Braddy Reads Nursery Rhyme Comics

ATTENTION PARENTS OF SMALL CHILDREN!!! BUY THIS BOOK. BUY THIS BOOK NOW. NOW. NOW. BUY THIS BOOK NOW!

And that's it for my review.

...

What, that's not enough? Okay, I'll go on.

Nursery Rhyme Comics first showed up on my radar when it was announced that one of my favorite comic book artists, Mike Mignola, would be contributing a two-page adaptation of the nursery rhyme "Solomon Grundy." I took a look at the pages and, being something of a Mignola completionist, decided that I had to possess this book.

Now, the Mignola story is good. Very good, I'd say. But it's not even CLOSE to the best thing about this book. Nursery Rhyme Comics tells fifty stories that I've known since I was six, but puts a new spin on all of them.

They don't ALL work, but the ones that do are fantastic. Patrick McDonnell's two-panel retelling of "The Donkey" reminds me why I liked the comic Mutts in the first place, while Richard Thompson (of Cul de Sac) proves why he's one of the best contemporary newspaper cartoonists. Eleanor Davis's simplistic-looking "The Queen of Hearts" proves to be more complex the more you study it, while Stan Sakai's "Hector Protector" is just as simple - and delightful - as it seems.

I'd endorse the book almost solely on the quality of two-page depiction of "Pop Goes the Weasel," which introduced my roommate to the bizarro wonderland works of Scott C. (whose story "Igloo Head and Tree Head in Disguise" sent my roommate into hysterical fits of laughter that nearly knocked him unconscious).

Okay, I'll stop raving now. I obviously enjoyed this book WAY more than I should have, considering I'm about twenty years too old to fit in the target demographic. Still, the art's great, the stories charming and unpredictable, and the rhymes timeless. Love it!