Supercharged silliness and relatable tween drama.
Middle school comic book collaborators Pam Jones and Eliot Quigly are back in this second series entry with new episodes of their creative collaboration.
They’re thrilled that the local paper, The Piffling Bugle, plans to feature their work, The Mighty Onion. But Eliot’s relative lack of self-awareness is comical and rings true as he struggles with ideas and dismisses Pam’s concerns about deadlines (“chucking out the entire script and starting over from scratch is standard industry practice,” he confidently states). Crilley’s humor ranges from goofy (local towns named Blemish and Goosefat Junction) to wry (as in the gentle sendup of Darn You Kids!, the syndicated comic strip Pam’s mom loved as a kid). Gladys Smylie, its creator, wants to retire, and she invites Pam to take over as the new artist, leaving Eliot aggrieved. Even worse, The Piffling Bugle drops The Mighty Onion. Journal entries in both prose and comic form, letters, and notes on scraps of paper, as well as episodes of The Mighty Onion, make up most of the narrative. These elements are accompanied by some hyper-realistic bits of illustration—a partly chewed candy bar in its wrapper, a fortune cookie, a box of matches, and pages from an old fictional guide to writing comic books by the creator of Toaster Oven Man. The resulting mix is fabulously funny and engaging. Main characters read white.
Supercharged silliness and relatable tween drama. (author’s note and sketches) (Graphic fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780316490542
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
An environmental mystery featuring lots of clever detecting, a bit of danger, and real felonies to investigate.
Toxic waste dumped in the Everglades gives a quartet of middle school sleuths their first case.
Leading Carl Hiaasen fans over familiar ground, Ponti pitches 12-year-old Alex Sherlock and his 13-year-old sister, Zoe, with school friends Lina and Yadi as sidekicks, into a summer caper. It all begins with the hunt for a supposed fortune buried decades ago by Al Capone, culminates in a narrow escape from an exploding yacht, and ultimately exposes a smooth-talking bad actor shady enough to bring in even federal authorities. As the kids’ live-in Grandpa, a retired investigative reporter, delivers pointers on how to conduct interviews and sift evidence while grandly driving them around South Florida in his classic Cadillac, Roberta, the budding detectives display sharp wits, eyes, and negotiating skills. The last come in particularly useful when they’re dealing with their lawyer…who’s also their mom. Both the plot and the chain of evidence take logical courses, and since Dad is a marine biologist and Lina’s a recent transplant from Wyoming, Ponti is able to use their dialogue to highlight the local culture and larger ecological issues. Main characters present white, apart from tech wiz Yadi, who is cued Latine.
An environmental mystery featuring lots of clever detecting, a bit of danger, and real felonies to investigate. (Mystery. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781665932530
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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