entire ravenous horde soon follows – and they do, perfectly and painfully intermingling with the frantic racers just as the finish line comes into sight…

‘Retribution’ opens with the victorious Gran’Ma, Lucius and Thorn riding a cartload of building supplies back to their devastated cottage. Hidden in the back are the Bone cousins, Phoney only gradually recovering from the rough-and-ready justice he has received from the incensed villagers.

With Smiley teasing Bone about the dragon only he has seen it’s a slow and anxious journey through the dark woods, since the Rat Creatures all vanished into the forest after the race melee ended. Indeed many ancient eyes, both friendly and inimically hostile, are following the party’s progress…

As the two starving rat things who started the debacle lay low and uproariously consider the upside of quiche as opposed to raw flesh, the repair squad arrives at the cottage and begins work, whilst in the background Lucius and Rose discuss the real importance of what’s been happening, especially for Thorn…

Following a delightful poetic frolic from Bone’s frisky friends the possum kids, the book ends on a funny if foreboding note as the bombastic Lucius and ham-fisted, half-witted Smiley learn a little more about each other whilst painfully rebuilding Gran’Ma’s house ‘Up on the Roof’…

I’ve talked a lot about the influences that informed this wonderful series and there’s one more that cannot be ignored: if you squint your eyes just right you can see the charm-adjacent convolutions of Bill Watterson’s Calvin (see The Essential Calvin and Hobbes. No, really. Do. It’s utterly wonderful and so are all the other collections) sneaking in to further flavour this astounding, raucous, beguiling, child-friendly extravaganza…

Bone is a truly perfect comic tale and one that appeals to kids and adults equally. Already it is in the rarefied rank starring Tintin, Pogo, Rupert Bear, Little Nemo and the aforementioned and cherished works of Schultz, Kelly and Barks. It is only a matter of time before it breaks out of the comic club completely and becomes kin to the likes of Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland, the Moomins and Oz.

If you have kids or can still think and feel like one you must have these books…

© 1995, 1996 Jeff Smith. All rights reserved.