Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Release Date: March 27, 2018
Price: $14.99
Creator(s): Various
Format: 208 pgs., Full-Color, 7"x9-3/4", Trade paperback
ISBN: 978-1-338-20679-1
Age Rating: 8-12
ICv2 Rating: 4 Stars out of 5
In its original incarnation, The Phoenix is a weekly children’s comic that is sold in chain stores throughout the UK. Like traditional British kids’ comics, it leans on cheeky humor, slapstick comedy, and oddball characters, but The Phoenix brings a modern, self-aware, sometimes absurdist vibe to the genre.
This is the first collected volume for the American market, and rather than simply compiling individual issues, it offers a selection of gag comics, each title in its own section, as well as a serialized sci-fi story, Trailblazers.
The humor strips are the meat of this collection. Bunny vs. Monkey, by Jamie Smart, pits an evil-villain-wannabe monkey against a blasé bunny and a really dumb pig. Every one of Monkey’s plots gets foiled by a combination of chance, Bunny’s superior intelligence, and Pig’s tendency to wander off in the wrong direction. It’s the sort of humor that both kids and adults will find funny, sometimes for different reasons, and it has already found an audience: Scholastic has published two volumes of this comic in the U.S.
Joe List’s Doug Slugman, P.I., on the other hand, has the sort of neo-Dada humor and deliberately crude art one might find in an indy comic from Fantagraphics Books or Koyama Press. It’s totally clean and kid-friendly, though, and it’s funny as hell. Squid Squad, Evil Emperor Penguin, and another Smart strip, Looshkin (about a hyperactive kitten), round out the selection, and there are also one-page gag ads for "Squid Bits."
Trailblazers, which is spread out across the book in four chapters, features a goofball team of a teen boy, a smart teen girl, a large furry creature of undetermined species, and a spherical flying robot with artificial intelligence, all careening through space as they battle against a godlike techno-creature.
Since the gag comics are all one or two pages long, this is an easy book to pick up and put down. Trailblazers is the odd one out; its earnestly realistic art sits uncomfortably next to the rounded, cartoony style of the other strips, and its longer story drags a bit by comparison. Kids will probably find it appealing, though, as it’s basically a space adventure story without the boring grownups.
The Phoenix Colossal Comics Collection would be a good pick for kids who are fans of the Spongebob Squarepants comics, James Burks’s Bird and Squirrel graphic novels, and James Kochalka’s Glorkian Warrior books. And although the cover screams "Hey Kids! Comics!" the inside has plenty of well-crafted humor for young-at-heart adults to enjoy as well.
--Brigid Alverson