Adventures in Cartooning (Adventures in Cartooning #1)

Simple cartooning basics offered after the story are quite appealing; even the most reluctant artist may be inspired to pick up a pencil and give it a shot. Entertaining and surprisingly edifying. 

As a straight-up graphic adventure, it may be the best of the year.

Gr 2-6 The young princess, thought to be ensconced in a tower, is missing. A "BRAVE and EAGER knight" and his less-than-fearless horse Edward learn that she has been abducted by a dragon and remains captive on Dragon Island. Assisted by the Magic Cartooning Elf, the knight goes in search of her. In this story within a story, the princess learns how to create her own cartoon. Basic principles of creating comics are taught by context, inference, and direct instruction. The humor, action, adventure, and charming characters hold readers' attention and draw them into a fantasy world of a candy-consuming dragon and knights who have been turned into vegetables. Readers learn about the uses of panels, the importance of words, and placement of thought balloons. Each tutorial panel contains clever and inventive touches that illustrate the capabilities of the format. The progression of the pink gum bubble on the first four pages is a classic. At the conclusion of this delightful tale, cartooning basics such as panels, gutters, tiers, word balloons, depiction of emotion, and movement are explained in an organized and straightforward fashion. This is a volume for kids who love comics, who enjoy an adventure filled with action and humor, are natural-born artists, or who aspire to become comic-book creators. A surefire hit." Barbara M. Moon, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Created by the Center for Cartoon Studies' director and two of his former students, this how-to-make-comics book for young readers takes a couple of unusual tacks. For one thing, it skips the usual rudiments of how to draw in favor of explaining the formal characteristics of comics: panels, balloons, lettering and so on. For another, it doubles as a story about a knight on a quest for a bubblegum chewing dragon, and the magic elf who teaches the knight all about the joy of cartooning. It's a cute premise, and the art's simple, bold brushstrokes and flat colors are zippy and fun. Sturm and company even sneak in a few comics in-jokes (when several characters fall into water, the elf exclaims I guess this would be called a SPLASH panel!). Unfortunately, the plot and the tutorial material repeatedly stumble over each other: the goofy twists in the story occasionally have a bit of instruction shoehorned in, but more often don't serve any educational purpose or simply seem like the result of stream-of-consciousness jam cartooning. And kids looking for cartooning guidance may be frustrated to find that the book takes its readers' ability to draw expressively for granted. "(Apr.)"

Copyright 2009 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.

"This is a volume for kids who love comics, who enjoy an adventure filled with action and humor, are natural-born artists, or who aspire to become comic-book creators. A surefire hit." —School Library Journal, Starred Review

"For anyone who loves comics, would like to make comics or wants to know what makes them work, these two titles, beautifully designed in paperback editions with French flaps, supply a great deal of insight. Adventures in Cartooning, disarming in its simplicity, at first appears to be aimed at the beginner. And certainly it has much to offer novices in terms of both textual and visual vocabulary and even baseline drawing instruction. But the book also suggests the many uses for comics, from entertainment to education. A princess who believes she "just can't draw well enough to make a comic!!!" inadvertently summons a Magic Cartooning Elf, who resembles a flying leprechaun and helps her build confidence through simple instruction. The elf explains the importance of panels (their size and pacing), speech balloons (as well as their content's type size and boldface) and the climactic plot twist; step-by-step drawing instructions appear at the end. Even seasoned comics readers may more fully appreciate the work of their favorite creators after reading this book." —Shelf Awareness