Page 45 Review by Stephen
Over 300 pages of all-ages comicbook mischief with a whimsy that's witty and design that's divine. If a Young Adults graphic novel isn't lapped up by adults, then it'll be rubbish for kids. I've lapped up SCARY GODMOTHER since Sirius first published it a dozen or so years ago and most the copies sold here have been to adults for adults.
You can tell when an artist is having a ball, and the sheer exuberance of the cartooning - with its lithe, snaking forms, exotic creatures, and undead denizens positively buzzing with life - is an infectious joy. You'll meet two aristocratic vampires steeped in tradition reacting to modern amenities with varying degrees of curiosity / bewilderment; their be-spectacled son Orson with his craving for chocolate spiders; a big, multi-bug-eyed purple hairy monster who couldn't be any less scary; a walking, talking skeleton with a keen eye for fashion; Scary Godmother (or Jill Thompson herself!); and a boyish Werewolf still living in his human mother's horse-driven caravan and addicted to internet chat-room point-scoring. Like any teenager's bedroom, It's a little… musky in there!
Add to that all the Addams Family reversals of taste and an unending avalanche of Frightside punnage and it's a laugh-out-loud comedy classic, a superb present for the younger generation and a real heartwarmer for us pension-aged children. This monstrous collection with its enormously tactile embossed cover reprints everything to date that isn't in the fully painted SCARY GODMOTHER hardcover: the ACTIVITY BOOK full of recipes, mazes, crossword puzzles, word games and instructions on making comics, SCARY GODMOTHER #1-6, GHOUL'S OUT FOR SUMMER, HOLIDAY SPOOKTACULAR, BLOODY VALENTINE, WILD ABOUT HARRY #1-3, the SCARY GODMOTHER & FRIENDS ASHCAN, Six Feet South Of The Border from ACTION GIRL and a 19-page full-colour sketch section annotated by Jill herself!
Of GHOUL'S OUT FOR SUMMER I wrote:
The regular cast disperse on their various holiday activities, some more reluctantly than others. Whilst Mr. Pettibone, the skeleton, sun-bleaches himself in the desert, Hannah is forced to endure teenage love crushes at summer camp as everyone falls for the activity coordinator Jane (including an amphibious nightmare), Bug-A-Boo visits his nagging parents, Orson is shipped off to Summer Ghoul where it transpires that the most important lesson on offer is how to avoid being eaten by the Dark Master, and Scary Godmother is kidnapped and impersonated at the Witches Around The World conference.
My favourite line still comes from Chicken Little: "Is that a support beam?"
