Humor | Daddy Mojo

Jake Spooky and the Wolves Within Him is why kids read

There’s a 1 on the spine of Jake Spooky and the Wolves Within Him. Jake Spooky is a punk rock ghost. He’s got the surly soul of today’s teens and throws up wolves, at least in this first book does that. Jake lives with Brand-O, a cool, flip-flop-wearing human with an old-school television as his head and an upright walking cat who doesn’t speak much, named Quincy. Elementary school graphic novel readers-Are you not entertained? If a graphic novel were a character in a movie, then Jake Spooky and the Wolves Within Him is Maximus Decimus. Its absurd, playful content gleefully runs circles around other early reader, graphic novels. Amidst all of this running, it still has the bandwidth to ask an obvious question, and yes, we are.

Jake Spooky and the Wolves Within Him has the gross-out, absurd, LOL goods that can turn reluctant elementary school readers re-think their ways.

Yes, yes we are, part deux

Lost in a Book is a third wall-smashing great illustrated book, literally

Lost in a Book is easy to love. It’s easy to love being lost in a book. I have taught many students who have told me, with a glimmer of pride, they’ve never been lost in a book. Sometimes they’ll shake up that statement by saying that they don’t read books. Personally I love it when they say that because I’ll immediately say, “ignorance is nothing to be proud of” or something off the cuff that will make the class laugh and put the bully down a peg. It’s a different scene when you’re in elementary school because that is a time when your reading can shine. Ideally, it’s the time when you’ll learn to love to read, and Lost in a Book is the sort of vehicle that will accommodate that.

Lost is a Book is easy to love. It’s wordplay that revels in cartoonish delight and breaks the wall between young readers and the book.

Read it and love it

Why Kids Will Love The Mighty Bite: Hog-Rocket Ruckus

I love Phineas & Ferb. I’m convinced that a generation of scientists will reference it as a main inspiration for their endeavors and inventions. I also enjoy Ren & Stimpy. What if the former had a tiny sprinkle of the rudeness and over-the-top insanity of the latter? The Mighty Bite: Hog-Rocket Ruckus is the graphic novel representation of this idea. It’s incredibly smart. It’s also incredibly silly. At times, it’s just a little bit rude and noisy, but never enough to make parents or librarians lower their brows. Hog-Rocket Ruckus is the second book in The Mighty Bite book series that we’ve read, and the third overall. There’s something about Hog-Rocket Ruckus that will speak to some upper-elementary and older readers.

The Mighty Bite: Hot-Rocket Ruckus is slapstick silly, but also very intelligent, in this graphic novel series that speaks to audiences via flying pigs and viral videos.

Unique, awesome, funny, entertaining for mid-elementary up

The Mad Files Review: Nostalgia and Humor Explored

I bought a Mad Magazine at our local comic book store a couple of years ago. As a teenager, back in the early-to-mid 80’s, I read Mad Magazine quite often. My friends and I would sleep over, share our monthly copies, bring the Mad paperback books we’d collected, read silently and occasionally repeat one of the jokes aloud. My favorite flip-flopped between the art by Sergio Aragones, Spy Vs. Spy, and the Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions segments. If The Mad Files: Writers and Cartoonists on the Magazine that Warped America’s Brain! had a song that played along while you were reading it would be Little River Band and Reminiscing.

The Mad Files, a collection of funny and thought-provoking essays about the genius irreverence of Mad Magazine brings back good love.

Take an essay-bourne trip down Mad Magazine Memory lane

Are You Gonna Eat That?, minimalist cartooning at its best

Sublime. If you wanted to make lots of money, and if such an index fund actually existed, I would invest in the patent that manufactures Sublime t-shirts. To a lesser extent, it would also include Nirvana and the Rolling Stones, but by the grace of the ska gods, they seem to be the most prevalent. You can walk into any middle or high school across America on any given day and see at least a dozen Sublime t-shirts. For a band whose posthumous career has exceeded their actual record-producing years by about 10:1, their ability to stay in the teen mainstream eye is stunning. I tried teaching sublime as an adjective to describe humor the other day to a class and the lesson took off like a lead balloon. Are You Gonna Eat That? is sublime, minimalist comic art at its best. It’s a compendium from The Essential Collection of They Can Talk Comics by Jimmy Craig and is just on this side of voodoo from capturing the soul of animals.

The hilarity and joy of dry, sublime humor in comic strip form

Dog Man and Cat Kid is the stuff that makes elementary kids feline fine

The world of elementary school readers let out a big sigh of relief when Dav Pilkey followed up Captain Underpants with Dog Man. The two titles are quite different, but they both speak to elementary school boys like no other title out there. Dog Man and Cat Kid is the fourth book in the series and continue the half superhero, half police-dog adventures with more costumes, robots and Petey.

Continue reading Dog Man and Cat Kid is the stuff that makes elementary kids feline fine

Big Nate: Revenge of the Cream Puffs, classic comic gets better

Growing up, the comic strips in our daily newspaper were our go-to source for laughter. Big Nate has been in that mix since 1991. Comic strips, especially ones that are legitimately funny are a rare breed and to have one that’s celebrating its 25 anniversary is a true unicorn. What makes Big Nate special is that the character is immediately seen as a peer to kids as young at elementary school, yet makes adults laugh with as much, if not more. Big Nate Revenge of the Cream Puffs is the 23^rd book that collects strips from this classic and continuing to improve comics.

Continue reading Big Nate: Revenge of the Cream Puffs, classic comic gets better

Got a funny mess? The Clorox Ick Awards: #Ickies 4/9, 6-10PM ET #SP

Prior to being a dad the biggest mess I experienced were the ones that I made, so they didn’t seem that big. My car or house may have been unsightly-and it might’ve reduced the number of dates that I had, but that was it. Clorox is working with How to be a Dad for an online event all about messes that is part twitter party, video improv and$2,500 in prizes.

Continue reading Got a funny mess? The Clorox Ick Awards: #Ickies 4/9, 6-10PM ET #SP