Jack and the Box

by Art Spiegelman
Toon Books 2008

Earlier this year when the first batch of Toon titles came out I was less than enthused. The problem as I saw it then was that the titles seemed little more than traditional comic book fare with expensive paper, better printing, and hard covers. I couldn't reconcile the content with the cost and felt that they were best suited for libraries who would do well with studier bindings, not with the general consumer (picture book readers) who would tire of the titles quickly.

Now with the second round of releases I'm finding this less to be the case, but its book specific. Spiegelman's Jack and the Box isn't merely " a first COMIC for brand-new readers" as it says on the cover, it's actually a subtle and sophisticated tool that helps introduce readers to the concepts in reading and understanding comics. It is a primer on comic literacy at the simplest level, and clever. I doubt Spiegelman could have delivered anything less.

The book opens simply enough with a single illustration of Jack (Rabbit) being given a new toy. Two simple word balloons establish the order of both reading left-to-right and lead the viewer's eyes to follow the action accordingly. With a flip of the page we are now presented with a double page spread of four equal sized panels. There's the conflict of the first panel (Jack can't open it), the tension in the second panel (watching the box, waiting for something to happen), the action in the third panel (a clown pops out of the box, jack-in-the-box style, scaring Jack), and a punchline in the fourth panel ("Ha ha!" "What a silly toy!"). With a few words and some simple pictures a first encounter with a jack-in-the-box is turned into the core joke on which all future variations will be built. Since humor is generally derived from the unexpected turn, from the deviation from what is expected or established, Spiegelman can now train young comic readers to learn how to read for visual cues and verbal repetition. It's a winning combination and, to the casual reader, a subtle lesson in how to read comics.

Jack now has a series of comic adventures with the toy, each four panels across the spreads, built on the idea of an uncooperative toy and its unexpected behavior. We've been told it is a very silly toy so we aren't surprised to see it talk back or misbehave. There's the slightest hint of Cat in the Hat style mischief, and a sense of a child's play world being realistic to the child but confusing to adults, which adds another layer to the book. As the comic stories add and build, and the chaos grows, there is a need for release at the end that comes in Jack explaining all that has transpired to his curious parents, the denouement so to speak. Order is restored, and Jack now safely has mastered the silly toy the same way the reader has mastered the complexities of a comic narrative.

While there are other books out there for the picture book crowd that work within the comic framework (Regis Faller's Polo books, for example) there are few that work this hard, this effortlessly to train readers to the art of comic literacy. I hope that Toon continues to build off this lesson with their other titles.

A Couple of Toon Books

Benny and Penny in Just Pretend
by Geoffrey Hayes

Otto's Orange Day
written by Jay Lynch
illustrated by Frank Cammuso

Toon Books/RAW Junior 2007

In a word: Disappointing.

The first releases in a new imprint from he editorial team of Francoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman are probably best described as comic books packaged as graphic novels for the younger set. If they didn't have such a high pedigree (Spiegelman's Maus being royalty among American graphic novels) I would almost call them cynical and calculated in their attempt to cash in on the current interest in sequential storytelling art for children.

Otto is a cute kid/kit who has a thing for the color orange When his aunt sends him an orange lamp she found he finds himself the owner of a genie who grants his single wish to turn everything in the world orange. Very quickly the downside of his wish becomes apparent when orange lamb chops don't taste so good and orange traffic lights cause accidents. Unable to retract his wish, Otto and his aunt manage to trick the Genie into correcting the problem by treating him nice and appealing to his centuries-old hunger.

With Benny and Penny we have a typical sibling problem of learning how to lay together. Benny the elder of the two is looking to play pirate but when his younger princess-dressed sister wants to join in Benny resists. Forced to play with her sister Benny convinces his sister to play hide-and-seek so he can hide her away and deliberately not find her. After a while he realizes it's not as much fun to play alone and after a scary moment where he's afraid his sister is lost Penny reappears and they continue to play together.

As comic books for emerging readers, these are fine. The problem I have is that they don't aspire to be anything more than comic book material, and to that end I find it hard to understand how they can justify their packaging and price. $12.95 is a bit steep when you can hit the comic book store and find similarly appropriate (and ultimately disposable) material -- albeit produced by a TV network and filled with ads -- for one third the price. Even if you wanted to go with higher quality you can find reprinted Mickey Mouse comic books at two-thirds the price and double or triple the pages without ads.

There is very little in content that separates these comics from similar age-appropriate material in I-Can-Read series titles. If the intention of the books from this imprint are to give comic books a viability in traditional book marketplace, to pull them from the ghetto of the den of the comic book stores that might mystify adults looking for quality comic material for their children, then adjustments will need to be made.

It's disappointing because where Mouly and Spieglman have the resources and connections to bring known comic creators before younger audiences this enterprise has the feel of bandwagoning profiteers.