The last two installments of Comics for Manga Lovers have focused on decidedly grown-up series, from Jacamon and Matz’s gritty assassin drama The Killer to Bill Willingham’s not-so-Grimm Fables. This month I focus on two series more appropriate for the Gon and Sgt. Frog fans in your household: Korgi and Essex County. Given the intended audience for these books, I have devoted attention to a few details that normally escape mention in my typical reviews—such as violent imagery and off-color language—in the hopes of helping parents make informed decisions about buying these books for younger readers.

Korgi, Volume 1: Sprouting Wings!

By Christian Slade
Top Shelf Productions, 80 pp.

Recommended age: All ages
Objectionable language or imagery: None

Christian Slade’s Korgi is visual stortytelling at its purest, told without dialogue or narration. Korgi focuses on a young girl, Ivy, and her devoted canine pal, Sprout. The two live in Korgi Hollow, a Shire-like community of elfin folk (otherwise known as Mollies) who inhabit thatched tree houses and work side by side with enormous herding dogs. When Sprout wanders away from the field where his mistress is picking fruit, Ivy sets out to find him. The two fall down a hole, initiating a series of adventures that will test their courage, resourcefulness, and loyalty to each other as they struggle to outwit hungry critters.

It’s a classic children’s plotline: child leaves home—by accident or by design—then struggles to find her way back, growing and changing in the process. What prevents Korgi from feeling like a retread of similar tales are Slade’s beautiful black and white illustrations. He has a marvelous eye for detail, as is evident in his characters’ facial expressions; Sprout and mistress alike register a nuanced range of emotions from astonishment, fear, and wonder to devotion and relief. Slade’s meticulous rendering of Sprout offers further proof of his consummate skill as an illustrator. Though Sprout hasn’t been anthropomorphosized into a talking sidekick or human surrogate, he is nonetheless a compelling character, albeit one who remains true to his corgi nature, solving problems according to the laws of canine physics and psychology.

Children will enjoy constructing their own story from Slade’s gorgeous, dynamic images, while adults will appreciate the artwork and sincerity of the story. (Read: no snarky pop-culture jokes sending up Cops or American Idol.) The imagery and storyline can truly accomodate a range of readers; any little one who can handle “The Three Billygoats” or “Beauty and the Beast” will navigate the few potentially scary scenes with flying colors. And it almost goes without saying that anyone who TiVo’ed the Herding Dog Group at this year’s Westminster Dog Show would also enjoy Korgi.

Korgi, Volume 1: Sprouting Wings is now available. A special Korgi story will be included in Top Shelf’s Free Comic Book Day giveaway, which will be distributed on May 5th. This review was based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.

Essex County Volume 1: Tales from the Farm

By Jeff Lemire
Top Shelf Productions, 112 pp.

Recommended Age: 12 and up
Objectionable language or imagery: There are no violent or sexual images in this story. There are several scenes with swearing, but it’s nothing your tweenager hasn’t already heard (or probably used) on the playground.

Jeff Lemire’s Essex County, Volume 1: Tales from the Farm is a deceptively simple story about Lester, a ten-year-old orphan, who is struggling to adjust to life on his Uncle Ken’s farm in rural Ontario. Still reeling from his mother’s recent death from cancer, Lester has retreated into a fantasy world of superheroes: he dons a cape and mask, fantasizes about an impending alien invasion, and creates his very own comic book. Uncle Ken, a decent, hard-working man, is bewildered by Lester’s superhero affectation, while Lester finds his uncle a formidable and inaccessible figure, despite Ken’s repeated overtures of friendship.

In Jim LeBeuf, a slightly eccentric gas-station owner and one-time pro hockey player, Lester finds a surrogate father. Jim shares Lester’s affection for comics, and cheerfully indulges the boy by helping him build a fort and regaling Lester with tales of a one-day career with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Lester eventually musters the courage to show Jim his comic, “Heroes and Villains.” This scene—one of the best in the book—is both touching and hilarious. In Lester’s awkward body language and shy explanation of the premise, we can see how desperately he craves validation from the one adult likely to see merit in “Heroes and Villains.” The comic itself is a hoot. The simple, unshaded drawings, cartoonish dialogue, childish lettering, phonetic spellings, and cornpone character names are so convincing that I wonder if Lemire simply inserted an actual art project from his childhood.

I initially thought Lester was too old to be running around in a mask and cape–he’s ridiculed by classmates for wearing it to school and chided by Uncle Ken for wearing it while doing chores–but as his backstory unfolds, the device seemed more plausible. I also wasn’t 100% sold on Lemire’s portrayal of Jim LeBeuf, who sometimes felt a bit too much like Harper Lee’s more famous man-child Boo Radley. By and large, however, I found Tales from the Farm an emotionally honest book, free of mawkish sentiment or hokey homilies. Lemire has a great ear for dialogue, capturing his characters’s voices in language as vivid as his bold, rough-hewn images. The Bleach fan in your house may not warm to Lemire’s art, but I suspect he will recognize a bit of himself in Lester, especially if he’s ever been taunted by classmates for harboring a “babyish” interest in a childhood pastime.

Essex County Volume One: Tales from the Farm is now available. Volume Two: Ghost Stories arrives in stores in September. This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.

COMICS FOR MANGA LOVERS INDEX
Comics for Manga Lovers: January 2007 (Mouse Guard, The Killer, Okko, Robotika)
Comics for Manga Lovers: November 2006 (Daughters of the Dragon, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall)