Turning conventions on their heads has always been the convention of some comic artists, and in the past decade or so this has led to something of a mini-Renaissance in kidlit, with comics designed for younger and younger audiences making big inroads among readers, with huge support from librarians and educators looking for new ways to encourage kids to read. We saw this happening a lot in the last decade-plus with series like Bone (which Scholastic picked up and ran with in 1995) and more recent successes like Owly, and Kids Can Press and others have been making a big push to publish serious, story-driven comics for middle-grade readers.

So Toon Books can be forgiven for claiming to be the "first high-quality comics for kids ages four and up" (what about Regis Faller's brilliant runaway Polo series, with four books published and two more planned for later this year?). I'm probably so willing to forgive them that because they are investing so passionately in what is clearly a particular view on comic culture than a simple commitment to low-vocabulary sequential art. Toon Books are funny, downright silly, with pratfalls and punchlines and billboard-size over-reactive expressions - many of these books feel they could have been serialized in 1940s newspapers, if preschoolers ran the world. They also corral a huge variety of talents into their publishing house, produce really gorgeous and well-made books, and are taking the promotion of comics for kids very seriously.

We were fortunate enough to sample a few of their titles, and picked Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons, Luke on the Loose, and Jack and the Box.

Looking at their current and planned titles, it's probably even unfair for me to make the generalizations I have above. They are taking work from a variety of great comic artists and each brings their own style and sensibility to the project. Some, like Luke on the Loose, feel very contemporary - in its drawing style, use of perspective and depiction of the landscape, and in the way it deploys its humor (while Luke tugs at his kiddy leash, dads speak in hushed "blah blah blah"s); others, like Jack and the Box, are heavily strip-oriented, with every one or two spreads leading to an overstated punchline.


Z enjoyed all three of the titles we sampled, and our take on this series is that you probably can't go wholly wrong with any Toon Book on offer; I see a few more I'd really like to buy, like Mo and Jo: Fighting Together Forever (in which two superpowered siblings fight), and Little Mouse Gets Ready, which showcases' artist Jeff Smith's graceful yet hyper-cute style.


And for what it's worth, Z finds Silly Lilly to be hi-larious.