{"id":27688,"date":"2023-03-15T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T09:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=27688"},"modified":"2023-03-14T18:43:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T18:43:29","slug":"tamsin-and-the-deep-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2023\/03\/15\/tamsin-and-the-deep-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Tamsin and the Deep"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Neill Cameron<\/strong> & Kate Brown<\/strong> (David Fickling Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-910200-77-3 (TPB)<\/p>\n

In January 2012 Oxford-based David Fickling Books launched a traditional anthology comics weekly aimed at under-12s which revelled in reviving the good old days of picture-story entertainment intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and content.<\/p>\n

Each issue features humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material in a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy. Since that launch, 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\u2026<\/p>\n

Like the golden age of The Beano<\/strong> and The Dandy<\/strong>, the magazine is equally at home to boys and girls, mastering the magical trick of mixing hilarious humour strips with potently powerful adventure serials such as this one.<\/p>\n

Here a wondrous seaside sorcerous saga with intriguing overtones of The Little Mermaid<\/strong>, by way of the darker works of Alan Garner, sails under the general title of Tamsin and the Days<\/strong> and leaves all the coping and crusading to a brilliantly capable lass who\u2019s a match for any boy\u2026<\/p>\n

Written by Neill Cameron (Mega Robo Bros<\/strong>, Freddy<\/strong>, How to Make Awesome Comics<\/strong>, Pirates of Pangea<\/strong>) and beguilingly illustrated by Kate Brown (Manga Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night<\/strong>\u2019s Dream<\/strong>, Young Avengers<\/strong>, Fish + Chocolate<\/strong>), our fishy tale opens with a \u2018Prologue\u2019 <\/em>on the Cornish coast as a young girl berates her older brother Morgan<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He promised to teach her how to surf, but is just messing about with his mates, so – fed up and disappointed again – she leaves her dog Pengersek<\/em> on the sands, swipes a bodyboard and paddles out alone. After all, how hard can it be?<\/p>\n

When the big wave hits and she goes down for the final time, she\u2019s sure she feels a grip on her foot and sees a green fishy face\u2026<\/p>\n

The story proper starts after \u2018Tamsin\u2019<\/em> – coughing and gasping – drags herself ashore. Somehow she\u2019s drifted miles down the coast, and with nobody there to help has to make her own way home. Her leg hurts and the bus driver won\u2019t let her on (she\u2019s soaking wet and without cash) but at least she\u2019s still got that old stick to lean on even if she can\u2019t quite recall where she picked it up\u2026<\/p>\n

There are more surprises when she finally staggers home. Mum goes absolutely crazy and Morgan is clearly scared. Maybe it\u2019s because their dad was lost at sea nine years ago, but it\u2019s probably the fact that Tamsin vanished a month ago and has been officially declared dead and drowned\u2026<\/p>\n

The police have loads of questions she can\u2019t answer, but as far as Tamsin knows she was only gone a few minutes. Eventually life settles back into a normal routine – apart from Morgan acting oddly and her own increasingly nasty dreams.<\/p>\n

Things get bad again a few nights later. Awakening from a particularly vivid nightmare, Tamsin discovers she\u2019s clutching that stick and riding a surfboard\u2026 hundreds of feet above the town! Moreover, from her shocking vantage point, she can see Morgan. He\u2019s slowly walking into the sea\u2026<\/p>\n

Instantly, she zooms into the roaring brine to yank the sleepwalker out, blithely unaware that hostile, piscatorial eyes are angrily watching\u2026<\/p>\n

Morgan is shattered. He\u2019s been having nightmares too, and the sleepwalking is not a new phenomenon. It\u2019s probably from guilt but every time he wakes up he\u2019s been heading for the sea\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2018A Nice Day Out\u2019 <\/em>sees Tamsin taking a little \u201cme time\u201d. Finding a secluded spot to practise flying with the aid of what is clearly a magic stick, she revels in her new gifts, but from high above she notices that Morgan is still unsettled. He\u2019s sworn not to go near the water and has even quit the local surfing competition; and is clearly scared of something. Later, to cheer up her kids, Mum drags them to the beachside amusements where Morgan meets an enigmatic girl. She easily convinces him to re-enter the event\u2026<\/p>\n

Tamsin meanwhile has had another strange encounter. After having her ice cream stolen by a pixie thing, she meets a cocky Blackbird (he says he\u2019s a Chough) who snidely and loquaciously tells her the newcomer was an Undine \u2026before warning her to keep Morgan well away from water.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s almost too late: Morgan has wiped out in the contest\u2019s early heats and is now being pulled under by a gloating mermaid. Tamsin blasts into the depths on her board, explosively ripping him free of her clawed clutches, and hurling them both high into the sky before landing in a terrified heap on the beach\u2026<\/p>\n

With the sorcerous she-wight fuming below the waves and scheming further mischief, in the sunshine Tamsin shares her secret with traumatised big brother before discovering a little \u2018Family Mythology\u2019 <\/em>after that smug bird returns\u2026<\/p>\n

Deeper knowledge comes at a steep price, however, and her learning curve involves an awful lot of fighting against many more awful creatures before Tamsin is ready to save Morgan from a dread destiny and horrible fate hundreds of years in the making\u2026<\/p>\n

Apprised of a fantastic family heritage and now fully prepared to combat a generational curse that has seen all the males of her line swallowed by \u2018The Deep\u2019<\/em>, Tamsin prepares herself for fantastic battle against a finned demon, but the foe is impatient: launching her own monstrous invasion of the surface-world which quickly reduces the entire town to panic and uproar\u2026<\/p>\n

Once the foam settles, triumphant Tamsin tries to ease back into a normal routine but that ill-omened bird returns for an \u2018Epilogue\u2019<\/em>, explaining that she now has a mission for life – protecting Cornwall from all mystic threats – and that the next crisis has already begun\u2026<\/p>\n

This yarn is a fabulous blend of scary and fabulous, introducing a splendid new champion for kids of all ages to cheer on, with the certain promise of more to come, beginning with second mission Tamsin and the Dark<\/strong>\u2026<\/p>\n

Boisterous, bold and bombastically engaging, this is a rollicking supernatural romp of pure, bright and breezy thrills just the way kids love them, leavened with brash humour and straightforward sentiment to entertain the entire family.
\nText \u00a9 Neill Cameron 2016. Illustrations \u00a9 Kate Brown 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Neill Cameron & Kate Brown (David Fickling Books) ISBN: 978-1-910200-77-3 (TPB) In January 2012 Oxford-based David Fickling Books launched a traditional anthology comics weekly aimed at under-12s which revelled in reviving the good old days of picture-story entertainment intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and content. Each issue features humour, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Tamsin and the Deep”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[191,42,102,125,225,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-best-of-british","category-fantasy","category-humour","category-mystery","category-older-kids"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-7cA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27688"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27692,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27688\/revisions\/27692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}