Some readers will come for the heartbreak, others will come for the forest of cupcake trees, but everyone will be cheered by...
There are some literary characters you wish were real, so that you could be friends with them, and Mal and Chad may belong on that list.
Talking dogs are the subject of a lot of jokes, but they have feelings, too. Chad, for example, has two shameful secrets: He’s frightened by his dreams, and he’s afraid of cats. Every night, he dreams he’s being chased by a cat of monstrous size. Luckily, his best friend is Mal, who’s invented a machine that lets them walk into dreams, and the two of them can face the monster together. Dream sequences are a gold mine for a cartoonist. McCranie has seized the chance to fit every item in his sketchbook into the story. The high point is a forest made out of snack food. Mal immediately starts making snow angels in the chocolate-chip ice cream. The inventions and talking animals may remind some readers of Calvin and Hobbes, but surprisingly, the graphic novel doesn’t suffer much from the comparison. The timing isn’t quite as sharp as Bill Watterson’s, but some panels achieve a poignancy that makes this its own kind of story.
Some readers will come for the heartbreak, others will come for the forest of cupcake trees, but everyone will be cheered by the happy ending, which involves the “biggest, bestest bark ever!” (Graphic novel. 8-11)Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-25657-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
Epic lunacy.
Will extragalactic rats eat the moon?
Can a cybernetic toenail clipper find a worthy purpose in the vast universe? Will the first feline astronaut ever get a slice of pizza? Read on. Reworked from the Live Cartoon series of homespun video shorts released on Instagram in 2020 but retaining that “we’re making this up as we go” quality, the episodic tale begins with the electrifying discovery that our moon is being nibbled away. Off blast one strong, silent, furry hero—“Meow”—and a stowaway robot to our nearest celestial neighbor to hook up with the imperious Queen of the Moon and head toward the dark side, past challenges from pirates on the Sea of Tranquility and a sphinx with a riddle (“It weighs a ton, but floats on air. / It’s bald but has a lot of hair.” The answer? “Meow”). They endure multiple close but frustratingly glancing encounters with pizza and finally deliver the malign, multiheaded Rat King and its toothy armies to a suitable fate. Cue the massive pizza party! Aside from one pirate captain and a general back on Earth, the human and humanoid cast in Harris’ loosely drawn cartoon panels, from the appropriately moon-faced queen on, is light skinned. Merch, music, and the original episodes are available on an associated website.
Epic lunacy. (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-308408-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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