FOR THE KIDS
Amelia Rules! (Renaissance Press)
Jimmy Gownley's little-kids-at-play comic is cute and lovingly drawn -- an attempt at a modern-day Little Lulu -- but not nearly as funny as it wants to be. The backup feature, Harold Buchholz's "Apathy Kat," is an anthropomorphic-animal story that meanders for 11 pages, then abruptly stops. B-
Buzzboy/Roboy Red(Skydog Comics)
Hint: When a character announces twice that "it's time for super atomic powered boy robot fun," that means the comic he's in is trying too hard to convince you that you're having a good time. Roboy Red is a decent Powerpuff Girls imitation, but this is more about fun for kids than it actually is fun. B-
Gumby (Wildcard Ink)
A story involving Gumby running amok in a museum full of art masterpieces (and popping up in a bunch of them) should be a delight, especially since it's drawn by a crew including underground-comix veterans Rick Geary and Mark Bode. But it's sloppy and rushed, and the jokes rarely get off the ground. C+
Little Archie (Archie Comics)
Longtime Archie buffs may be excited to see a new story by Bob Bolling, who drew the first Little Archie comics beginning in 1956. Younger readers, unfortunately, are likely to wonder what the big deal is about this whimsical but slow and flavorless story concerning some campers and a "lost lagoon." C
Mickey Mouse (Gemstone Publishing)
Reprints of two 1936 newspaper comic strip sequences drawn by Floyd Gottfredson, including one in which Mickey stumbles into a copy of Robin Hood and has an adventure with the Merry Men. It's very much a period piece, and despite its well-crafted surrealism, kids of today may find it a little dry. B
Owly: Helping Hands (Top Shelf Productions)
A new installment of Andy Runton's ultra-cute, wordless series about a little owl and his friends is always a fine thing; this one's main action involves them repotting some flowers. No, seriously. Christian Slade's backup story, concerning a corgi and a cookie, pushes the cute-ometer into the red, though, and not in a good way. B+
Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)
A heartless, unamusing issue of a series (based on a video game character) that's been running since 1993 -- how? The ugly airbrushed-looking artwork and stupefying fight scene that makes up most of the story are the sort of thing that could bore an impressionable youth away from comics for good. D
Unseen Peanuts (Fantagraphics Books)
An exquisitely designed sampler of Fantagraphics' chronological "Peanuts" reprints, here featuring only the early strips that had never been reprinted until the current books, along with explanations of why they didn't make the cut. Even Charles M. Schulz's misfires are fascinating, though -- it's neat to see how perfectly decent jokes didn't really seem "Peanuts"-like -- and some of them are hilarious. A
About the writer
Douglas Wolk writes regularly about comics for Salon. His book "Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean" will be published by Da Capo Press in July.
Story finder (3 ways to search Salon)
Salon Directory (browse by topic)