We make no apologies for ramping up the comic presence in our #Booky100Keepers as a lot of the books we can't bear to part with are comic collections. They're also the books that C reaches for again, and again, and again and I've lost count of how many times I've found her reading Anouk Ricard's utterly brilliant "Anna and Froga" collections.

There is a reason for that, of course. They are utterly hilarious. Imagine for a moment that someone actually made "Friends" funny, but turned Joey into a dog, Ross into a sausage-like worm, Phoebe into a cat (doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination), Rachel into a sarcastic little girl, and Chandler into a frog - and you'd be almost on the right track here.

Anouk's simple strips beat with a pulse, are beautifully observed, and (worryingly) you'll see yourself a lot in the situations and social interplay that happens between this bizarre bunch of pals. They like each other, hate each other, are complete dickholes to each other, all beautifully captured by Anouk's hugely effective comic strip props.

Like most brilliant comics that hop across the English Channel from our gallic friends, these collections make us wish we had a better grasp of French just so we could hoover up all the native language editions of the strips.

That said, the two collections in our keepers list are just awesome so we're happy to wait to see if more arrive courtesy of D & Q (hope so!)

I asked C why she loves these so much and weirdly the character who causes the most amount of tension and annoyance among the group is the character she seeks out in every strip.

Bubu is the "That Guy" character in the strip, a self-aggrandising yet completely ineffectual individual who seems to exist purely to be a thorn in the side of everyone else in the gang, yet without Bubu these stories would be nothing. For example we see him:

• Making a load of nasty cheapo home-crafted christmas gifts out of fudgcicle sticks (but eating all the fudgcicles as well, turning into a porker). 
• Dragging the gang out to his friend's restaurant, only to be served slop because his friend is sick of his freeloading
• Leaving train tickets in his suitcase on a platform, abruptly ending a day trip (and getting his case blown up by the police into the bargain)
• Bragging about his art skills (when really he's been cheating by doing a 'paint by numbers' set instead). 
• Dragging the hapless gang to a health farm that is a smidge away from a torture chamber

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).

Owchers, here's a book that sets out its stall right from the front cover with a piece of self-deprecation that is, we're pleased to say, entirely unjustified. But let's hear Elise Gravel out, as we delve into "The Worst Book Ever".

This is the quirky and very funny new book from Elise who sets herself up for a drubbing from her own character creations.

You see they're fed up with the author's lack of imagination - and stage something of a book based revolt as the story unfolds around the lack of story the characters perceive.

In fact as the characters take over, with their own sassy opinions making this an even more hilarious read than intended, the author begins to let them take the narrative in their own direction. After all, it's their book, why shouldn't they be in control? Even if they are extremely rude!

In Elise's trademark cartoony style, the tale is blissfully original, turning the world of picture books and comics inside out and upside down and also highlighting just how important it is for the characters to shine through when you're devising a story.

After all, you wouldn't want to be a character stuck in a boring book - would you?

Sum this book up in a sentence: Absolutely brilliant, you'll never read anything quite as crazy as this!

"The Worst Book Ever" by Elise Gravel is out now, published by Drawn and Quarterly (kindly supplied for review). 

Our YA / Adult Comic of the Week should definitely be kept well away from your little ones, even if they like the look of the cute character coyly peeking out of the front cover...

Our second Picture Book of the Week delivered such a whump to our hearts that we just can't stop thinking about it...

Make room for the mushroom. Time to be a fun-gi (or gal)...

One of the favourite questions we get on the blog is "I used to love comics as a kid, but I don't know where to start my child off with them" - Our Comic Book of the Week this week is definitely a fantastic place to start...

I feel a bit sorry for Charlotte and Mummy...they've had to put up with this sort of stuff for many years!

Oh dear! It's not easy being a Moomin and Moomintroll really has hit rock bottom...

From the outset it's worth pointing out we're firmly in "YA" territory here so if you've got little ones around, this one's not for them...

Our first Book of the Week this week is a comic compilation par excellence. Meet Anna and Froga and their slightly kooky friends!

Our Second Book of the Week delves into the treasure-trove archives of Tove Jansson's fantastic Moomin comics for a slice of gangsta life...