EXTRAORDINARY WARREN

This is a story that keeps interrupting itself.

A few pages into the comic, the narration is drowned out by sound effects. A flock of chicks keeps squawking for two pages straight. It happens right in the middle of a sentence: “They pecked all day long. EVERY SINGLE DAY. It drove Warren…Peep! Peck! Peck! Peck! / CRAZY.” (Eight nearly identical panels labeled Sunday through Sunday show four chicks peeping and pecking, as Warren looks on with increasing exasperation.) This is, presumably, supposed to be an amusing, postmodern device, but mostly it’s just an annoyance. In fairness, it’s supposed to be annoying. Warren hates the daily routine on the farm. He says, “I’ve had enough pecking and peeping….I am MORE than just an ORDINARY CHICKEN.” Warren becomes a sort of poultry superhero, rescuing the others from Millard the rat, who has invited them all to a barbecue. Large sections of the plot may feel familiar. The book feels much like the film Chicken Run, for example. But the story isn’t the point. The point is the jokes, which are terrible and brilliant in equal measure. When Warren bumps into an egg, he says, “OEUF!” The simple line drawings are charming. The text is a matter of taste. It will be a hit with fans of borscht-belt humor. Everyone else may be driven…CRAZY. (Graphic fiction. 6-9)