Monsters - A Frighteningly adorable anthology

Monsters is an anthology of short comics about monsters and the fears children have about them. All of the stories are written by creator Karen Beilharz with the illustrations done by 10 Australian artists (Well, 9 Australians and 1 American living down under). It features 11 short stories and is self published with the help of crowd funding website Pozible and if you hurry there is still time to pledge for your own copy to read for yourself or with your own little monsters.

As a child I was plagued by fears of the monster under the bed and in the closet (and just between you and me I was also 100% sure there was a monster living in the toilet) and I really could have used a book like Monsters to address these irrational yet incredibly common fear that so many children have. Most of the stories deal with the reasons why children might be afraid of monsters and does so in a child friendly yet sophisticated way. Many of the stories run with the idea that children are afraid of things they don't understand, with my personal favourite being the story Scared by Karen Beilharz with art by Nathan Seabolt. Scared involves a little boy finding a monster trapped in his attic during a thunderstorm. As the boy chastises the monster for constantly scaring him, the monster becomes upset and tells the boy he thought it was a game and the little boy enjoyed it. Both the boy and monster realise that they misunderstood the other and become friends.

Scared

One of the best things about any anthology is that you get a diverse sample of art from many different artist usually covering a wide range of styles. One of the art styles I find particularly interesting in Monsters comes from the story Hungry written and illustrated by Karen Beilharz which is drawn the way a child would draw with crayons. The people are stick figures and the monster, which I find especially cute, is just a purple swirl with pointy teeth in the middle. I've never seen a comic use such a minimalist style so effectively and I can really see children loving the art style of Hungry. Not all of the art styles are as unique as they appear in Hungry. Some of the stories lean towards a more traditional style. Those include The Dark, illustrated by Peter Fairfax, which has a similar feel to a classic fairy tale with solid dark colours set in a creepy twisted forest or Monstrous Part 2, illustrated by Jemima Trappel, which reminds me of the kind of illustrated children's book I remember reading as a child.

Hungry

Throughout the book are pictures of monsters drawn by the children of the writer and artists, along with short descriptions which can be used as a great way to encourage children to draw their own monsters. In my mind anything that encourages children's creativity is a fantastic idea.

I think the idea behind Monsters is brilliant in encouraging children to talk about their fears and to help them understand that things may not always be quite the way they seem. Teaching children that they may be frightened of some things simply because they don't understand them is incredibly important and is a lesson they can use all through life, and not just in regards to the monster under the bed.

Monstrous Part 2

Monsters is written specifically for children so there won't be a lot of reread value for adults but I can see children loving Monsters and being perfect for the nightly bedtime story.
I give Monsters 4 out of 5 squiggle monsters.

Find out more about Monsters here.

A Dream - Art within art

A Dream is written and self published by David Goei, which incorporates the works of two famous poets, illustrated and coloured by Serene Lau, song performed by (yes that's right, song) Jonathan Ong. I was originally drawn to A Dream because of the glorious cover, as I've mentioned many times before I just love anything colourful, especially watercolour, I honestly knew nothing else about it so I wasn't quite prepared to read A Dream.

A Dream begins with a young girl, Victoria, drifting off into a beautiful dream world. As she enjoys the colourful world around her she comes across a lost and exhausted mother ant who has become separated from her family. After hearing the ant's tale of woe they set off on an adventure across the dream world to find her family. On my first read through I didn't think that there was going to be much of a story behind in A Dream and that the entire thing was more of an excuse to create an art book with beautiful and fantastical imagery. I love anything whimsical so I didn't mind the lack of story but then, in a matter of a few pages I quickly changed my tune.

A Dream's first few panels are done in entirely blue and white but then the comic suddenly explodes with enough colour to make a rainbow look dull by comparison. Every page is a mixture of all the colour of a Disney movie with the design of a more traditional fairy tale and are an absolute delight to look at. With every read through of A Dream I notice something new, as small as a frog wearing a hat or kangaroos in the background. The little girl in the story is cute but still has the realistic look of a child which is nice to see rather than an angelic looking cherub with perfect hair and clothes. The artist perfectly captures the child's expressions ranging from joy, sadness and wonder and despite the complete lack of dialogue from the child allows the reader to easily interpret her mood.

A Dream is the first comic I've ever even heard of with an accompanying song; now don't get me wrong I know probably less than nothing about music but the beautifully haunting melody of A Dream's theme song perfectly compliments the story allowing the highs and lows to echo just a little bit deeper. A Dream is a beautiful comic with a surprising amount of depth. I'd recommend A Dream to long term comic readers and fans of poetry. 

I give A Dream 4 out of 5 ice-cream lizards.

Find out more about A Dream here and more about the author here.

Top 5 Lessons in comics

Comic book characters go through character development as much as any movie or book character and through this development these characters can set great examples and lessons that everybody can learn something from.

#5 Believe in yourself - Help Us Great Warrior!

I don't think we need to go further than when the Great Warrior says "Do you hear that? It's the sound of me believing in myself". The Great Warrior doesn't need other people to tell her she can succeed she knows she can succeed.

#4 It doesn't matter if people laugh at you - Aquaman the new 52

Aquaman is often laughed at and made fun of in both real life and the Marvel universe with many jokes referencing Aquaman's ability to talk to fish. despite being told he is nobody's favourite superhero and made fun of he still does his job as best he can and just ignores the haters.

#3 Leadership is difficult - A-Force

Being a leader doesn't mean you just get to tell people what to do, it means you have to solve problems, organize your team and sometimes do the hard jobs. In A-force #1 She-Hulk is forced to banish Miss America despite not agreeing with the decision. She-Hulk takes the brunt of the team's anger and betrayal with grace and dignity, despite not being ultimately responsible for the decision she takes responsibility for it because she is the leader.

#2 You can always learn something - Princess Ugg

Princess Ulga is a warrior princess from the mountains who decides to attend a school to teach princess' proper etiquette and behavior. Princess Ulga doesn't understand the point of learning to walk with a book on her head or proper tea drinking etiquette but she does know that this other way of life can teach her lessons that she couldn't possibly learn from her own culture.

#1 Taking responsibility for your actions - Captain America Civil War

During the Marvel Civil War event Captain America fights against the super hero registration act forcing superheros to register their secret identity with the gouvenrment. SPOILERS After an enormous fight with the pro registration heroes Captain America realizes that despite still believing in his cause it is coming at the cost of the civilians he wants to protect, so he peacefully surrenders. Captain America knows that despite his intentions he has made mistakes and must answer for them.

Spread Issue 12 - R18+

Spread Issue 12

Spread issue 12 is written by Justin Jordan, art by Jen Hickman, colours by Felipe Sobreiro, letters by Crank! and published by Image comics. Spread is one of my favourite comics currently running and I've reviewed Spread volume 1 before and now follow the series in single issues which has continued to be consistently enjoyable but if anybody needed a reminder that Spread is not for children issue 12 is an extremely confronting reminder of that. I can not stress enough that Spread is not for children and especially not issue 12, I'm giving you fair warning this review will contain spoilers, while I don't normally reveal the entire story I will for this issue, and contain some very confronting issues so I'm going to slap a big R18+ on this review.

Issue 12 is the origin story of Molly and how she became "Crazy Molly" and oh my god is it dark. It begins with a very young (pre-crazy) Molly alone and scared being taken in by two scavengers, John and Raven, despite Raven's objections that they are barely surviving themselves. Molly is taught the trade of salvaging and lives happily with John and Raven for years until the camp is attacked by raiders and John is killed and Raven fleas without Molly.

One of the raiders, Rachel, takes Molly from another Raider saying that she is for "Ravello" and offers Molly a chance to do "better". Rachel takes Molly to meet her new "sisters", the other women in Ravello's Harem, as they prepare her to meet him for the first time and tell her she should be grateful and that he is good to them. It gets pretty damn dark here as the young Molly is raped by Ravello as he talks about how much he loves this new post-apocalyptic world. Some time later Molly realises that she is pregnant and it suddenly dawns on her that there are no children in the camp, she confronts Rachel as to why there are no children with Rachel's silence speaking chilling volumes.

Molly causes a distraction and fleas the camp and is quickly pursued by Rachel. Rachel tells Molly she is taking her back to camp to which she reacts violently disfiguring Rachel as she fleas once again. Months later Molly is living in the wilderness with her new baby when Rachel comes looking for her again for revenge. Molly hides using well built traps but while trying to prevent her baby from crying Molly accidentally smothers her. Climbing out of her hiding place hours later Molly looks down at her baby, realising what she has done, and pitifully utters "Molly is sorry" completing her decent into madness and finally becoming "Crazy Molly".

The art for Spread is usually done by Kyle Strahm and is grotesque in a strangely enjoyable way but issue #12  is done by guest artist Jen Hickman and is much cleaner and simpler than the usual style. I really think the guest artist for this issue was a fantastic choice as the usual grotesque, quirky style would have distracted from the true horror of the story being told.

Molly is just heartbreaking in the way she seems to find a way to overcome the challenges she faces in this apocalyptic world and works with each situation so she can survive . Molly is happy living with John and Raven, despite being abandoned by Raven at the worst possible moment, and even finds a way to live a decent life as part of the harem referring to the other women as her "sisters". It is not until Molly has another life to worry about that she decides to escape her situation for not just herself but for her unborn child. Molly's terror and despair is so genuine that it makes the reader feel uncomfortable completely pulling them into the story.

I can't explain how uncomfortable this page made me feel

Rape is an extremely touchy subject that is not tackled by many forms of media, let alone in comics, and depending on the handling can come across as exploitative at the expense of the female character but I find that the handling of it in Spread is done very well showing it as a truly horrific event that makes the reader feel extremely uncomfortable and exposed. This issue was extremely depressing between the abuse that Molly suffered and the tragic fate of her baby I needed to go and read something sweet and innocent like Bizarro until I felt better about life.

Issue 12 was an extremely hard hitting issue that really stuck with me after I read it so I'm going to give it a 4 out of 5 fluffy puppies because I think we all need a bit of cheer after this one.

Look how fluffy they are!

Find out more about Spread here.

Should I take my kids to see Deadpool?

No.

The movie is rated R for a reason. If you still aren't sure go and buy a Deadpool comic, read it and then decide if you think it is appropriate for your children.

I'm heading to Japan

Hey everybody! It's been a dream of mine for a very long time to spend some time in Japan and now after months of planning it's finally happening.

I'll be gone for three weeks so it'll be a little quiet here on my blog but if you want to keep up with my progress and see all the things I'm getting up to in the land of the rising sun you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Love you guys 

Mama Jane xoxo

Sweet Tooth Deluxe Edition #1

Sweet Tooth Deluxe Edition #1

Sweet Tooth is written and illustrated by Jeff Lemire, colours by Jose Villarrubia, letters by Pat Brosseau and published by Vertigo. The deluxe edition #1 of Sweet Tooth contains issues 1-12 and like most omnibus or deluxe editions contains original sketches and a word from the author which can be interesting tidbits for anyone interested in the process of making a comic or the development from Idea to published comic. Sweet Tooth is a post apocalyptic story with a difference so even if you read other series like The Walking Dead or Spread, Sweet Tooth will not feel like you are reading the same story with different characters.

Sweet Tooth begins with our main character Gus, a small antlered boy, narrating how his father speaks to god who he says warns him to never leave their forest home or fire and sin will consume them. 7 Years previously a mysterious disease hit that wiped out a massive percent of the population, but even the surviving population will eventually succumb to the disease. The only people not affected by the disease are the children born after the disease originally struck. The strange thing is all the children born afterwards are a strange hybrid of human and animals with fur, tails or like Gus, antlers. Gus's father slowly succumbs to the sickness that took so many others, leaving Gus all alone in the forest. As he is burying his father Gus is attacked by two strange men saying that he will fetch a good price. Gus is saved from the hunters by the cold and mysterious Mr. Jepperd who violently slaughters them. At first Gus runs from Jepperd but after promising to take him to "The Sanctuary" where hybrid children are safe, Gus decides that he doesn't want to be alone anymore and decides to take his chances with The Sanctuary.

In the deluxe edition we do meet more characters than just Gus and Jepperd but to keep the spoilers to a minimum I'm only going to talk about those two. Gus I find written incredibly well exactly how you would expect a frightened child to act, he has been told his entire life that the outside world is evil and is therefore frightened of everything yet has an innocence about him that makes him have complete faith in those that promise to care for him. Jepperd is like the complete opposite of Gus in almost every way, Jepperd is cold, violent, bitter and cynical about everything seeing no good in the world. Despite Jepperd's nature he does still have some tender moments with Gus and some others they meet along the way, so no matter how suspicious you are of Jeppered's motives you are still crossing your fingers for a happy ending for him.

You can really see the innocence or lack of in their eyes

The art of Sweet Tooth I find really hard to classify as it can be both beautiful, grotesque and horrifying all at the same time and uses a lot of thick line work, flat colours and shading to make things look eerie and sick. One of the best things about the deluxe edition is having the textless covers of the single issues, which are just beautiful, at the beginning of each issue.

I actually really love this panel

After seeing the cover of Sweet Tooth on the shelf I couldn't leave the store without it and after I opened it I didn't put it down until I was finished. The characters are great, the story completely draws you in and the art is truly something different. Sweet Tooth is great for seasoned readers and could be an easy introduction for new readers if they have an open mind about different art styles.

I give Sweet Tooth Deluxe Edition #1 4 out of 5 hybrid babies.

Find out more about Sweet Tooth here.