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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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Stormbreaker – an Alex Rider Graphic Novel


By Anthony Horowitz, adapted by Antony Johnston, Kanako & Yuzuru (Walker Books)
ISBN: 978-1-4063-1877-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ignore the telly for once and get your postprandial Yuletide blockbuster hit from this superb comics classic… 8/10

One of the most thrilling and effective additions to Britain’s pantheon of spies and detectives in recent years is no hard-hearted and suavely mature super-agent but a conflicted yet ultimately indomitable English teenager, more worried about daily drudgery and bouts of lessons-induced coma than espionage and the end of civilisation as we adults know it…

In 2000 author and TV screenwriter Anthony Horowitz released Stormbreaker, the first of nine (and counting…) breathtaking, rollicking teen novels featuring 14-year old Alex Rider: a smart, fit, sports-mad lad like any other, who suddenly discovers that his guardian Uncle Ian had been keeping incredible secrets from his only kin…

After a dull English lesson and a tense schoolyard dalliance between the boy and classmate-of-his-dreams Sabina Pleasure inBrooklandSchool,London, the all-out action begins with a spectacular chase inCornwall as a desperate man in a tricked-up sports car desperately fights to avoid high speed death. It’s a futile effort: his dogged pursuers are on motor bikes and in helicopters and, in the midst of a hail of bullets and missiles, the quarry takes time out to call his nephew Alex and apologize for letting him down again.

It’s the last call Uncle Ian will ever make…

Returning to his Chelseahome Alex Rider is greeted by his eccentric Katana-wielding housekeeper Jack Starbright. She’s made sushi and thinks she’s perfected the recipe for fugu. Alex hopes so: Puffer fish is one of the deadliest poisons known to man…

The meal is interrupted by the police with some bad news…

At the funeral, staff from the private bank Ian Rider worked for tender their condolences but they’re like no businessmen Alex has ever seen, and when he and Ms. Starbright return to the flat they find workmen moving the last of Ian’s possessions into a van. Without thinking the furious schoolboy gives chase on his pedal-bike and the breakneck pursuit leads to an excessively secure junk yard inSouth Londonwhere Alex sees all his uncle’s stuff being destroyed. When the boy examines the soon to be crushed car he finds bullets holes and an ejector seat, but is trapped when the vehicle is dropped into a mechanical crusher.

Spectacularly escaping, he is then chased by gun-firing goons. Fighting his way clear the boy follows a lead to Liverpool Street Station and is lured, all unsuspecting, to a secret high-tech installation beneath the busy railway terminus.

Alex is greeted by the efficient Mrs Jones and her supercilious superior Mr. Blunt who reveal the incredible truth. Ian Rider was a secret agent working for MI6 and murdered in the line of duty. Moreover, the deceased super-spy had been surreptitiously teaching his nephew all the skills, techniques and disciplines needed to become a secret agent – and his successor…

When Blunt’s far-from-subtle hints that Alex should join up are hotly rejected, the Machiavellian spymaster resorts to blackmail and threatens to revoke Ms. Starbright’s visa and have her deported.

Soon Alex is training with an elite military unit inWalesand quickly distinguishes himself as someone with unique problem-solving capabilities and a knack for improvisation.

The case Ian was working on is still active. Mysterious billionaire philanthropist Darrius Sayle is a Man of the People, friend of the Prime Minister and about to donate one of his new Stormbreaker personal computers to every school inBritain. But Alex’s uncle was investigating Sayle’sCornwall factory/mine complex when he was killed and the agent’s last message warned of a virus. Now Blunt wants to send Alex in as a computer nerd competition winner to scope out the nature of the threat…

Alex’s grim, enforced resignation is briefly lifted when he is sent to a toyshop to pick up a batch of high-tech gadgets from ingenious and affable MI6 quartermaster Mr. Smithers, after which it’s all stations go and “Kevin Blake” is packed off to isolated South West village Port Tallon.

He is met by Sayle’s ferocious and formidable PA Nadia Vole and escorted deep into the depths of a facility that looks more like an army base than a factory. The billionaire himself is a creepy blend of Tim Curry and Richard Branson, and his other assistant – mute failed circus knife-thrower Mr. Grin – looks like a fugitive from a horror film…

Soon “Kevin” is experiencing the full incredible power and range of the virtual realities produced by Stormbreaker kit, but his unsanctioned investigations soon uncover an unspecified secondary purpose for the schools-destined computers…

After being caught wandering “lost” in the bowels of the installation, Alex has an effusive dinner chat with American ex-pat Sayle, unaware that Ms. Vole has tracked his origins and is currently attempting to murder Jack Starbright…

Later that night in Cornwall Alex spies on a conversation between Sayle and a lethal-looking Russian named Yassen Gregorovitch and, unaware that he has been compromised, sneaks into the deepest levels of the factory and uncovers a lab modifying a biological – not digital – virus to be hidden inside every free computer destined for the nation’s classrooms…

Confronted by Gregorovitch who nonchalantly admits to killing his uncle, the boy manages to escape but is swiftly recaptured and left to die in a tank of deadly jellyfish as Sayle triumphantly flies off to London and the culmination of a petty, vindictive, genocidal vengeance scheme thirty years in the making…

Following a staggering spectacular chase back to London, Alex, with only his unlucky amour Sabina to assist him, invades the Stormbreaker launch and dramatically prevents the virus from being released. On the roof ofLondon’s tallest skyscraper they clash with the bonkers billionaire in a brutal and extremely final confrontation before the madman meets his deserved doom from a most unexpected and bewilderingly unlikely source…

With the drama done with, the stunned and shaken kids return to school, but the shadowy worlds of tradecraft and spymasters are not done with Alex Rider just yet…

This adaptation is sharp and poignant, surely depicting the sense of loss and betrayal as Alex loses so much of his innocence amidst situations of breathtaking danger and nerve-tingling excitement.

Our popular literary heritage is littered with cunning sleuths and stealthy investigators from Sherlock Holmes and Dick Barton to the Scarlet Pimpernel, George Smiley, Harry Palmer and Bond – James Bond – but the ongoing adventures of boy-hero Alex Rider seem set fair to match them all in time.

Transformed into graphic novel interpretations, the first four adventures have been recently repackaged and re-released in larger, more graphic-friendly editions: their easy blend of action, invention, youthful rebellion and engaging James Bond pastiche perfectly captured in adaptations by writer Antony Johnston and manga artists (and sisters) Kanako Damerum & Yuzuru Takasaki.

They’re well worth further investigation, but remember: even though this is a notionally a children’s book there is a lot of realistic violence and a big body-count so if you intend sharing the book with younger children, read it yourself first.

These books and their comic counterparts are a fine addition to our fiction tradition. Alex Rider will return… and so should you.
Text and illustrations © 2006 Walker Books Ltd. Based on the original novel Stormbreaker © 2000 Stormbreaker Productions Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Maya Makes a Mess


By Rutu Modan (Toon Books/Raw Junior)
ISBN: 978-1-935179-17-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: open this one well before Xmas dinner to let everybody digest fully… 8/10

Perhaps better known for her incisively mature comics material such as the phenomenal and evocative Exit Wounds, Israeli cartoonist, editor and publisher Rutu Modan has also illustrated many works by other writers. However, even though her self-penned newspaper serial The Murder of the Terminal Patient, autobiographical webcomic Mixed Emotions, and a numerous short works in anthologies such as Jamilti and Other Stories, have perfectly showcased her broad graphic talents, until the release of Maya Makes a Mess, she had never written and drawn a comic for young children.

Born in 1966 in Tel Hashomer, Modan moved with her equally multi-talented and over-achieving family to Tel Aviv in the mid-1970s. After graduating from the Belazel Academy of Art and Design, Rutu co-edited the Hebrew iteration of Mad Magazine, before forming comics company Actus Tragicus with fellow Mad alumni Yirmi Pinkus.

This particular tale has a delightfully faux-English ambiance to it and apparently stems from a hard-learned lesson in etiquette and table-manners involving the internationally acclaimed multi-award-winning author and her young daughter Michal…

It opens when Mummy sternly tells little Maya to stop eating her pasta with her hands and continues as the little tyke endures a torrent of unnecessary orders such as “sit up” and “use a napkin”. When she tries to feed the dog a titbit her Father further admonishes her and asks how she would behave if she was eating with The Queen…

Just then there’s a loud ring of the doorbell and an elegant footman enters, blows a trumpet fanfare and delivers a formal invitation. Maya’s presence has been requested at a Royal Dinner Party that very night.

Too rushed to even put on a party frock, Maya is hustled into a jet in the garden and flown off to the Palace. Soon the little girl is crammed into a grand ballroom setting with lots of fancy dishes on posh tables being delicately consumed by dull Dukes and dry dowagers, glowering generals and diffident debutantes. Even the Corgis at her feet are snooty.

Faced with too much cutlery and suspicious looking stuff she probably doesn’t like, Maya asks for pasta and ketchup and, since there’s no spaghetti fork, is advised to eat it like she’s used too…

The entire room is stunned by her splashily bare-handed response and the Queen, utterly aghast, enquires why the little girl eats like that. When Maya responds that it makes the food taste better, the stately royal matron can only try it that way herself.

And what the Queen does, everybody else must also do…

This is terrific tome for those just starting to read on their own, delivering deliciously anarchic, amusing antics from a fantastically forceful but likable little lass successfully striking back against all those stupid grown-up rules. Moreover, rendered in a delightful digital and lavish adaptation of Hergé’s classic and miraculously effective Ligne Claire art style, this is also a beguilingly seductive visual experience for bookworms and browsers of any vintage.

Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly set up Toon Books/Raw Junior as an imprint of the groundbreaking and legendary alternative comics magazine, designed to provide high-quality comics stories in formats that would entice pre-schoolers and beginning readers into a life long love affair with strips in particular and reading in general.

Their stable of talented creators have produced a wealth of superbly superior comic tales in three accredited 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 supplements their releases with on-line tool TOON-BOOKS.com which offers follow-up such as interactive audio-versions in many languages and a “cartoon maker” facility enabling readers to become writers of their own adventures about the characters they have just met in the printed editions.

Most books also include a page of tips for parents and teachers on ‘How to Read Comics with Kids’…

© 2012 Rutu Modan and Raw Junior, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Doctor Who Graphic Novels volume 14: The Child of Time


By Jonathan Morris, Mike Collins, David A. Roach, Roger Langridge, Martin Geraghty, Dan McDaid, Rob Davis, Geraint Ford, Adrian Salmon, & James Offredi (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-460-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: scintillating, superior sci fi for the bigger kids cluttering up the house and waiting for the TV Specials to start … 8/10

Doctor Who launched on television in the first episode of ‘An Unearthly Child’ on November 23rd 1963. Less than a year later, his decades-long run in TV Comic began with issue #674 and the premier instalment of ‘The Klepton Parasites’. On 11th October 1979 (although adhering to the US off-sale cover-dating system so it says 17th) Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly, which became a monthly magazine in September 1980 (#44) and has been with us under various names ever since.

All of which only goes to prove that the Time Lord is a comic hero with an impressive pedigree…

Panini is in the ongoing process of collecting every strip from its archive in a uniform series of over-sized graphic albums, each concentrating on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer. This particular one gathers stories short and long which, taken together comprise a two-year extended epic. From Doctor Who Magazine (or DWM) #421-441 (originally published between 2010-2011), this run features the strip debut of the Matt Smith incarnation of the far-flung, far-out Time Lord as well as his foremost companion Amy Pond.

None of which is relevant if all you want is a darn good read. All the creators involved have managed the ultimate task of any comics-creator – to produce engaging, thrilling, fun stories which can be equally enjoyed by the merest beginner and the most slavishly dedicated – and opinionated – fans imaginable.

With all tales written by Jonathan Morris (plus, according to the author, liberal input from editors Scott Gray & Tom Spilsbury), coloured by James Offredi and lettered by Roger Langridge, the drama kicks off in ‘Supernature’ (illustrated by Mike Collins & David A. Roach, from DWM #421-423, May-July 2010).

Arriving on a jungle paradise world The Doctor and Amy quickly discover Earthling colonists in the midst of a terrifying plague…

The humans – all convicts press-ganged and abandoned to turn the planet into a suitable home – are being transformed into uncanny mutant beasts, and even the Time Lord and his new companion are monsterised before the crisis is solved. However when they depart they take part of the problem with them…

A rare but very welcome art job for regular letterer Langridge results in a bizarre and wonderful spoof on ‘Planet Bollywood!’ when warring factions of an ancient empire – and a romantic leading man – all struggle to possess a sexy humanoid device which compels listeners to break out in song and dance routines, after which a trip to Tokyo found fresh horror in the metamorphosis of innocent – if educationally lacking – children into a deadly fifth column…

‘The Golden Ones’ (#425-428, by Martin Geraghty & Roach) is a grand old-fashioned blockbuster invasion saga with a huge body-count, valiant armed resistance by dedicated UNIT soldiers, a classic villain’s return, a brilliant scientific solution and a slew of subtle clues to the greater saga unfolding. Just who is that strange little girl who keeps popping up everywhen?

From #429 comes the literary fantasy-homage ‘The Professor, the Queen and the Bookshop’ (Rob Davis & Geraint Ford) wherein our heroes meet a reclusive writer and evacuee children Amy – and hubby-to-be Rory – encounter a strange man in an infinite shop which can travel anywhere…

It’s back to Paris in 1858 for Dan McDaid’s ‘The Screams of Death’ as aspiring but hopeless singer Cosette is taken under the wing of impresario Monsieur Valdemar and develops a voice that could shake the Opera House to its foundations. Of course, the Svengali-like Fugitive from the Future had far grander plans for his many captive songbirds until Mam’selle Pond and M’sieu le Docteur turned up to foil a mad scheme to rewrite history…

The over-arching epic takes a big step forward in #432’s ‘Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night’ (featuring a welcome full-art outing for the splendid David Roach) as the Tardis turns up in an old people’s home staffed by robots, haunted by children and plagued by a vanishing roster of residents, whilst Adrian Salmon gets his freak on in the trippy terror-tale ‘Forever Dreaming’ (#433-434) as Amy is apparently trapped in a 1960’s seaside town with a dark secret, a phantom octopus and a host of psychedelic icons who really should be dead…

The saga swings into full acceleration with ‘Apotheosis’ (DWM #435-437 and limned by McDaid) as the Doctor and Amy land aboard a derelict space station and walk into the closing act of a galaxy-spanning war between humanity and their scheduled replacements: the awesome autonomous androids of Galatea.

Aboard the station, a cadre of warrior Space Nuns are seeking an ultimate weapon to tip the scales of the conflict, but with lethal sanitation robots everywhere and rogue time-distortion fields making each step a potential death-march, the hunt is hard-going. With everybody – even the Time Lord – hyper-aging at vastly different rates, when the Tardis then mutates into something impossible, the stage is set for a spectacular threat to all of creation to be born…

Of course, first the Machiavellian, monstrously manipulative and atrociously amoral creature calling herself Chiyoko must carry out a number of crucial appointments in Eternity to ensure the existence and consolidate the celestial dominance of ‘The Child of Time’ (with art from Geraghty & Roach from (DWM #438-441 August -November 2011).

Two years’ worth of cleverly-concocted mystery and imagination are then wrapped up in a staggering, creatively-anachronistic display of temporal hocus-pocus by scripter Morris as The Doctor, Amy and allies Alan Turing and the Bronte Sisters ward off the unmaking of time, the end of humanity and eradication of all life in the universe before the tragic finale and a happy ever after of sorts…

Dedicated fans can also enjoy a treasure-trove of background information in the 25-page  text Commentary section at the back, comprising chapter-by-chapter background, history and insights from the author and each of the illustrators, supplemented by happy horde of sketches, roughs, designs, production art and even excised material from all concerned.

We’ve all have our private joys and hidden passions. Sometimes they overlap and magic is made. This is another superb set of supremely satisfying comic strips, starring an absolute Pillar of the British Fantasy pantheon.

If you’re a fan of only one, The Child of Time should certainly spark your hunger for the other. This is a fabulous book for casual readers, a fine shelf addition for devotees of the show, the ideal opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form and the perfect present for the Telly Addict haunting your house…

All Doctor Who material © BBCtv. Doctor Who logo © BBC 2012. Tardis image © BBC 1963. Doctor Who, Tardis and all logos are trade marks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence by BBC Worldwide. Published 2012 by Panini Publishing, Ltd. 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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Marvel Adventures Spider-Man volume 1: Amazing


By Paul Tobin, Matteo Lolli, Scott Koblish & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4118-1

Since its earliest days the company we know as Marvel has always courted the youngest comicbook audiences. Whether animated tie-ins such as Terrytoons Comics, Mighty Mouse, Super Rabbit Comics, Duckula, assorted Hanna-Barbera and Disney licenses and a myriad of others, or original creations such as Tessie the Typist, Millie the Model, Homer the Happy Ghost, Li’l Kids or even Calvin, the House of Ideas has always understood the necessity of cultivating the next generation of readers.

These days however, general kid’s interest titles are on the wane and with Marvel’s proprietary characters all over screens large and small, the company usually prefers to create child-friendly versions of its own pantheon, making that eventual hoped-for transition to more mature comics as painless as possible.

In 2003 the company created a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and mixed in with the remnants of the manga-based Tsunami imprint, all intended for a younger readership. The experiment was tweaked in 2005 becoming Marvel Adventures with the core titles transformed into Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man and the reconstituted classics replaced by all new stories. Additional series included Marvel Adventures series Super Heroes, The Avengers and Hulk. These iterations ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new – and continuity-continuing – volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

This digest-sized collection collects the first four stories from the second (2010) volume and actually starts in the middle of the action – although writer Paul Tobin and artists Matteo Lolli and Scott Koblish (as well as inkers Christian Dalla Vecchia, Terry Pallot Koblish & Andrew Hennessy) take great pains to keep the stories as clear as possible.

Sixteen year old Peter Parker has been the mysterious Spider-Man for little more than six months. In that time he has constantly prowled the streets and skyscrapers ofNew York, driven to fight injustice. However as a kid just learning the ropes he’s pretty much in over his head all the time…

The opening tale finds him on a crusade against the all-pervasive Torino crime-family, and attempting to expose their bought-and-paid-for Judge Clive Baraby, whilst ex-girlfriend and wannabe journalist Gwen dogs his webbed heels and her father Police Captain George Stacy – who knows the boy’s secret and allows him to continue his vigilante antics – picks up all the well-thumped thugs the incensed wall-crawler leaves in his wake.

Even though Spidey can’t touch the corrupt Baraby, his campaign of attrition has the Torinos on the ropes and the Mafioso have engaged the services of super-assassin Bullseye to kill the Web-spinner. However, the Man who Never Misses is infuriatingly slow to act and soon there’s on open contract on the kid crusader…

Peter’s civilian life is pretty complicated too. Since he and Gwen split, the lad has taken up with schoolmate Sophia Sanduval – an extremely talented lass nicknamed Chat – who knows Peter’s secret, can communicate with animals and has a part-time job with the Blonde Phantom Detective Agency…

She also pays attention in class and suggests how what they learned in history can be used to trap the untouchable Baraby…

The second story opens with a brutal dog-napping and leads inexorably to a clash with merciless mercenary Midnight when the villain invades Peter’s school during a martial arts exhibition by Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu. Along the way Chat introduces Pete to new buddy Flapper – a very wise owl indeed – and new kid Carter Torino enrols at Parker’s school. How does the troubled new boy know the constantly watching Bullseye…?

Before the subplots get too intense however,Midnightand his ninjas attack Shang-Chi and Spider-Man joins the fracas, subsequently learning a few things from the combat expert – including who to return that stolen dog to…

Whilst close-mouthed gang-prince Carter gets closer to Gwen, Wolverine guest-stars in the third untitled tale when Chat asks her bug-boy beau to help hunt down the wild-haired mutant for a client who wants Logan to model their hair gel. Typically, whenever the Clawed Canadian appears trouble isn’t far behind, and when a gang ofTorino goons jumps Wolverine, Spidey is forced to join in the carnage. And that’s when Bullseye makes his move…

As conflicted Carter Torino confronts his criminal family, this volume concludes with a savage showdown between Bullseye and the sorely overmatched Spider-Man and also sees the death of one of the supporting cast…

Never the success the company hoped, the Marvel Adventures project was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to those Disney XD television shows designated as “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these collected stories are still an intriguing and more culturally accessible means of introducing the character and concepts to kids born sometimes two generations or more away from the originating events.

Fast-paced and impressive, these Spidey tales are extremely enjoyable yarns but parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action” and would perhaps better suit older kids…
© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Copper

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: still readily available and utterly essential because everybody needs to dream big and wild… 10/10


By Kazu Kibuishi (Scholastic)
ISBN: 978-0-545-09893-9

Every so often a strip comes along that perfectly encapsulates the astonished joyous awe, suspenseful sadness and gleeful terror of being young, simultaneously managing to regress every adult who reads it back to those halcyon days of sheer, wide-eyed wonder. Little Nemo, Pogo, Barnaby, Akiko on the Planet Smoo, Eric Shanower’s assorted forays into the worlds of Oz and especially Calvin and Hobbes all possess that amazing facility to utterly beguile young and old alike, and I’m sure I detect the faintest echoes of all of them in this superb and far too infrequent online series from cartoonist, designer, author and editor Kazu Kibuishi which began life as a kind of personal art-therapy webcomic in 2002.

According to his introduction, Kibuishi – whose other works include the successful Amulet sequence of supernatural junior graphic novels, Explorer – the Mystery Boxes, Flight and other fine graphic marvels – turned an unused T-shirt design into a purely creative exercise during a low period in his personal life.

The monochrome and wordless ‘Rocket Pack Fantasy’ introduced a nervous but inquisitive little kid and his morose dog in a wild-riding daydream, but the real beginning was the full-colour page ‘Big Robot’ – another off-hand tribute to Winsor McCay which gave the characters voices and names in another action-packed dream – after which the boy Copper and his stalwart canine Fred met monsters and pursued an adorable little red-headed girl trapped in ‘Bubbles’.

Fred became stroppier and more surly with every instalment: ‘Waves’ found the boisterous buddies surfing Hokusai breakers whilst ‘Climbing’ found the dog and his boy pondering the pros and cons of scaling the mountains above the clouds and ‘Ruins’ saw an explorer’s enthusiasm brought low by canine pessimism, although they were in total agreement about the necessity of an epic voyage to get genuine Aunt Koko ‘Melon Bread’ – accept no substitutes…

‘Mushroom Crossing’ was the first extended exploit: an 8-page visual extravaganza which found the duo negotiating a chasm via spectacular fungoid stepping stones, before returning to single page thrills such as jogging with the ‘Racing Shrimp’…

Another unobtainable and enigmatic young lady mischievously introduced her dark-haired self in ‘Bridges’ after which Fred humiliated himself before a jury of his peers by performing ‘Somersaults’ and only perked up after a visit to the ‘Tide Pool’.

A baffling world of ‘Freestyle’ art led to a frustrating chase as Copper narrowly missed both his dream girls in ‘Ballads’, whilst a sad seasonal celebration left the oneiric adventurers ‘Blue’ leaving Fred to ponder the perils of venturing ‘Outside’.

‘Picnic’ is a silent 4-page rumination on travel by balloon which first appeared in the aforementioned themed-anthology Flight whilst ‘Fall’ examines Autumnal sensitivities and Fred’s latest bout of amour, before the ramblers return to the seas in time to get caught in a staggering ‘Storm’.

That elusive dark minx then left Fred a little present whilst Copper examined an imaginary ‘Summer House’, but the preoccupied pair missed both her and a cute blonde number in ‘Transit’, after which another seaside excursion on a surfboard offered a very deceptive ‘Lull’ in their action-packed lives…

‘Happy’ introduced a couple of effusively weird and needy characters but building a boat in ‘Sail’ soon restored our unlikely heroes’ grouchy equilibrium and visiting a beautiful ‘Waterfall’ did the same for their contemplative calm.

Outer space beckoned in ‘Mission Control’ but gambling held no fascination for them in ‘Arcade’, although dabbling with Ham Radio ‘Signals’ brought the boy frustratingly close to that little blonde girl, even as his far-from-shopping-savvy canine companion found no solace at all in his latest impulse ‘Purchase’…

‘Dive’ then uncovered the dog’s deepest secrets and the pair soon discovered that robots made great ‘Dancers’ before an 18-page epic (also from Flight) offered a delightful extended exploit as Copper built his own airplane – despite Fred’s help – and they embark upon a truly fantastic ‘Maiden Voyage’…

Even Fred’s pessimistic musings couldn’t spoil a quiet afternoon of the ‘Good Life’, though Copper’s crazy quest for adrenaline thrills – such as leaping off the ‘Jump Station’ – just might. Still, riding a giant turtle in ‘Slowrider’ was pretty restful even if scooter-riding through a bustling ‘Metropolitan’ centre was a mixed blessing…

After hurdling giant flying mushroom ‘Steps’ Fred learned a sad lesson about pet-keeping in ‘Bunny’ before the wanderers encountered the strangest ‘Signpost’ ever and the boy joined a maritime mission in the role of aquatic ‘Observer’. Ruminations on labour then stemmed from messing with ‘Clockwork’ and Fred’s shaky self-esteem got a battering in the ‘Marketplace’.

‘Angler’ proved that the dog just doesn’t get the point of fishing whilst laser-tag received a dramatic boost when the lads played ‘Shooter’.

The beguiling peregrinations in this printed compilation end with an all-original 8-page adventure when the boys go for a walk in the woods and meet a monkey who seems – at first – only interested in their ‘Lunch Pack’. Of course, they couldn’t be more wrong…

This glorious and enthralling chronicle also includes a comprehensive and extremely informative look at the process of webcomic creation in ‘Behind the Scenes’ which will certainly aid any keen would-be creators make their own comics.

Kibuishi happily shares all his work secrets in ‘The Drawing Board’, ‘Thumbnails’, ‘Panels’, ‘Pencilling’, ‘Lettering’, ‘Inking’, before offering some instruction in the scientific arts of ‘Going Digital’ and ‘Colouring’.

Sheer whimsical surreality wedded to exuberant questing creativity, beautifully illustrated with warmth and subtle invention, makes Copper an utterly captivating read for young and old alike. This is a book unafraid to use poignant yearning, loss and introspection as well as slyly gentle humour and bold action and this series – hopefully to resume with new material one day – should sit happy in every nursery and on every family’s bookshelf.
© 2010 Kazu Kibuishi. All rights reserved.

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Benny and Penny in The Big No-No!


By Geoffrey Hayes (Toon Books/Raw Junior)
ISBN: 978-0-9799238-9-0

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: the perfect present for keeping adults quiet and opening a world of adventure for young kids… 10/10

Once upon a time – and for the longest time imaginable – comics were universally denigrated as a creative and narrative ghetto cherished only by children and simpletons. For decades the producers, creators and lovers of the medium struggled to change that perception and gradually acceptance came. Now most folk accept that the word and pictures in sequential union can make stories and tell truths as valid, challenging and life-changing as any other full-blown art-form

Sadly, along the way the commercial underpinnings of the industry went too far. Where once there were a myriad of successful, self-propagating comics scrupulously generating tales and delights intended to entertain, inform and educate such specific demographics as Toddler/Kindergarten, Young and Older Juvenile, General, Boys and Girls periodical publications, nowadays Britain and America can only afford to maintain a few paltry out-industry licensed tie-ins and spin-offs for younger readerships.

The greater proportion of strip magazines are necessarily manufactured for a highly specific – and dwindling – niche market, whilst the genres that fed and nurtured comics are more effectively and expansively disseminated via TV, movies and assorted video and interactive games media.

Thankfully old-fashioned book publishers and the new graphic novel industry have a different business model and far more sensible long-term goals, so the lack has been increasingly countered and the challenge to train and bring youngsters into the medium taken up outside the mainstream – and dying – periodical markets.

I’ve banged on for years about the comics industry’s tragic loss of the beginner reading markets, but what they’ve been collectively offering young/early consumers – and their parents – has seldom jibed with what those incredibly selective people are interested in or need. Recently however the book trade has moved with the times and where numerous publishing houses have opened comic medium divisions, one in particular has gone all-out to cultivate tomorrow’s graphic narrative nation.

Toon Books/Raw Junior was established by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly as an imprint of the groundbreaking and legendary alternative comics magazine, intended and designed to provide beautiful, high-quality comics stories in premium formats that would entice pre-schoolers and beginning readers into a lifelong love affair with strips in particular and reading in general.

Their burgeoning stable of talented creators have produced a wealth of superbly superior comic tales 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 even supplements their publications with an on-line tool.

TOON-BOOKS.com offers follow up such as interactive audio-versions read by the authors – and in a multitude of languages – and a “cartoon maker” facility which allows readers to become writers of their own adventures about the characters they have just met in the printed editions. Most books also include a page of tips for parents and teachers on ‘How to Read Comics with Kids’…

I’m kicking off a week of Kids Stuff with the multi-award winning Benny and Penny in The Big No-No!, the second in an on-going series of complete tales starring a typical brother-and sister act of sometimes wayward suburban mice.

Author Geoffrey Hayes is a veteran of the Children’s entertainment scene, having written and/or illustrated more than 40 books (including Otto and Uncle Tooth, Bear by Himself, the Patrick Bear series and Margaret Wise Brown’s When the Wind Blew among so many others) and proudly affirms that Benny & Penny’s anthropomorphic exploits are drawn in coloured pencil.

When a new kid moves in next door bellicose, rambunctious older brother Benny is keen to sneak a peek through the garden fence, but is as usual distracted by his annoying little sister. Soon his attention wanders, but when he can’t find his pail, suspicion quickly settles on the mysterious as yet unseen newcomer…

Taking stuff is a “No-No” – something that you just don’t do, but then again so is climbing into someone else’ garden uninvited – especially if they leave such big, scary-looking footprints…

When Benny finds a pail in the dirt, he indignantly reclaims it and gets into a literal mud-slinging match with the little mole girl Melina. He even calls her a monster!

Escaping the mean new kid and running safely back to their own yard, the mice then discover Benny’s pail, just where he left it.

Because they’re good kids Benny and Penny take the stolen bucket back and apologise, but even after making amends and becoming friends with Melina – especially Penny – big, boisterous Benny just can’t avoid messing about and making trouble – or is he just being a boy?

The girls certainly think so!

Aimed at the four-and-above age-range and released as a child-sized (236x162mm), gloriously evocative, beguilingly beautiful 32 page full colour hardback, Benny and Penny in The Big No-No! is the kind of pictorial treasure that kids and their minders will be drawn back to over and over again.
© 2009 Raw Junior, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Batman: the Brave and the Bold volume 1


By Matt Wayne, J. Torres, Andy Suriano, Phil Moy, Carlo Barberi, Dan Davis & Terry Beatty (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2878-1

The Brave and the Bold began in 1955 as an anthology adventure comic featuring short complete tales about a variety of period heroes: a format which mirrored that era’s filmic fascination with historical dramas. Devised and written by Bob Kanigher, issue #1 led with Roman epic Golden Gladiator, medieval mystery-man The Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’s now legendary Viking Prince. Soon the Gladiator was increasingly alternated with Robin Hood, but the adventure theme carried the title until the end of the decade when the burgeoning costumed character revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle like Showcase.

Used to premiere concepts and characters such as Task Force X: the Suicide Squad, Cave Carson, Hawkman and Strange Sports Stories and the epochal Justice League of America, the comic soldiered on until issue #50 when it provided another innovative new direction which once again truly caught the public’s imagination.

That issue paired two superheroes – Green Arrow & Martian Manhunter – in a one-off team-up, as did succeeding ones: Aquaman and Hawkman in #51, WWII Battle Stars Sgt Rock, Captain Cloud, Mme. Marie & the Haunted Tank in #52 and Atom & Flash in #53. The next team-up, Robin, Aqualad & Kid Flash, evolved into the Teen Titans and after Metal Men/the Atom and Flash/Martian Manhunter appeared a new hero; Metamorpho, the Element Man debuted in #57-58.

From then it was back to the extremely popular superhero pairings with #59, and although no one realised it at the time, this particular conjunction, Batman with Green Lantern, would be particularly significant….

After a return engagement for the Teen Titans, two issues spotlighting Earth-2 champions Starman & Black Canary and Wonder Woman with Supergirl, an indication of things to come came when Batman duelled hero/villain Eclipso in #64: an acknowledgement of the brewing TV-induced mania mere months away.

Within two issues, following Flash/Doom Patrol and Metamorpho/Metal Men, Brave and the Bold #67 saw the Caped Crusader take de facto control of the title and the lion’s share of the team-ups. With the exception of #72-73 (Spectre/the Flash and Aquaman/Atom) the comic was henceforth a place where Batman invited the rest of company’s heroic pantheon to come and play…

Decades later the Batman Animated TV series masterminded by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini in the 1990s revolutionised the Dark Knight and subsequently led to some of the absolute best comicbook adventures in his seventy-year publishing history with the creation of the spin-off print title.

With constant funnybook iterations and tie-ins to a succession of TV cartoon series, Batman has remained popular and a sublime introducer of kids to the magical world of the printed page.

The most recent incarnation was Batman: the Brave and the Bold, which gloriously teamed up the all-ages small-screen Dark Knight with a torrent and profusion of DC’s other heroic creations, and once again the show was supplemented by a cool kid’s comicbook full of fun, verve and swashbuckling dash, cunningly crafted to appeal as much to the parents and grandparents as those fresh-faced neophyte kids…

This stellar premier collection re-presents the first 6 issues in a hip and trendy, immensely entertaining package suitable for newcomers, fans and aficionados of all ages and, although not necessary to the reader’s enjoyment, a passing familiarity with the TV episodes will enhance the overall experience (and they’re pretty good too)…

Following the format of the TV show, each tale opens with a brief vignette adventure before telling a longer tale. Issue #1 has the Caped Crimebuster and Aquaman putting paid to robotic rogue Carapax. This fed into main feature ‘The Panic of the Composite Creature’ (by Matt Wayne, Andy Suriano & Dan Davis) wherein Batman and the pulchritudinous Power Girl saved London from Lex Luthor‘s latest monster-making mechanism.

Phil Moy then illustrates Superman and the Gotham Guardian mopping up the terrible Toyman before ‘The Attack of the Virtual Villains’ finds the Bat and Blue Beetle in El Paso battling evil Artificial Intellect The Thinker in a compelling computer-game world…

After an introductory battle between Wonder Woman, Dark Knight and telepathic tyrant Dr. Psycho‘s zombie villains, ‘President Batman!’ (Wayne, Suriano & Davis) sees the Great Detective substitute for the Commander-in-Chief with Green Arrow as bodyguard when body-swapping mastermind Ultra-Humanite attempts to seize control of the nation. Then, in the full-length ‘Menace of the Time Thief!’ Aquaman and his bat-eared chum prevent well-intentioned Dr. Cyber from catastrophically rewriting history, following a magical and too brief prologue wherein sorcerer Felix Faust is foiled by a baby Batman and the glorious pushy terrible toddlers Sugar and Spike…

J. Torres, Carlo Barberi & Terry Beatty stepped in for both the chilling vignette wherein the nefarious Key was caught by Batman and a Haunted Tank whilst ‘The Case of the Fractured Fairy Tale’ began when the awesome Queen of Fables started stealing children for her Enchanted Forest and the Caped Crusader needed the help of both Billy Batson and his adult alter ego Captain Marvel…

This first compilation concludes with a preliminary clash between Hourman and Batman against the crafty Calculator, after which ‘Charge of the Army Eternal!’ (Torres, Suriano & Davis) finds the villainous General Immortus at the mercy of his own army of time-lost warriors and bandits and desperately seeking the help of the Gotham Gangbuster and ghostly Guardian Kid Eternity.

Although greatly outnumbered, the Kid’s ability to summon past heroes such as The Vigilante, Shining Knight, Viking Prince and G.I. Robot proves invaluable, especially once the General inevitably betrays his rescuers…

This fabulously fun rollercoaster ride also includes informative ‘Secret Bat Files’ on Luthor, Power Girl, Thinker, Blue Beetle, Ultra-Humanite, Green Arrow, Dr. Cyber, Aquaman, Queen of Fables, Captain Marvel, General Immortus and Kid Eternity, and the package is topped off with a spiffy cover gallery courtesy of James Tucker, Scott Jeralds & Hi-Fi.

DC’s Cartoon Network imprint is arguably the last bastion of all-ages children’s comics in Americaand has produced some truly magical homespun material (such as Tiny Titans or Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!) as well as stunning interpretations of such television landmarks as Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Ben 10, Dexter’s Laboratory and others.

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

Despite being ostensibly aimed at TV viewing kids, these mini-sagas are also wonderful, traditional comics thrillers no self-respecting fun-fan should miss: accessible, entertaining, well-rendered yarns for the broadest range of excitement-seeking readers, making this terrific tome a perfect, old fashioned delight. What more do you need to know?
© 2009 DC Comics. Compilation © 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Hey you! – all the parents, uncles, aunts, childless family friends and generally-nonplussed, bemused or bewildered, child-adjacent comics fans. Do you ever wonder what to get the scary, somehow unfathomable younglings, footling ankle-biters and drooling rug-rats that implacably impinge on every Christmas, birthday (so, so many birthdays!) or extended family event?

Have you ever considered that if you catch ’em early enough you could actually turn those little devils dears into readers and even actual Comics Fans too? Then perhaps you’ll actually have something to talk about whenever you’re stuck with them… 

Here’s some more suggestions that should make gift-shopping easier this year – and why not read the books, before wrapping them up? They’re all awfully good…Â