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From Friendly Ghosts To Gamma Rays, No.104 : Cet Air-La

And we’re back for your source for all-ages comic titles, From Friendly Ghosts To Gamma-Rays!!!!!! Sorry for the unscheduled break last week, I got sun poisoning from a day at the beach and not having enough sun block on. It KO-d me for a few days, and even now a little sore on my ribs, but we are back this week with a handful of cool things to look at, so let’s get down to it!

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Garbage Pail Kids
Publisher: Abrams ComicArts
Intro by: Art Spiegelman
Afterword by: John Pound
Here it is Garbage Pail Kids fans! You’ve been dreaming of it since those two wonderful Wacky Packages collections Abrams put out, that one day a nice hard cover collecting the art from all the Garbage Pail Kids cards would exist, and finally it is here, collecting all of them from the first five series of cards which were printed from 1985 to 1986. With over 20 pages of glossy-print goodness and wrapped in hardcover, this one is for the fans who love it as well as a great option for those who have been curious about the phenomenon, but strayed away for one reason or another.
The collection opens up with an introduction by Art Spiegelman, best known as the creator of Pulitzer Prize-winner Maus, who for majority of his early career worked on the teams at Topps Trading Cards, creators of such things as Wacky Packages and of course Garbage Pail Kids. Spiegelman chronicles the birth, rise, slow decline, and eventual re-emergence of this series of wacky trading cards. The afterword is equally as insightful, and is written by John Pound who painted a vast majority of the Garbage Pail Kids artwork.
Between these two pieces of writing is the most important part for the lovers of the hilariously gross, and that is all 206 Garbage Pail Kids from series 1 through 5. Like the Wacky Packages books, each page contains an enlarged version of the trading card in perfect clarity for all the laughs you can get out of these awesome guys. The book does not collect the backs of each card. However, the backs that were the certificates, like the “Juvenile Delinquency Award” or “Cheaters License,” which parodied Cabbage Patch Kids birth certificates, are collected on the interior covers. As for their names, since collectors know each card has an “A” or “B” name, each image is of the “A” name card, with a note beneath with their “B” card name (very nice touch).
So from Boozin’ Bruce to Windy Winston, your favorites are all here, pristine and preserved for you to read over and over while laughing for hours. If you are a fan, this is for you! If you are into gross-out humor but never had a chance to check out the Garbage Pail Kids, then for $19.95, I couldn’t think of a better item this week to gamble your money on. But warning: they are highly addictive and this may lead to you buying the cards, collectables, even the movie. The high recommendation this week from us to put a smile on your face is the new collection of Garbage Pail Kids!

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Princeless: Short Stories For Warrior Women #1
Publisher: Action Lab
Written by: Jeremy Whitley
Art by: Nancy King, Quinne Larsen, and Emily Martin
So as we are waiting for the second part of Princeless to come out and continue the adventures of our favorite princess gone hero, the team over at Action Lab has cooked up a nice appetizer to hold us over until our main course comes, with the 2-part mini-series Princeless: Short Stories For Warrior Women. A collection of shorts all written by Jeremy Whitley, and featuring art by a group of female artists; Nancy King, Quinne Larsen, and Emily Martin.
In issue #1 of this two-parter, there are two tales, the first is “The Thing In The Dungeon,” illustrated by King. Adrienne and her brother Devin are play-sword fighting, when they come across a secret that the King has been keeping below the castle, with a fun twist. The second is “The Merry Adventures of Young Prince Ash,” which has art by Larsen. The short follows Prince Ash as, in his gallivanting, accidentally comes across a damsel in distress and saves her, basically starting the Princeless-world in a way of speaking. We also get a preview of the first handful of pages from the second arc of Princeless, coming soon!
As I said before, it does feel like an appetizer to hold us over for the main course, but I don’t mean that in a bad way. If you enjoyed the first Princeless mini-series and can’t wait for the second one, this is for you to hold you over and pump you up. The writing by Whitley is great, and since he also writes the other Princeless issues, this fits right in for style, tone, and universe. The art by King and Larsen on the shorts does the job to compliment the writing, King’s art fitting more in the line with the look of the first mini-series. Although both shorts are entertaining, they will appeal more to folks who have already read Princeless, a lot of the character traits and such being fleshed out in those pages, and this working as an enhancer to that main tale, more than stand alone short stories. So new reader beware, pick up a collected edition of the first Princeless mini-series, which totally rocks, and fall in love with it first before checking this out.
Issue #1 of Princeless: Short Stories For Warrior Women is out soon from the cool cats at Action Lab!

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Winx Club Vol.1: Bloom’s Discovery
Publisher: Viz Media (Viz Kids Line)
Story and Art: Fawn Lau
Based off the Nickelodeon animated show, comes a new graphic novel of Winx Club, with two stories about the teenage Bloom, who discovers she has magical fairy powers and goes off to fairy school as part of the Winx Club, having a good time with her friends while fighting against ogres, trolls, and witches.
In the first story, “A Friend for Bloom,” Bloom seems like your average teenager who is stuck helping her parents in their shop for the summer. When her and her rabbit, Kiko, almost accidentally get hit by a truck, she ends up in a secluded area of the park where she finds fairy Stella battling the ogre, Knut. Bloom jumps in to help, awaking to her fairy powers as well, driving the ogre away. They go back to tell her parents about her magical powers, but they doubt her and write it up as a teenage fantasy until the ogres attack the house, and Bloom and Stella drive them off. In the second story, “First Day in Magix,” Bloom has convinced her parents to let her go away to fairy school with Stella to hone her powers. She travels to the magical realm to the city of Magix, where she enrolls and makes friends with Tecna, Musa, and Flora, all part of the Winx Club. They go to explore the city and run into Knut again, as well as the trio of baddy witches, Stormy, Icy, and Darcy, which leads to some magic battling results.
Winx Club is just a fun book. Overall it is simply a Euro-American take on the typical Japanese magical girl genre, with some great battle sequences and some magic splashed in here and there as needed. The art by Lau is good for the most part, some of the page layouts rolling off real nice on the eyes, as the colors help a lot of things pop the right way. The story at times can be a bit predictable, however, this is only the set-up, introducing all the major players here, so the few moments that you see coming are easily forgiven, as Bloom’s a pretty great character to follow on this journey. Volume 1 of Winx Club is available now.

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That’s it for this week! See you next, and until then, get your kaiju-game on!

Drew McCabe
drew@comicattack.net