Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Release Date: August 28, 2018
Price: $9.99
Creator: Dana Simpson
Format: 176 pgs., Full-Color, Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4494-9595-4
Age Rating: 8-12 years
ICv2 Rating: 4 Stars out of 5
Ozy and Millie is by Dana Simpson, the creator of the wildly popular Phoebe and Her Unicorn books, but it has a somewhat different sense of humor. Although it’s a funny-animal comic about two foxes who are in fifth grade, it’s closer to Peanuts than Phoebe and her Unicorn, in that much of the humor comes from the incongruity of little kids saying adult things. There’s absolutely nothing in here that is not suitable for children, it’s just that some of the gags are likely to go right over their heads, because of either the vocabulary or the allusions.
Most of the humor in the comic comes from the chemistry between the two characters. Millie is a precociously smart girl fox who wears overalls and has a philosophical bent; Ozy, who wears a top hat and a vest, is equally smart but more laid-back, and he often deflates Millie’s more highfalootin’ flights of fancy. His adoptive father, a dragon, is one of the funniest characters in the book, a delightful combination of fearsomeness and pure dad-ness. The other side characters include Millie’s mom, who takes everything in stride, a bullying rabbit, a mean-girl lamb, and a raccoon who desperately wants to be cool.
Ozy and Millie started out as a webcomic, and it ran for 10 years online; the paperback is a compilation of Simpson’s favorite strips. This is the first time they have been presented in color, and as with most of Andrews McMeel’s comic strip compilations, there’s one four-panel strip per page. This is a nice way to present them as the strips have room to breathe.
The cuteness of the animals and the fact that it’s by Simpson will make this book tempting for kids, but it’s a good pick for teens and adults as well—especially as some of the latter may have been fans of the webcomic back in the day.
--Brigid Alverson