123 Sesame Street #1

The fourth in my short series of reviews from my son's collection.

Title: 123 Sesame Street #1
Date: 2013
Publisher: Kidzoic / Ape Entertainment
Writer: Jason M. Burns, Jay Fosgitt, Patrick Storck, Paul Morrissey
Artist: Scott Ball, Amy Mebberson, Jay Fosgitt, James Silvani, Scott Underwood, Ryan Davis, Misseri Studio
Colorist: Dustin Evans
Letterer: Deron Bennett, Jay Fosgitt
Editor: Jason M. Burns, Aaron Sparrow
Cover:Amy Mebberson

This opens with a very clever feature: A guide for kids on how to read comics, presented by Elmo with guest appearances by some of his friends. It works pretty well, and is gets the job done in one page.

The main story in this issue comes next, and it's the story that was previously printed in Kidzoic's 2013 Free Comic Book Day offering, which I reviewed here. Liked it then and still like it. The story features Super Grover teaching Super Elmo a lesson in heroism, and how to be a hero without needing flashy powers. It's a well told story with humor and heart.

The remaining stories take the theme of imagination that was introduced in the Super Elmo segment and run with it, exploring it from several different angles and in several art styles. It is all very cute and they do a nice job of playing the different variations on the theme. The mix of lengths of stories is also good for reading out loud since there are plenty of stopping points if you want to read less than the whole comic.

This was a good start to the series. It kept to the flavor of Sesame Street and did a nice job of expanding on the story that had previously been published.

The copy I bought for the Kiddo is the Newbury Comics retailer cover variant for this issue.

Rating: 7.5/10

Kizoic Presents Strawberry Shortcake/123 Sesame Street

One of our freebies from Jetpack Comics' Free Comic Book Day Festival in Rochester NH in May 2013.

Title: Kizoic Presents Strawberry Shortcake/123 Sesame Street
Date: 2013
Piblisher: Kizoic
Writer: Jason M. Burns, Russell Lissau, Meredith Lissau, Tim Beedle
Artist: Amy Mebberson, Edgar Manjarrez, Tanya Roberts, Peter Wonsowski
Colorist: Dustin Evans, Amy Mebberson, Antonio Peniche, Fernando Peniche
Letterer: Deron Bennett
Cover: Peter Wonsowski
Editor: Matt Anderson, Weldon Adams

Flip book. This is Kizoic's Free Comic Book Day offering for 2013.

The Strawberry Shortcake side of this book has three stories. First up, Strawberry's friends have to handle the lunch hour rush at the cafe when Strawberry comes down with a bad case of the blueberry flu.

The second story has the girls following a map to dig up some pirate treasure.

In the third story, Blueberry is searching frantically for Plum Pudding, who accidentally took the book that Blueberry was in the middle of reading.

These stories were heavy on the cuteness factor and fairly light on plot. The humor is fairly predictable, but I thought the first story did the best job of playing up the friendship theme of the Strawberry Shortcake characters.

Flip the book over, and it's Elmo meeting up with Super Grover, who gives him a lesson in how a hero can act heroic without flashy superpowers.

This was well written with a nice mix of humor and thoughtfulness. With only one story taking up the whole space allotted to Sesame Street, this story got some breathing room and was able to make good use of larger panels.

Centerpiece of the book is a nice two-sided poster.

Rating: 7/10.

Kidzoic Presents: Richie Rich / Kung Fu Panda

I decided to review this one because I'm including it in my 24-Hour Zine, which is about geeky parenting. Kung Fu Panda is one of only a couple of feature-lengeth films that the Kiddo has watched (the other is Kiki's Delivery Service).

Title: Kidzoic Presents: Richie Rich / Kung Fu Panda
Date: 2011
Publisher: Kidzoic / Ape Entertainment
Writer: Jason M. Burns, Quinn Johnson
Artist: Tina Francisco, Dario Mazarra, Chris Houghton
Colorist: Dustin Evans, CV Design, Diego Rodriguez
Letterer: David Hedgecock
Cover: Jack Lawrence, Rolando Mallada

Flip book from the 2011 Free Comic Book Day offerings.

The first Kung Fu Panda story starts out too wordy (even for the character in question!). Tigress has been poisoned by bandits and it's up to Po to travel through a series of dangerous locations (one was actually named "The Canyon You Should Never Cross"!) and defeat a seemingly invulnerable armored pangolin in order to retrieve the antidote. Introductory sequence was weak, but it got better once the action got going. The second Kung Fu Panda story was wordless (much relief after the first story!) and showed the whole team of animal warriors in action. Cute, fun little story.

Flip the book over and you have Richie Rich trying to prevent a (generic) villain from setting off a volcanic eruption that threatens to destroy the beach where Richie Rich and his companions are trying to enjoy their vacation. Fairly simple and straightforward story that lacked some of the flavor that old Richie Rich comics have).

Rating: 5.5/10