Graphic novels | Daddy Mojo

SquirrelLock Holmes: The Pet Rock Mystery, pun, silly fun for elementary

Elementary school-age children may not know Sherlock Holmes. They certainly haven’t read the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Those young ages might’ve seen A Hard Day’s Knight, Season 1, Episode 10 of Phineas and Ferb that paid homage to The Hound of Baskervilles, but they probably didn’t catch the reference. Slightly older audiences will know Enola Holmes, which will hopefully lead them to the BBC series Sherlock, among others. But I digress…SquirrelLock Holmes: The Pet Rock Mystery is an early reader graphic novel that’s firmly locked into its core audience.

SquirrelLock Holmes: The Pet Rock Mystery is a chapter book with graphic novel sensibilities, or vice versa, and provides the silly stamina to keep up with early elementary school boys.

Look what you first and second-grade readers found…

Weirdo, uses real-life against a graphic novel setting with heart and fun

Middle school has the potential to suck. Countless variables determine if you find your people early or meander through three years of school and life. By eighth grade you’re certainly ready for high school, but is it because you hit the wall or you’re ready a bigger, more appropriate challenge? There is a lot of that in Weirdo. I also feel a lot of ‘reviewer’s remorse’ now because Weirdo has been silently judging me from my book queue for a while.

Weirdo is a ‘real’ look at changes kids have through middle school, but done with life’s learned lessons, humor, geek stuff and great art.

Heroes are weird/We are all heroes

A Blurmp in Time, continues the Catwad must-read graphic novel streak for elementary ages

A Blurmp in Time (Catwad’s Friend Blurmp #1) is kind of like Catwad, but with more fart jokes. No, that’s not it. A Blurmp in Time is about everything and nothing, and succeeds on both fronts. That’s not it either.A Blurmp in Time is not entirely devoted of fart jokes. There is one moment where Blurmp saves his friend’s bacon by passing gas; but enough about breakfast meat. Let’s back up for just a moment. Blurmp is Catwad’s best friend, inasmuch as a grumpy cat who doesn’t like anything can have something it likes.

A Blurmp in Time unhinges Catwad’s friend in a time-traveling graphic novel (that kids will want to read) for ages seven and up.

Blurmp, take home and lose me forever

Gird your loins for The Gland Factory, you’ll wish it was twice as long

Have you seen Inside Out or Inside Out 2? Both of those movies did a fabulous job in explaining emotions. They were especially effective with those complicated ones, like anxiety and jealousy. The Gland Factory: A Tour of Your Body’s Goops, Juices and Hormones is the literary sibling by another mother to those movies. This is a book that’s funny, legitimately LOL funny on so many levels that you’ll begrudgingly find yourself learning something in-between a chuckle, grin, guffaw or laugh. Author Rachel Poliquin proves that she knows her audience because The Gland Factory is sufficiently gross enough to attract upper-elementary through middle school readers.

The Gland Factory straddles the line between reference book and graphic novel in a funny, LOL, and educational way that kids will want to experience.

You’ll want to go back to your 10 YO self and read this

The Five Wolves, a graphic novel that you’ll love or won’t understand.

The Five Wolves by Peter McCarty is unlike any book we’ve seen before. It’s a wordless book, but presented at a very high level and is 285 pages long, so it’s not for the very young. The narrative is grand and has more in common with Beowulf or The Odyssey, than a graphic novel. However, one could categorize The Five Wolves as a graphic novel, albeit one that’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen. It’s also not entirely a wordless book. There are pages with words on them, but they’re pages with only words, hundreds of words, symbols or numbers with the phrases that are relevant to the story that are bolded. I tried to read The Five Wolves one time and got too frustrated with it. And while that’s not a good first impression for a book, I rebounded, took my time with The Five Wolves, looked over all of it and have a better impression.

The Five Wolves is a graphic novel that’s heavy on art an interpretation and very light on words.

You’ll love it/you’ll be confused by it

The Avengers in The Veracity Trap, a great self-aware, multi-verse story

This is a great comic book that I forgot I had read before, it’s what you might be thinking as you’re digging into The Avengers in The Veracity Trap!. The heroes on the book’s cover have their classic 60’s era appearance. Hulk’s pants are a deep-hued purple. Captain America has his wings on his cowl, evident for everyone to see. Iron Man’s mask is obvious, not melding into his suit and its colors are a very pure yellow and red. But the book’s format is larger than most graphic novels and the story breaks the fourth wall. This is an original graphic novel that old-school comic fans will embrace. It will also give next-generation fans a glimpse at seeing why these comics were so awesome, without worrying about damaging those golden age gems.

The Avengers in The Veracity Trap is a new graphic novel with a multi-verse tale and one you will want to read.

IT’s a throwback spirit in a modern day package, built to love to read

Deeply Dave: A fabulous, unusual graphic novel adventure

You have never read any book, much less a graphic novel, like Deeply Dave. It is a graphic novel, but it operates in such a unique fashion that it’s like comparing an apple to an orange. The two have one thing in common, but they are so utterly different that it does one of them a major disservice to group them close to one another. Deeply Dave is a graphic novel about a boy whose mother goes missing. She was in a spaceship, but it crashed in the bottom of the sea, and now Dave is going out there to rescue her. That’s the very basic plot, but you can throw out any ideas or preconceived notions as to how you think the story will evolve. The plot changes every five pages, with new characters, powers, locations, or secrets being disclosed that alter how others react to the Big Doom, and that is before the book’s format is taken in account.

Deeply Dave is a graphic novel that’s one of the most creative, unique and fun that we’ve read in years. It’s creative, smart and perfect for curious kids eight and up.

This graphic novel is so much fun to read

A Review of Almost Sunset: A Unique Take on Ramadan in a graphic novel

Hassan is a typical teenager in many ways. Almost Sunset is a graphic novel that follows him during that one month of the year when he’s not typical, and that’s the period of Ramadan. He’s a teen whose family respects the traditions of Ramadan and all of the sacrifices and inconveniences that accompany it. This is a graphic novel that’s not about religion, but is about the people and families that follow it. It touches on the practices of Islam, but doesn’t espouse or preach its beliefs.

Almost Sunset: A Graphic Novel takes a light hearted look at a teen during Ramadan and how it’s dealt with life’s other issues.

A teen graphic novel by any other name