Chasma Knights, by Boya Sun and Kate Reed Petty (First Second) | review by Stephen Theaker

In the cute and colourful world of Chasma Knights, discarded toys roam free in the wild like Pokemon. Everyone goes through a lot of toys, as many as eight a day, because of the fun of catalyzing with them. “Oxygen, chrome, recognize!!” they might shout, “Meet, merge catalyze!” Then they merge with the toy and gain special abilities. It’s a lot of fun. Beryl, however, is a Neon Knight, supposedly too low-powered to catalyze, so she catches toys in the wild for a secret project. She is especially thrilled to capture a cute little dinosaur with a gold core, but no sooner has she stored it within her meowpack than three bad boy sulphur knights show up and steal it from her! To get it back she goes to the toy market, but there she also meets Coro, an oxygen knight who follows Beryl back to her amazing workshop and sneaks in. It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship, although it will have its ups and downs (literally so at times). This is a bright and charming adventure for children that will particularly appeal to fans of Princess Bubblegum and Marceline the Vampire. The art style is very pretty – imagine a combination of Adventure Time and Katamari Damacy – and as usual with First Second books it would make a great gift. Any parent or school would be happy to see their children learning the lessons of this story. It encourages recycling and repairing, kindness and resilience, recognising everyone’s contributions to a joint project and sharing the credit fairly, making amends for bad decisions, and (most important of all) following safety instructions carefully. ****

The Glorkian Warrior and the Mustache of Destiny, by James Kochalka (First Second) | review

The funniest idiot since Groo the Wanderer returns for his third “adventure”. That is to say, he has a nightmare about a giant moustache, decides that he has invented a talking coffee cup, gets headbutted by a bunch of armless baby would-be Glorkian Warriors, and falls down a big hole. Later, he falls down another hole and meets the book’s villain, Quackaboodle the Space God! (Although I have my qualms about the behaviour of the Glorkian Supergrandma too.) This is just as funny as the previous two books, the stupidity reaching absolutely glorious levels, e.g. the four baby Glorks saying, “Can Gonk do this?” and “Can Doonkies do thats?” and “May Crazy Face?” and then “Cans Bronk bronk bronk?” In context it’s funny, trust me, on this if nothing else. And while we’re talking about glorious, you should see the colours in this book. You know that nonsense about using 10% of your brain? The art in this book makes you feel like you’ve only been using 10% of your eyes. A thank you page at the end makes it sound like this may be the last in the series. Let’s hope not. I could keep reading these forever. It’s not out till March 2016, so don’t let your children grow up too fast. Stephen Theaker *****

The Glorkian Warrior Eats Adventure Pie by James Kochalka | review by Stephen Theaker

The Glorkian Warrior is a Groo-ish idiot whose best friend is his Rufferto-ish Super Backpack, which can shoot lasers and talk, not that the Glorkian Warrior ever takes its advice. The two of them of them previously appeared in a fun iOS game The Trials of Glork (reviewed here) and a graphic novel, The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza (reviewed here).

The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza by James Kochalka, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza (First Second, hb/pb, 112pp; Netgalley pdf) is another superb, hilarious comic for children by James Kochalka. Well, I say for children, but it made me laugh out loud enough times to attract the children to my office, concerned they were missing out on some fun. And they were. The Glorkian Warrior is happy to doze on his sofa until he is woken by the sound of the emergency space phone. Someone has called to order a pizza. A pepperoni pizza. His Super Backpack is keen for adventure, but not too impressed with this one: “I’m not SCARED. I just don’t think ‘heroic destiny’ is usually this STUPID.” There’s no pepperoni pizza in the fridge, but there are leftover peanut butter and clams slices, so that’ll have to do. On the way to deliver the pizza they’ll meet, battle and make friends with battle-suited Gonk, attempt Glorkian kung fu on a spaceship, adopt a space invader baby, and meet the Magic Robot!

The Moon Moth by Humayoun Ibrahim and Jack Vance – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Adapted by Humayoun Ibrahim from the short story by Jack Vance, The Moon Moth (hb, 128pp) is another interesting comic from First Second, who previously published the very decent Orcs: Forged for War and seem to be making a praiseworthy habit of looking beyond the obvious candidates for adaptation into graphic novels. An opening introduction to Vance’s work by Carlo Rotella is not uninteresting—especially insofar as he actually visited Vance to interview him—but like Brandon Flowers discussing the Pet Shop Boys in A Life in Pop he seems rather too embarrassed about his enthusiasm for his subject. Never mind, the main course is the actual comic, and that is excellent.