Cat Kid Comic Club

The Kiddo bought this at the Spring book fair at our school in Shanghai, China.

Title: Cat Kid Comic Club
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: 2020
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Letterer: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibaldi, Aaron Polk
Editor: Ken Geist

Lil' Petey (AKA Cat Kid) and Molly the telekinetic tadpole (see Dog Man: Fetch 22 for her origin story; my review is here) hold the first meeting of their new comic club. But the other tadpoles are not making things easy. There's the issue of bickering to deal with, but an even bigger problem is that no one has the confidence to get started on making a comic.

The plot here is simple, but the point of this book is more inspiration than story. The message is that there is no wrong way to make a comic, and the Comic Club drama is interspersed with samples and previews of comics in all kinds of styles: Stick figures, b/w, color, collages, photo comics, haiku comics (photo haiku comics, actually!), and comics made with clay, cardboard, and recycled toys.

The examples are lots of fun, and the message is a great one for young comic creators who might not be ready for something like Understanding Comics (my review of that one is here).

There are some funny moments, but it's the creator's obvious love for comic creation that really shines through in this book.

Rating: 7.5/10

Dog Man: Mothering Heights

Bought at Foreign Languages Bookstore, Shanghai, China.

Title: Dog Man: Mothering Heights
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: 2021
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibaldi

So, as it turned out, Dog Man: Grime and Punishment (reviewed here) was not the end of the series. This new installment includes a romantic subplot between Chief and Nurse Lady, a bit more about Petey's mother (hence the title), giant evil animated sippy cups, lots of malic acid, and some references to the first law of thermodynamics. Oh, and poop jokes. Lots of poop jokes, because apparently the series had not actually moved beyond poop humor so much as to take a brief scenic detour away from it.

As with most of the more recent Dog Man books, the serious stuff here was quite well done, and never felt like it slowed things down or weighed things down. The bathroom humor has never been a favorite of mine, but my son (13 now) still finds it hilarious. The main source of much of this was Molly the psychokinetic tadpole, who is Lil' Petey's best friend, which seemed a bit weird because this wasn't an aspect of her character in previous appearances.

I did feel like this relied a bit too much on tropes and gimmicks from previous installments, while not adding too much to the longer-term plotlines. That being said, it was still cute fun, with several really great jokes.

Rating: 7/10

Dog Man: Grime and Punishment

The Kiddo borrowed this one from a friend at school.

Title: Dog Man: Grime and Punishment
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: September, 2020
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibaldi

This is the most serious of the Dog Man books so far, with a surprisingly deep examination of loss and forgiveness as the story explores the relationship between Petey and his father.

Of course there's also a giant animated lunchbag destroying the city, a subplot about Dog Man being fired and returning to work in a cat disguise, and all of the usual silliness, but it's the quiet beauty of the ending pages that will stick with me.

The promotional pages at the end suggest that the author is moving on to a Cat Kid comic series. If so, then this was a lovely and satisfying conclusion to a series that really delivered far beyond its roots as a side joke in Captain Underpants.

Rating: 9/10

Dog Man: Fetch-22

The Kiddo bought this at Boocup, Kerry Parkside, Pudong, Shanghai, China.

Title: Dog Man: Fetch-22
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: September, 2019
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibaldi

Li'l Petey makes a discovery about the Supa Brain Dots that had turned Flippy the bionic fish evil, and it leads to Flippy's release from Fish Jail, as well as a recall of Supa Brain Dots. Unfortunately, with Dog Man in charge of the recall, things get rapidly out of control, and the city is soon being menaced by 22 psychokinetic tadpoles, a giant tree monster (Barky McTreeface!) and a very angry TV gameshow fairy who is out to make sure that everything is fair. By destroying everything.

There were plenty of good literary and pop culture references, and some good one-liners here. The plot felt a bit like a retread of the previous stories, though. Not much new ground was covered here, although Petey and Li'l Petey had some really good moments together.

Entertaining, but leaned a bit too heavily on previous plot beats.

Rating: 6/10

Dog Man: For Whom The Ball Rolls

The Kiddo borrowed this from a friend at school.

Title: Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: September, 2019
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibaldi, Aaron Polk

Petey is released from Cat Jail, but will he be able to be the father that Li'l Petey wants him to be? When Petey's own father suddenly comes back into the picture, Petey must face his own abandonment issues, even as he finds himself part of a very nontraditional extended family with his son, Dog Man, and 80-HD.

Meanwhile, Dog Man gets some well-intentioned Pavlovian behavior modification to cure him of his obsession with chasing balls, but when a (not) new villain unleashes a horde of ball-shaped robots, Dog Man's greatest weakness becomes, well, his greatest weakness. Just in an even worse way.

Dav Pilkey drops Ernest Hemingway and Eric Carle references, confronts the reality of toxic family relationships, and expands the character development of a bunch of returning cast members.

This was a fun step forward that brought some new ideas and kept the same impressive joke-density of the previous books in this series.

Rating: 8.5/10

Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy Part 1

Gynn picked this up for the Kiddo when she was in the USA recently.

Title: Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy Part 1: The Night of the Nasty Nostril Nuggets (Full Color Edition)
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 2018
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibbaldi

This is the full-color edition of the sixth book in Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants series. Like the rest of the series, it's a mix of comics and prose (plus the occasional Flip-o-Rama!).

Class nerd Melvin Sneedly vows revenge after George and Harold subject him to a series of pranks, including writing him into one of their comics making fun of his tattletale tendencies. He attempts to use his Combine-o-Tron machine to make himself into an invincible cyborg, but an ill-timed sneeze results in a revolting combination of boy, robot, and boogers.

I can't say I'm a big fan of gross-out humor, which is the main theme of this installment, although here it is decidedly gross-out humor of the over-the-top silly variety.

As usual, Pilkey manages great timing, and scatters in a few really brilliant jokes, but this installment was a tad too sticky and slimy to be a favorite of mine. The Kiddo certainly enjoyed it. It ends on a cliffhanger (as the "Part 1" in the title implies), so the snot-related jokes are only just getting started.

I will also point out that the color really enhances the artwork for this story, providing some perfect booger-green for the action scenes.

Rating: 5.5/10

Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman

The Kiddo picked this one out when we visited Barnes & Noble in Middletown RI during our visit to the USA on Christmas break.

Title: Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 2017
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey

This is the full-color edition.

When George and Harold's pranks against a mean-spirited retiring teacher escalate to the point where they are both about to flunk the fourth grade, the boys turn to their hypnosis ring. Because that worked so well the first time. Unfortunately, a succession of mishaps results in Miss Ribble turning into exactly the supervillain George and Harold has imagined her as.

Earth's only hope is for Captain Underpants to overcome his one weakness: Spray starch.

This had some funny bits, but was somewhat uneven. I'm also not that big a fan of the hypnosis gimmick, even when totally played for laughs. The plot was about what one would expect, although the new Captain Underpants origin story in comic form that George and Harold create stood out as a pretty amusing bit.

This was entertaining, and my son (age 10) enjoyed it, but neither of us found as laugh-out-loud funny as the Dog Man books (or the earlier Captain Underpants books) have been, and I didn't think it had the heart of the Dog Man stories either.

Entertaining enough, but I have read better by Pilkey.

Rating: 6/10

Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild

This was released on Christmas Eve, 2018. Bought it on the day of release at Barnes & Noble in Manchester NH. This is the special Barnes & Noble exclusive edition with a bonus coloring poster!

Title: Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: January, 2019
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibaldi, Rachel Polk
Editor: Ken Geist

Dog Man has been framed! And he's sent packing to dog jail!

While his friends band together to solve the mystery of who really committed the crimes that Dog Man is accused of, Dog Man must battle against his own self-doubt as he wonders if he might really be a misfit, even in dog jail.

This took a little bit to get going, but the final climactic battle was loads of fun, and it was nice to see pretty much every member of the supporting cast get their moments in the spotlight.

There were the usual bad (by which we mean brilliant) puns, a sprinkling of classical literature references, plenty of flip-o-rama, some gross jokes that the Kiddo enjoyed, and "That Living Spray Factory Outlet Over There".

The setup took its time, but there were plenty of laughs to be had.

Rating: 7/10

Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas

Another book the Kiddo borrowed from one of his friends.

Title: Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: September, 2018
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibaldi
Editor: Anamika Bhatnagar

The Lord of the Flies parody only takes up a couple of pages of this book, but there is are still plenty of literary references to be had as this story focuses on a Petey's past coming back to haunt him in the form of three childhood playmates turned villains. And their robot brontosaurus.

Also making their debuts here are the alternate superhero identities of Dog Man, Lil' Petey, and 80HD.

This issue featured some amusing running jokes, mostly centered around Lil' Petey, plus a bit more complex action sequences than we've seen previously in the series.

It did drag a bit in the second half, as the (not all that competent) villains have mostly run out of tricks pretty early on in the action, and they never really seem like much of a threat to anyone.

That being said, this still had lots of laughs, a couple of tender moments, and plenty of Flip-O-Rama.

Rating: 7/10

Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties

The Kiddo picked this one out at Barnes & Noble in Hyannis MA.

Title: Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: September, 2017
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibaldi

The opening origin/recap for this installment of the Dog Man series is a highly amusing parody of Dickens' "Its was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." opening.

From there, the story focuses on the origin of Lil' Petey, the result of Petey's clone machine. Because the clone machine doesn't magically age the clone to adulthood, Petey suddenly finds himself thrust into the role of single parent.

Meanwhile, Dog Man is assigned to guard the dead (and cyber-enhanced) body of Flippy the psychokinetic fish at the Supa Awesome Science Center Over There. Because what could possibly go wrong?

Mayhem and the occasional tender moment follow. Plus some occasional Dickens references.

The Kiddo and I are reading this series in somewhat random order. All of the Dog Man books, this one included, are packed with laughs, and the Kiddo had a blast reading this, even if he knew where things were heading. I though Dog Man & Cat Kid was slightly better on the literary reference front, but this was definitely a solid entry in a series that is really finding its stride.

Rating: 8/10

Dog Man

The Kiddo bought this at Newark Liberty International Airport during our first layover on our flight back to Shanghai after summer vacation in the USA.

Title: Dog Man
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: 2016
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibaldi

The Kiddo and I are reading this series totally out of order, and we finally got around to the first book. By now, we knew the origin story. It had been recapped in all of the other Dog Man books, not to mention appearing in at least one Captain Underpants volume.

Unlike the other books in this series, this one contained multiple stories, and the quality was a bit uneven. The tale of the Mayor's attempt to replace the Chief with a robot had some surprising plot twists, but dragged a bit. And I also felt like the final story, involving anthropomorphic hot dogs was not a favorite.

I didn't exactly relish this tale. I found it didn't cut the mustard. It was more loser than weiner. Okay, I'll stop now.

Where was I? Let me see if I can ketchup. Okay, really. Now I'm done.

There were still plenty of good jokes and fun surprises in this volume, and the Kiddo was laughing out loud. Really, this was a solid, if slightly flawed start to a series that gets better from here.

Rating: 7/10

Dog Man and Cat Kid

A Scholastic book that the Kiddo actually bought through his school's Scholastic book order.

Title: Dog Man and Cat Kid
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 2018
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibaldi

Gotta love a book that manages to drop references to John Steinbeck, Mary Poppins, and Snakes on a Plane without skipping a beat.

This tale of good and evil features the good Dog Man, the evil Petey the Cat, and Petey's kitten clone Li'L Petey, who is caught in between.

There is also a Dog Man movie being made, and a robot who was programmed to obey, but who must learn about the nature of friendship.

This was funny all the way through, with some clever plotting and some surprisingly touching scenes.

Rating: 9/10

Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants

Another book from this series, brought home by the Kiddo from the school library.

Title: Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 2000
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey

A brilliant scientist arrives in the USA from a country where everyone has a silly name. And unfortunately for Professor Pippy P. Poopypants (the middle initial stands for Peepee!), he is having a hard time getting anyone to take him seriously. Finally, down on his luck and desperate, he takes a job teaching science at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School in Piqua, Ohio, confident that children will be accepting and loving, in spite of his silly name.

That goes about as well as you would expect it to go. And the professor goes off the deep end, shrinks the school, supersizes his previously gerbil-sized mecha suit, and demands that everyone change their name to a silly one based on his three simple charts. Then, of course, it's up to Captain Underpants to save the day.

By the way, this is a guest review, written by Loopy Pizzahead, with input from his Kiddo, Gidget Pizzahead.

Really, the whole book is amusing, but the silly names charts had the Kiddo rolling with laughter. There is a nice mix of slapstick and satire here, with multiple layers of humor. The plot is pretty straightforward, and the story comes to a satisfying conclusion.

Excellent work from Dav Pilkey AKA Gidget Hamsterbrains.

Rating: 8/10

Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies From Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds)

The Kiddo brought this one home from the school library.

Title: Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies From Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds)
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 1999
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey

An alien invasion of the school cafeteria is turning the student body into zombie nerds. George and Harold try unsuccessfully to convince Principal Krupp to believe them, but when all else fails, it will be up to Principal Krupp's alter-ego, Captain Underpants, to save the day. But Captain Underpants is just a school Principal who's been hypnotized to believe he's a superhero. How can he possible stop an alien invasion?

With Incredibly Graphic Violence (in Flip-O-Rama!), that's how!

This is a fast-paced story with a lot of plot twists, along with Dav Pilkey's usual playing around with comic book cliches. It's got slapstick a-plenty for the younger readers, and a nice sprinkling of geeky references for the adults (Omni magazine gets namedropped!).

It also does a nice job of making a big change in the nature of the whole Captain Underpants series, introducing changes that will be of major consequence in the books that come after this one.

This felt like a nice leveling-up for this series.

Rating: 8/10

Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets

The Kiddo brought this one home from the school library.

Title: Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 1999
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey

George and Harold are excited for the upcoming schoolwide Invention Convention, but mean Principal Krupp hasn't forgotten what happened the previous year, when George and Harold invented a powerful new glue, which they demonstrated by applying it to every seat in the auditorium.

This time around, George and Harold are stuck serving and invention convention detention, but that doesn't stop them from engaging in a bit of after-hours sabotage. But when they mess with the wrong invention, they suddenly find themselves in the midst of an invasion they the toilet villains from their own comic books!

And when Principal Krupp changes into Captain Underpants, the situation could be headed, well, down the toilet.

This was tighter plotted than either of the other two Captain Underpants books I've read, and that helped it a lot. The story kept its focus, told funny jokes, and featured a couple of entertaining Flip-o-Rama fight scenes.

The Kiddo laughed out loud in a number of places, and I appreciated the jokes too. Overall, this was an amusing installment in this series.

Rating: 7.5/10

Dog Man Unleashed

Bought this for the Kiddo at his school's book fair here in Shanghai.

Title: Dog Man Unleashed
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 2017
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Editor: Anamika Bhatnagar

This is a Captain Underpants spinoff, presenting the comic book hero originally drawn by the main characters in the Captain Underpants comics.

Dog Man, a cop with a dog's head and a man's body (and maybe a fourth of the brains of each) battles crime, feline crime mostly, all while trying to celebrate the Chief's birthday and attempting to remember not to get the Chief a dead fish as a present.

This all leads to a saga involving multiple villains and the expected amount of mayhem.

Lots of goofy slapstick and dog puns, but props for including both Dr. Seuss and Charles Dickens references.

The Kiddo and I both got a lot of laughs out of this one.

Rating: 8/10

Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers

This was a gift to the Kiddo from his cousin when we were visiting family over the summer.

Title: Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 2012
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey

The Kiddo and I read the first volume of this series and skipped directly to this one (the ninth), which was probably not the best way to approach this. This book relies fairly heavily on what has come earlier in the series to set things up.

Also, there is time travel involved. Complete with full-on time travel paradoxes that would make the X-Men universe proud. On top of that, this book serves as an origin-story for George and Harold.

And finally, the ending is pretty wild. That's all I'm going to say as far as that goes.

Unfortunately, the "origin" portion drags a bit, making the middle of this book something of a slog (to the extent that a middle-grade mixed-prose-and-sequential book can qualify as a slog).

More unfortunately, a major subplot involves some very sexist tropes in which the bullies are repeatedly humiliated with things that get the rest of the school to perceive them as feminine. I'd really like to be past this sort of thing, but here it is again.

The Kiddo did laugh at most of the jokes, and the time travel stuff got him thinking a bit, but there was enough negative here that I'm not particularly eager to check out #2-8.

Rating: 4/10

The Adventures of Captain Underpants

Last item that the Kiddo brought home from school.

Title: The Adventures of Captain Underpants
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 1997
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey

I'm reviewing this here because it has parts in sequential art form. This is another recent kids book that blurs the line between prose and graphic novel.

Two school pranksters get caught on tape pulling off a whole series of pranks the day of the big football game. These kids also happen to be the creators of a comic book called Captain Underpants, which they sell to their classmates.

When the principal uses the video tape to blackmail them into doing all of his chores for him, they resort to hypnosis (in the form of a mail-order hypnosis ring from a comic book advertisement) to get the incriminating video tape back.

But when they use hypnosis to convince the principal that he is Captain Underpants, he rushes off to fight crime and actually finds a real supervillain to do battle with. Can George and Harold save the day with only slingshots, skateboards, and fake dog-poop?

This was way funnier than I was expecting, mostly because the writer knows his way around comic cliches. I was expecting all toilet humor, but that is surprisingly kept to a minimum, and the story delivers some pretty decent nerdy humor instead.

This was a pleasant surprise.

Rating: 7.5/10