{"id":12292,"date":"2014-08-14T09:40:35","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T09:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=12292"},"modified":"2014-08-16T14:22:24","modified_gmt":"2014-08-16T14:22:24","slug":"the-phoenix-presents-garys-garden-book-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2014\/08\/14\/the-phoenix-presents-garys-garden-book-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Phoenix Presents Gary’s Garden book 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Gary Northfield<\/strong> (David Fickling Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-910200-09-4<\/p>\n

In January 2012 Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books<\/em> launched a traditional-seeming weekly comic aimed at girls and boys which sought to revive the good old days of picture-story entertainment Intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and Content.<\/p>\n

Every issue offers humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material in a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy and, in the years since its premiere, The Phoenix<\/strong> has gone from strength to strength, winning praise from the Great and the Good, child literacy experts and the only people who really count – the astoundingly engaged kids and parents who read it\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The Phoenix<\/strong> was recently voted No.2 in Time Magazine<\/strong>‘s global list of Top Comics and Graphic Novels<\/strong> and is the only UK strip publication started in the last forty years to have passed the 100 issue mark. The magazine celebrated its first anniversary by releasing a digital edition available globally as an app and is still continually expanding its horizons.<\/p>\n

It is, most importantly, big and bold and tremendous fun. You should subscribe today\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Moreover, whilst comics companies all seem to have given up the ghost (in this country at least), old-school prose publishers and the newborn graphic novel industry have evolved to fill their vacated niche.<\/p>\n

With a less volatile business model and far more sustainable long-term goals, book sellers have prospered from periodical publishers’ surrender. There have never been so many and varied cartoon and comics chronicles, compilations and tomes for readers to enjoy.<\/p>\n

This year – at long last – many of the favourite serials and series from The Phoenix<\/strong> joined that growing market, having been superbly repackaged as graphic albums.<\/p>\n

Two of them – Von Doogan and the Curse of the Golden Monkey<\/strong> and Bunny vs. Monkey<\/strong> – were selected for The Reading Agency’s<\/strong> prestigious Summer Reading Challenge<\/strong> (which began on July 12th<\/sup>): the first comic-books ever to have featured on the organisation’s Summer Reading Challenge List.<\/p>\n

One of the most rewarding and captivating strips in the comic is marvellous minibeast comedy-adventure Gary’s Garden<\/em>, crafted by Gary Northfield (Beano<\/strong>‘s Derek the Sheep<\/em>, The Terrible Tales of the Teeytinysaurs<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

It is the fourth fabulous release to assuredly delight and enchant young an old alike\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The premise is beguilingly simple and utterly addictive: laggard grown-up Gary<\/em>, like most of us, doesn’t do as much as he should in his back yard – and the assorted birds, beasts and bugs despise him for it – but at least it means they can all live their lives in relative peace and quiet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The occasional series began in #2, and this initial collection opens with ‘Chompy’<\/em>, a rather irascible, over- imaginative but under-achieving caterpillar who here has to set straight a worm with delusions of grandeur\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Practice Makes Perfect!’<\/em> then peeps in on an artistically pompous spider who makes his enwrapped prey all play in his make-shift orchestra whilst an old worm whinges about the ‘Noisy Neighbours’<\/em> in the apples adjacent to his, after which ‘Spring Clean!’<\/em> sees the obnoxious garden birds wreak playful havoc with Gary’s socks and smalls as they dry on the washing line\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Larry Ladybird, Lord of the Jungle!’<\/em> reveals the inner dreamer of an action hero inside a little spotty bug, whilst manic squirrel Rupert<\/em> kicks into overdrive in ‘Acorn Antics’<\/em> when his prospective winter larder is endangered by strong winds and vegetarian mole Thelma<\/em>. Absolutely no semblance of sanity then returns as the ever-vigilant birds raid Gary’s larder for junk food after suffering a ‘Snack Attack!’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

In the pond, slow and sure Jennifer<\/em> watches with poignant regret as all the tads grow their ‘First Legs’<\/em> and rush off pell-mell to join the metaphorical rat-race whilst in ‘Hide and Peek’<\/em> readers get a brilliant lesson in camouflage from a leaf bug, a butterfly and a stick\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Clearly a devotee of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Mr. Northfield then wryly spoofs the Barsoomian Chronicles, when, in a moment of inspired madness we are introduced to ‘John Ladybird, of Mars’<\/em> as the self-appointed explorer crosses dimensions, vast gulfs and a garden trampoline for the journey of a lifetime.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Chompy is not the most appreciative of audiences for such tales of wonder\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Birds are not the kindest of characters, but they’re not as dangerous as next door’s cat. Happily ‘Podgy Pigeon’<\/em> is smart enough to make fools of them all before heroic night stalkers ‘Boris & Monroe’<\/em> enter the picture.<\/p>\n

The fox is a veteran ninja of darkness and only occasionally wonders if he was wise to take on excitable hedgehog Monroe as his apprentice\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Dream On, Chompy!’<\/em> finds our voracious idiot trying to rush nature in his eagerness to join his winged brothers in the sky, whilst an elderly spider tries – and generally fails – to remind everyone to take things easily in ‘\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mornin’ Henry!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d’<\/em> after which frustrated country music star ‘Terrance the Snail’<\/em> makes his noisy debut and Jennifer in the pond makes a disturbing self-discovery in ‘Last Legs’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Ronald the Spider’<\/em> reveals his tap dancing gifts to a literally captive audience before it’s Flash Gordon<\/strong>‘s a turn for a bit of leg pulling – all six of them – in ‘Zarpovia! Pt 1’<\/em> when Professor Ladybird Zarpov<\/em> discovers an incredible alien world teeming with incomprehensibly strange life in Gary’s front room\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Recruiting bold adventurers Larry Ladybird, Lord of the Jungle and John Ladybird of Mars, the trio explore the glass-sided universe in the astounding ‘Zarpovia! Pt 2’<\/em>, before those masters of darkness return in ‘Boris & Monroe: Bagsie Me First’<\/em>, to prove that foolhardy bravery and astonishing agility are no substitute for a little caution\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

There’s acrimony and dissent at a ‘Camouflage Club’<\/em> meeting, leading to a breakaway movement, but in the interim Gary gets a barracking from the birds in ‘Nice Hat’ <\/em>and wily Humphrey Housefly<\/em> lives another day after two ‘Grumpy Spiders’<\/em> can’t decide on who should eat him.<\/p>\n

The splinter group ‘Mimicry Club’<\/em> barely survives its first meeting when mickey-taking poseurs gatecrash the event, after which sensitive Ladybird Melissa<\/em> develops an abiding but unhealthy affection for the coldly distant, stoic ‘Mr Leaf’<\/em> to bring a close to our beastly cabaret.<\/p>\n

But don’t fret because there’s one last treat in store. ‘Gary’s Garden: Top Chumps’<\/em> provides 34 fascinating pictorial Score Cards (also available as free printable download pages), revealing all the silly secrets and dreams of the quirkily quotidian cast.<\/p>\n

The Phoenix Presents\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Gary’s Garden<\/strong> is a truly laugh-out-loud comic treat: madcap, endearing and absurdly hilarious. Don’t miss out on the perfect opportunity to get back to – or get back at – Nature by\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n