Giggleworthy graphic-novel goodness worth rereading to appreciate the visual and textual humor.
Get ready for the creative twists and turns of moon adventures, time travel, and a disappearing Pig Day cake.
Meet Gustav, a pig, and Henri, a dog, who problem-solve their way through three stories. When their badminton shuttlecock goes missing midgame, Gustav deduces that it went into space, and with Gustav’s plans and Henri’s know-how, an aerodynamic(?) pig spaceship is soon ready. After landing on the moon, the pair successfully complete five creative challenges to wrangle the shuttlecock away from a crab who has turned it into his crown. Unfortunately, their spaceship is now too heavy, and they have to leave the shuttlecock on the moon. Good thing they like tether tennis! When Gustav’s local librarian double-cancels his library card, Gustav creates a time machine so he can return his book on time and eventually succeeds—well, sort of. When Gustav throws Henri a Pig Day party complete with an amazing and delicious cake to eat in the bathroom (where every Pig Day feast is eaten), all of the book’s characters gather at the appointed time, but when the cake goes missing, Detective Gustav is on the case. Although the cover features shades of red, blue, and yellow, illustrations inside are black outline drawings with gray shading and blue highlights. The tales brim with enough humorous references, wordplay, and tricky plots to keep readers young and old entertained.
Giggleworthy graphic-novel goodness worth rereading to appreciate the visual and textual humor. (maze, word search, riddles, recipe for nachos) (Graphic novel. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63655-036-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Red Comet Press
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low.
Recasting Dog Man and his feline ward, Li’l Petey, as costumed superheroes, Pilkey looks East of Eden in this follow-up to Tale of Two Kitties (2017).
The Steinbeck novel’s Cain/Abel motif gets some play here, as Petey, “world’s evilest cat” and cloned Li’l Petey’s original, tries assiduously to tempt his angelic counterpart over to the dark side only to be met, ultimately at least, by Li’l Petey’s “Thou mayest.” (There are also occasional direct quotes from the novel.) But inner struggles between good and evil assume distinctly subordinate roles to riotous outer ones, as Petey repurposes robots built for a movie about the exploits of Dog Man—“the thinking man’s Rin Tin Tin”—while leading a general rush to the studio’s costume department for appropriate good guy/bad guy outfits in preparation for the climactic battle. During said battle and along the way Pilkey tucks in multiple Flip-O-Rama inserts as well as general gags. He lists no fewer than nine ways to ask “who cut the cheese?” and includes both punny chapter titles (“The Bark Knight Rises”) and nods to Hamiltonand Mary Poppins. The cartoon art, neatly and brightly colored by Garibaldi, is both as easy to read as the snappy dialogue and properly endowed with outsized sound effects, figures displaying a range of skin colors, and glimpses of underwear (even on robots).
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low. (drawing instructions) (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93518-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
What a wag.
What do you get from sewing the head of a smart dog onto the body of a tough police officer? A new superhero from the incorrigible creator of Captain Underpants.
Finding a stack of old Dog Mancomics that got them in trouble back in first grade, George and Harold decide to craft a set of new(ish) adventures with (more or less) improved art and spelling. These begin with an origin tale (“A Hero Is Unleashed”), go on to a fiendish attempt to replace the chief of police with a “Robo Chief” and then a temporarily successful scheme to make everyone stupid by erasing all the words from every book (“Book ’Em, Dog Man”), and finish off with a sort of attempted alien invasion evocatively titled “Weenie Wars: The Franks Awaken.” In each, Dog Man squares off against baddies (including superinventor/archnemesis Petey the cat) and saves the day with a clever notion. With occasional pauses for Flip-O-Rama featurettes, the tales are all framed in brightly colored sequential panels with hand-lettered dialogue (“How do you feel, old friend?” “Ruff!”) and narrative. The figures are studiously diverse, with police officers of both genders on view and George, the chief, and several other members of the supporting cast colored in various shades of brown. Pilkey closes as customary with drawing exercises, plus a promise that the canine crusader will be further unleashed in a sequel.
What a wag. (Graphic fantasy. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-58160-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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