A funny, thoughtful, original, and eye-catching tale about a young artist: terrific all around.
In this graphic novel, reality is altered when a high schooler’s notebook doodles come to life.
An unnamed high school student nukes his breakfast pizza on a Styrofoam plate, mistakenly placed on top of his wire-bound notebook. This releases “a micro-radioactive cloud of awesomeness” that mutates and connects molecular structures. At school, the teen takes his notebook and draws a basic cartoon figure, which becomes sentient and possesses a will of his own: “Are you drawing me? TRIPPY!” Dud (the figure’s eventual name) prods the boy throughout the school day to use his creativity in a series of drawing challenges. While the teen’s work does become skillful and complexly imaginative, he fears he’s going crazy and tries to banish his creation. But Dud returns for some adventures. More importantly, he gains access to the student’s most secret fears and feelings, as embodied in drawings that exist in a “forbidden” part of the notebook. Especially taboo are sketches that express the teen’s pain over his parents’ divorce and their emotional unavailability. “I’m not going to lie to you. That stuff is pretty crappy,” Dud acknowledges, but ignoring problems, he says, is worse. The boy can always make art but now understands he can include it as part of a healthier engagement with the world. Kevin Minor, who has collaborated on two children’s books, writes a beautifully conceived and executed story that both describes and enacts the power of the imagination. The Minors’ accomplished graphic style encompasses both traditional full-color comics that make effective use of the panel spaces and dynamic pencil work that expresses Dud’s vivid personality. Many episodes are hilarious, as when Dud faces Poe-derived dangers during English class. Such humor and artistry alone would be entertaining, but beyond that, the novel’s emotional intelligence makes it truly compelling.
A funny, thoughtful, original, and eye-catching tale about a young artist: terrific all around.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7643-5694-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Schiffer
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A cute premise best experienced in small bites.
The sweet and sour(dough) sides of life for anthropomorphic baked creatures.
This collected edition of the original online WEBTOON comic follows the daily adventures of three breadcats who live in a bakery. There’s Cat Loaf, the friend-seeking adventurer; Rye Loaf, the quiet loner; and Tabby Loaf (“Tabs”), the scaredy-cat. Stories are mostly driven by encounters with other dough-based animals, such as nefarious cinnamon bunnies and competitive doughnut cats. The narrative stretches to include heartfelt moments about a creative mousse mouse staying true to their creative roots and lonely cat Potato having a reflective moment after chasing others’ friendship. Characters’ faces largely resemble living emojis, and dialogue heaps on the food-based puns, but something is lost in the transition to print. Uniformity in the panel layouts sees walls of panels and text that can become numbing where the original vertical format was more carefully paced. Visual gags like a Pokémon battle parody and a soap opera TV show acted out by actual bars of soap briefly change up the format in fun ways, but some readers may feel stuffed on all the bread.
A cute premise best experienced in small bites. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2026
ISBN: 9798225019631
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: tomorrow
This too-ambitious graphic adaptation of the beloved childhood tale falls extremely short of the mark. In this reworking of Carroll’s great tale of whimsy and imagination, readers will be transported to a very clumsy, wonder-less Wonderland. Though Helfand hits most of the memorable points in the original story—the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, the caterpillar, the Cheshire cat—the combination of the awkward art with text proves to be distracting. Nagulakonda’s maladroit art is ultimately this adaptation’s weakest spot; the strained, rough-hewn faces are nothing short of disconcerting. Alice’s face, in particular, is troubling in many panels, looking pained or vacant instead of possessing a look of wonder at her curious surroundings. The clunky adaptation and clumsier art will leave its readers cold. Given these flaws and comparing it to the development and sophistication of many of the graphic novels currently available, this feels like an amateurish work in desperate need of refinement. (Graphic classic. 9-12)
Pub Date: July 20, 2010
ISBN: 978-93-80028-23-1
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Campfire
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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