Weird and unabashedly joyful.
Kid comic creators George Beard and Harold Hutchins (now with added maturity!) are thrilled to present readers with the next installment of their co-written graphic-novel series.
A six-page recap of backstory and prior events helps situate readers who might be unfamiliar with the saga, and from there on out the action and the laughs are nonstop. Three loosely connected plot threads dominate. Petey the jailcat’s revolutionary aspirations are cut short when he receives his pardon, but now he struggles to connect with his overly optimistic son and to fend off the abuses of his lowlife father. Dog Man, meanwhile, must learn to focus after one fouled-up chase too many, but the training has its own dire consequences. Meanwhile, a villainous trio and an equally villainous mad scientist find their plans for world domination thwarted again and again. There is a moral, along the lines of being, but more importantly doing, good, but it’s never forced upon readers. Pilkey’s signature style revels in its wackiness. Panels with a single-color gradient background vary in size, and bold black outlines and hilariously full-face expressions make the characters pop. Several full-page panels of a star-studded sky are absolutely breathtaking. The various plots, though they might seem shallow at first, still make for a gripping read. Extensive backmatter, including in-story news, drawing tutorials, and “authors’ ” notes, rounds out the fun. Human characters are diverse.
Weird and unabashedly joyful. (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-23659-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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Silly and inventive fast-paced fun
A zippy graphic-novel series opener featuring two comically bumbling reptile detectives.
As agents of SUIT (Special Undercover Investigation Team) with customized VESTs (Very Exciting Spy Technology) boasting the latest gadgetry, the bright green InvestiGators Mango and Brash receive their newest assignment. The reptilian duo must go undercover at the Batter Down bakery to find missing mustachioed Chef Gustavo and his secret recipes. Before long, the pair find themselves embroiled in a strange and busy plot with a scientist chicken, a rabid were-helicopter, an escape-artist dinosaur, and radioactive cracker dough. Despite the great number of disparate threads, Green manages to tie up most neatly, leaving just enough intrigue for subsequent adventures. Nearly every panel has a joke, including puns (“gator done!”), poop jokes, and pop-culture references (eagle-eyed older readers will certainly pick up on the 1980s song references), promising to make even the most stone-faced readers dissolve into giggles. Green’s art is as vibrant as an overturned box of crayons and as highly spirited as a Saturday-morning cartoon. Fast pacing and imaginative plotting (smattered with an explosion here, a dance number there) propel the action through a whimsical world in which a diverse cast of humans live alongside anthropomorphized reptiles and dinosaurs. With its rampant good-natured goofiness and its unrelenting fizz and pep, this feels like a sugar rush manifested as a graphic novel.
Silly and inventive fast-paced fun . (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21995-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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