Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Tag: graphic novel

January 28, 2015

Maddy Kettle: The Adventure of the Thimblewitch – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

maddy-kettle-100dpi_lgMaddy Kettle: The Adventure of the Thimblewitch, by Eric Orchard. Illustrated.

Marietta, GA, Top Shelf Productions, August 2014, softcover $14.95 (89 [+ 2] pages).

This is a softcover children’s fantasy in the tradition of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: a young girl has adventures in a magic world full of talking animals. It is in the publisher’s “Kids Club” series, but like all the best children’s fantasies, it is really for all ages.

Eleven-year-old Maddy Kettle was happy, living in her parents’ bookstore/house in the Western-looking town of Dustcloud Gap. Her pet musical floating spadefoot toad, Ralph (she tethered him on a string, like a balloon), made her popular with all of the other schoolkids. But one night Maddy woke up and saw the Thimblewitch flying away from their home, and when she went downstairs to investigate, she found her parents turned into talking kangaroo rats. Her father refused to let her chase after the witch to cure them, insisting that it was too dangerous. But after the witch’s spider goblins kidnap the kangaroo rats and Ralph, there is nothing to keep her from going after them.

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January 13, 2015

Cast Away on the Letter A – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer, submits this review:

Cast Away on the Letter A, by Fred. [Translated by Richard Kutner.]download (2)

NYC, Candlewick Press/TOON Books, September 2014, hardcover $16.95 (45 [+ 1] pages).

I have been waiting for over forty years for this book! In the 1960s and early ‘70s, before I concentrated upon Japanese comics and furry literature, I was an obsessive fan of French-language cartoon albums; bandes dessinées. I did not only buy those that came to Los Angeles; I mail-ordered them from Paris and from Brussels. I also got the three major weekly magazines; Spirou, Tintin, and Pilote.

In 1965, Pilote began serializing the work of a new cartoonist: Fred. There was nothing quite like it, but it was in the same surrealistic, psychedelic league as Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay, The Kin-der Kids by Lyonel Feininger, and Krazy Kat by George Herriman. Fred became an instant star among the creators of French-language comics. His greatest work was the Philémon series, 15 volumes from 1972 to 1987. Other memorable works, short series or single albums, were (titles translated) The Little Circus; The Bottom of the Air is Fresh; Timoléon (three volumes); Okay, I’m Coming; Hmm; and The Story of the Crow in Tennis Shoes.

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