Good Comics for Kids

February 4, 2010 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Ginger has a problem: her mother, Mrs. Fox, wants the family to share a burrow with Mr. Badger. Worse still, Mr. Badger has two bratty, bossy boys who don't know how to play proper fox games and who insist on doing things their way. Unable to discourage their parents from merging households, Ginger, Grub, and Bristle put aside their differences and hatch up a scheme to show their folks that "badgers and foxes are not made to live together."

Mr. Badger and Mrs. Fox, No. 1: The Meeting
Story by Brigitte Luciani, Art by Eve Tharlett, Translation by Carol Klio Burrell
Ages 5-9
Graphic Universe, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-7613-5625-7
32 pp., $25.00

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Industries: Graphic Novels

January 28, 2010 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

I remember the educational comics from my childhood: they were painfully square vehicles for addressing topics such as "staying safe around power lines" or "saying no to peer pressure." The art was subpar; the scripts were tin-eared; and the paperstock was even worse. Teachers usually distributed them in conjunction with a earnest safety lecture, and students quickly relegated them to the trash. (It was the 1970s. We were just getting hip to recycling.) As Peter Gutierrez's recent guest article demonstrates, however, today's educational comics have earned a legitimate place in the classroom by tackling a variety of historic, scientific, and social issues that, when presented in other media, can seem dry or abstract. The Secret Adventures of Hamster Sam: Attack of the Evil Bo...Read More
Industries: Graphic Novels

January 20, 2010 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

In the first volume of RE:Play, we're introduced to Cree and Rail, the principal musicians in an up-and-coming band called Faust. When their bass player quits unexpectedly, Cree stumbles across a suitable replacement busking in the street. She invites the scruffy-yet-handsome Iszak to join Faust for a trial period -- an invitation that quickly leads to Izsak becoming her bandmate and roomie. As the two grow closer, however, Cree begins to realize that Izsak is hiding something from her. What is his secret? And why he is being stalked by a pair of sinister-looking hipsters?

RE:Play, Vol. 3
By Christy Lijewski
Rating: Older Teen (16+ for profanity, violence, sexuality)
Tokyopop, 2009, ISBN: 978-1-59816-739-9
200 pp., $10.99

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Industries: Graphic Novels

January 19, 2010 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Below is an alphabetical index, with links, of every title we reviewed at Good Comics for Kids in 2009. You'll find almost 150 titles listed here, from superhero comics to manga to graphic novels with a historical bent. Age guidelines and publication information (author, full title, publisher, price, ISBN) are included in every review. Have a question about a title we've reviewed? Just ask -- we'd be happy to help.

A - E
Adventures in Cartooning (First Second)
The Adventures of the Araknid Kid, Episode 1: Kracker and Flea (Crash Land Studios) 
Age of Reptiles: The Journey, No. 1...Read More
Industries: Graphic Novels

January 12, 2010 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Wicked stepmothers and virtuous, long-suffering maidens are a ubiquitous pairing in folktales from around the world, as Pigling: A Cinderella Story attests. This made-for-classroom-use comic offers grade school readers a Korean variation on the familiar story, one enlivened by the presence of talking animals (no need to rely on Disney to imagine them) and a deliciously evil stepmother-and-stepsister pair.

Pigling: A Cinderella Story
Script by Dan Jolley, Art by Anne Timmons
Age Rating: 9 - 14
2009, Graphic Universe, ISBN: 978-1-58013-825-3
48 pp, $8.95

Pigling tells the story of Pear Blossom, a young girl who is the apple -- or, more accurately, the pear -- of her elderly p...Read More
Industries: Graphic Novels