Bringing back awesome comics from yesteryear is definitely a trend we'd love to see continuing well into 2020, as 2019 has seen some brilliant compilations coming from various comic publishers.

"Marge's Little Lulu: Working Girl" by John Stanley has been gathered together into a colossal volume presented in a gorgeous hard cover by Drawn and Quarterly.

What's really interesting for us is that this comic, hailing from the "Golden Age" of newspaper-based short-run strips and 'funnies' pull-out sections in the 1940s and 1950s over the pond in the US, would have been totally lost to us if it wasn't for a publisher taking a chance on producing an excellent collected volume like this.

So who is Little Lulu? For generations of Americans she was their equivalent to our Minnie the Minx or Beryl the Peril. A little girl who wasn't just content to play with dolls or fit to the usual feminine stereotypes. Little Lulu, along with her best buddy Tubby, liked to play with catapults, get up to all sorts of hi-jinks and definitely was not content to sit on the sidelines while the boys had all the fun.

Each of the strips here reinforces what made Little Lulu such an inspirational and favourite character, often cited by celebrities as being almost unique in popular comic strip culture at the time, emerging from an era where women in comic strips were either subservient housewives, slightly dizzy (as with Blondie) or there to be rescued by some lantern-jawed goon with a gun.


Most of the strips feel very much of the era yet their messages remain pretty timeless, and sometimes Lulu's visible frustration at the patriarchy is - sadly - all too relevant to the way the world often is today, more than 70 years after the strips first saw the light of day in Dell Magazine.

It feels somewhat ironic that the male creator of these strips had such an acute and accurate view of what it would feel like to be a 10 year old girl just wanting to join in and have fun without being subjected to discrimination and sexism. We'll slide some of the other non-politically-correct aspects of the strip under the rug, but this is a superb collection and one that had C's complete attention (and still does as it's one heck of a weighty tome, weighing in at 256 pages).

Sum this book up in a sentence: A sublime slice of awesome comic strip fun with a feminist hero who was way, way ahead of her time, created by an artist and writer with some seriously sharp observational skills.

"Little Lulu: Working Girl" by John Stanley is out now, published by Drawn and Quarterly (kindly supplied for review).

With the most exquisite alignment of the planets, and timing that is quite breathtaking, the 38th Asterix book, "Asterix and the Chieftan's Daughter" by Jean Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad steams its way into our Comic / Graphic Novel of the Week slot with absolute buttery smoothness.

I mean, we would have probably made this a book of the week regardless. Both of us love Asterix and Obelix, I grew up with the plucky Gaul and his super-strong sidekick but with the new team of Ferri and Conrad, the new books are finding a hugely appreciative audience with C, who loves them just as much (perhaps even more) than I did.

So what's in store for our gallant Gaulish heroes with this 38th book? A subject very close to home at the moment. What happens when you're living a fairly peaceful life (aside from the odd spot of Roman bashing) in your village - but soon have that peace and quiet disrupted by a new arrival?

The daughter of the famous Gaulish chieftain Vercingetorix is being hunted down by the Romans. She is Adrenalin (no really, that's her name) and like her biological namesake she's a heck of a force to be reckoned with. Having done her own bit to disrupt the mighty Roman empire, she is now on the run - and has found her way to Asterix and Obelix's home village, as her father the mighty Vercingetorex believe she'll be perfectly safe alongside a couple of potion-swilling badasses. 

As ever, we cast an envious eye over the sheer glory that is the Belgian and French comics scene. Today's comic / graphic novel of the week hails from the creative pen of Max De Radigues, a Belgian author-illustrator who has quietly been building up a colossal and well deserved highly respected reputation as a comic creator for all ages.

Though you might have seen some of his more grown-up stuff translated into English, we're delighted to see NoBrow / Flying Eye Books bringing the first of his collected Stig and Tilde adventures in translated form over the channel / Atlantic (with more to follow, SQUEEEE!)

In "Stig and Tilde: Vanisher's Island" two intrepid and adventurous twins hop on a dinghy and head to a desert island, as part of a rites of passage.

Traditionally kids would set off every summer at a certain point in their lives to spend an entire year fending for themselves.

For Stig and Tilde though, tradition has turned into a month away at a summer camp on an island - one that even has Internet! Wow!

Unfortunately for them, their journey takes an unexpected turn as they both end up locked in the under-deck of their tiny boat during a storm, and soon they end up shipwrecked on the wrong island.

An uninhabited island.

Or so they thought...

Soon though, Tilde is surprised to find a boy there, a strange boy who claims to have been stranded there years before, but as the two begin to form a close bond, Tilde realises this is no ordinary boy...

I have to stop myself from spoiling too much of this utterly fantastic graphic novel, suffice to say that right here is a prime example of how the Belgians and the French are making us look like complete amateurs over here when it comes to producing "dark" children's books.

We know full well that kids are drawn to darker stories, particularly ones where it's blatantly obvious the writer is setting out with the intention of creating something truly memorable (perhaps for some kids a bit too memorable, even C, fairly tough when it comes to dark themes, had quite a few moments where she gasped out loud reading this. "Did they really just do that in this book? WOW!")

Ultimately, in the grand tradition of other works of Belgian genius like Tintin, this is absolutely rivetting stuff from the get-go, with an original and thrumming pulse that at first recalls the stories of Arthur Ransome or Enid Blyton, but then drenches this relatively simple but utterly fantastic tale in a lovely coating of dark black, like a glorious bar of Belgian 100% chocolate (and just as addictive).

It probably sounds like we're going a bit over the top with the praise, but miss this one at your peril.

We're really hoping that all of Max's books are eventually translated (we already know a second is on the way, this time with our twins once again shipwrecked - but surrounded by wolves! Eeek!)

Move over Hilda, it's time for Stig and Tilde!

Sum this book up in a sentence: The perfect adventuresome and beautifully dark comic read, absolutely brilliant in every way and totally refreshing after a diet of sickly sweet 'kid' comics.

"Stig and Tilde: Vanishers Island" by Max De Radigues" is out now, published by NoBrow / Flying Eye Books (kindly supplied for review). 

Marvel pretty much have "Mighty Girl" all sewn up, and if you want a truly fantastic example of how much work they've put in to providing one of the most diverse and brilliantly feminist comic universes in the world, take a look at our second book of the week this week, the stunning "Powers of a Girl: 65 Marvel Women who Changed the Universe" by Lorraine Cink and Alice X. Zhang.

For a long time, C has definitely been a "Marvel" girl and has soaked up a huge number of comics from the MCU, nearly all of them featuring truly kick-ass and brilliant female characters, all of which feature in this book.

Fabulous bios written by self-confessed Marvel fangirl Lorraine Cink, with stunning new illustrations for the book by comic artist supreme Alice X. Zhang gather together a whopping roster of female Marvel superheroes you may have heard of, and a truckload you may not have (but definitely need to find out more about, trust us on this).

C's favourite characters Spider-Gwen (Ghost Spider) and Squirrel Girl are just two of the characters detailed in here, and there are brilliant sections on superhero power couples and supermoms too!

Let's take a look at a couple of spreads:

Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers. Ace pilot, kickass fighter, not to be messed with whether you're Kree or not!

Each character bio digs into their comic and movie history, and gives you tons of juicy nuggets of information about them from their nicknames to their known aliases, supporting characters and of course their superpowers.

Thor. No, not the one with the massive beergut, the cooler one!

Girls and boys will love reading about these hugely inspirational and influential characters, and there's no better way of seeing just how amazingly diverse comics have become in the last decade or so.

Make ours Marvel, nuff said!

Sum this book up a sentence: A truly stellar line-up of incredible female comic characters from the Marvel comics and movie universes, showing just how brilliant their current roster is.

"Powers of a Girl" by Lorraine Cink and Alice X. Zhang is out now, published by Studio Press / Marvel Comics (kindly supplied for review). 

Whoah, now here's something that sung out to both of us - with our dual obsession of comics AND videogames being nicely catered for in the wholly original and fantastic "Glitch" by Sarah Graley.

Sarah is something of a rising star in comics, with her previous fabulous "Kim Reaper" series already being a firm fave of C's

So what's Glitch all about?

It begins with a nerdy girl who has an utterly amazing secret - one that many videogame fans would love to experience themselves. Izzy, you see, can enter the world of her new videogame.

But not just in a virtual-reality type way, Izzy is really there - and what's more she discovers that she has an important role to play. She can save the entire population of Dungeon City from an all-powerful and nefarious monster, The Big Boss.

Izzy soon begins to find that balancing a virtual superhero life with a real mundane one isn't as easy as it sounds, particularly when you very quickly realise you're not indestructible in either world.

Maintaining her friendship with bestie Eric is even tougher too - as Eric has no idea about Izzy's dual life. But definitely knows something's amiss.

How can Izzy possibly save both Dungeon City AND her friendship? Life's tough on a nerd girl!

Straight off the bat, Sarah's brilliant observations and situational comedy merge together with a ton of gamer-girl appeal. C actually now prefers Glitch to Kim Reaper! Yipes! And we're both desperate for more stories from Izzy.

Sum this book up in a sentence: Absolutely brilliant stuff, the sort of graphic novel that really works for reluctant readers who don't want to move on from picture books, but want a bit more 'meat' to their stories.

"Glitch" by Sarah Graley is out now, published by Scholastic (kindly supplied for review). 

Rebellion have one heck of an impressive back catalogue to dive into, now that they own a sizeable chunk of the British comic industry's most treasured IP.

From the mighty world of 2000AD and beyond, and into the realms of amazing comics put out by IPC and other publishers in the 1970s and 80s, Rebellion aren't just sitting on those properties, they're letting some of the most amazingly talented comic authors and artists loose with modern interpretations of some of the best loved characters in those comics.

Though "Tammy" and "Jinty" were technically "Girls Comics" (as was Misty) I remember pinching my sister's copies whenever she bought comics instead of Sindy stuff with her pocket money, and was always surprised to find some real gems in amongst the usual 'girly' stuff (bear in mind at the time I was probably neck deep in 2000AD and completely obsessed with another mighty comic heroine, Halo Jones.

"Tammy and Jinty Special 2019" is like a glorious summer special brought bang up to date with well loved characters from both comics, given a serious splash of colour and a complete makeover at the hands of awesome comic folk like Rob Williams, Rachael Ball and the like.

Find Rocky of the Rovers (bang on trend for some amazing footie action going on in the Women's World Cup), Bella at the Bar (a story series that was a secret read and fave back as a kid), Justine, Maisie's Magic Eye and several other great strips revived and brought into the 21st century proper.

I heartily approve of this, and C devoured this collection with glee. But then asked in a timid voice "What were the original comics like? Can you still get them?" so I spent a lot of time showing her some of the existing pics and strips you can find online.

Alas she much preferred the modern makeovers, I guess 70s and 80s comic panels and lettering were a hell of a lot busier than she's used to with modern comics, but I reckon I'll convert her yet. Where's that Misty Anthology...

Sum this collection up in a sentence: A truly brilliantly concieved modern makeover for some of the greatest comic characters in 70s and 80s 'girl' comics, reimagined for a new audience brilliantly.

"Tammy and Jinty Special 2019" is available now from Rebellion Publishing (kindly supplied in digital ARC format). 

This week's Comic of the Week was the inspiration for our super-hero movie of the year last year, the superb "Into the Spider-Verse"...

Our Comic / Graphic Novel of the Week this week is a darkly delicious and potent mix of mystery, magic and suspense that centres around a creepy old house...

It looks like "The Phoenix Presents" series will once again dominate our "Comic / Graphic Novel of the Week" slot if this particular entry is anything to go by.

"Mega Robo Bros" is one of our favourite strips in the mighty Phoenix Comic. It's a strip that veers between providing blistering action-packed story arcs that take its robo-protagonists Alex and Freddy from their ordinary lives as robo schoolkids in the not-too-distant-future, to Agents of R.A.I.D, fighting for justice against a weird, wonderful and sometimes deadly range of robo-foes.

In this latest collection of stories taken from the pages of the Phoenix weekly comic, Alex and Freddy face off against their most deadly opponent yet but this isn't your ordinary everyday robot, this is Wolfram, one of the first creations of their mum, Dr Sharma. A deadly robot who is absolutely hell bent on revenge.

We won't go too far into spoiler territory, suffice to say that a certain blogger makes an appearance in this collected edition of the fantastic MRBs - and that once again we've been treated to a strip that perfectly fuses science-fiction kick-ass mecha-action with some pretty neatly observed insights into what it's like being parents to a couple of ordinary everyday young lads who just also happen to be super-powerful robots.

As this particular story arc draws to a satisfying close, rest assured that there's still plenty of action to look forward to in the weekly Phoenix comic with Mega Robo Bros - so don't be too downhearted when you reach the end of this.

It's inclusive, but not at the expense of just ticking boxes. Characters in the strip are there because they BELONG there, they work beautifully there, and danged if we wouldn't give our eye teeth to see that happen a lot more in comics (and kid's books in general, to be honest!)

With some superb new artwork (just look at that cover) this is a treat even if you do own the original strips in their comic form. We've said it quite often on the blog, Neill is a massively talented fellah and this is some of his best work yet.

C's best bit: Well obviously it's a certain cameo! It didn't go to her head though, nosirree!

Daddy's favourite bit: Once again, as ever with the MRB stuff, I just can't get enough of the dad's hang-dog expressions (usually when Freddy has destroyed something expensive yet again!)

"Mega Robo Revenge" (Mega Robo Bros Book 3) is out now, published by David Fickling Books.