By Mark Bradley
Hodder Children’s Books
In our wee Indy bookshop we’re always on the look-out for new reading to excite many of our younger regulars looking for recommendations. We’ve had a lot of success with graphic novels for kids, rather satisfyingly this success is both with regular readers and also some kids who are reluctant readers, or have problems with reading. Dav Pilkey‘s Dog Man series and Jamie Smart‘s fabulous Bunny Vs Monkey series from the Phoenix comic have proven particularly popular, alongside evergreen classics like Tintin, Blake and Mortimer and Asterix. I think after reading the first of Mark Bradley‘s Bumble & Snug books, I can safely add them to this list, because we’re going to be recommending the heck out of this one.
For those who haven’t encountered them before on Mark’s Tumblr site, Bumble and Snug are bestest friends, and a kind of monster called a Bugpop, living in Bugpopolis (population 8,504,028, with 5,867 hat shops) – there’s a handy map at the start showing the city, the nearby She Sells Seashells Shore Bay, Mercreature Lake, the Forest of Unicorns, Vampire Castle, Dragon Caves and Sleeping Giant Mountains. Bumble and Snug live at 18 Hijinks Row, and are forever getting into all sorts of fun-filled adventures.
Bumble (the blue Bugpop) is very excitable, she loves noises, constantly trying new things and making friends. She’s “50% enthusiasm, 50% energy”, and can change her size and shape. Snug is a bit more thoughtful, being “33% kindness, 33% caring and 33% brains”, loves supporting and helping others, especially his friends, and his favourite place is the library. Between the two of them, they get themselves into some wonderful amounts of trouble, then back out of it by working together.
The togetherness theme is pretty central here, mostly seen through Bumble and Snug’s friendship, but also in the way the interact with the others they meet, even a bunch of seemingly dangerous pirates – there’s a lovely subtext here about understanding others, being patient with them and trying to be kind and supportive, all qualities I think we want our little readers to grow up with. Story-wise, we have enormously fun and enjoyable adventure, as the pair go off for a picnic which goes wrong, seeing them stranded on an island, finding hidden pirate treasure (X marking the spot, of course!), then having to deal with the furious pirates and a rather upset sea monster too.
Honestly, adventure, pirates, treasure, an angry giant octopus, picnics, balloons, glitter and ice-cream, I mean what more do you need in a story?!?!?! I laughed throughout Bumble and Snug – it cracks along at a terrific pace, throwing in some lovely gags and visuals (to reach their chosen picnic site Bumble blows herself up to giant balloon size to float them there) constantly, at just the right tempo to keep young minds happily occupied and engaged, and it’s wonderfully funny throughout, with a lovely, clear, uncluttered but very effective art style (the facial expressions especially work, and often cracked me up on their own).
This is an absolutely joyous delight to read, for kids and for adults who still know how to speak to their inner child, it will entertain them, make them laugh, and as a bonus it weaves in lessons about friendship and compassion and dealing with emotions too. In fact it comes with little extras talking about understanding feelings, as well as neat little guides to how to draw your own Bugpops and make your own comics pages (and if there is one thing most kids I know love even more than reading a good comic, it’s feeling inspired to draw their own).
I’m highly recommending this to anyone with young readers looking for their next comics fix.
Joe Gordon
• Bumble & Snug and the Angry Pirates by Mark Bradley is available from all good bookshops, such as, for example, the Edinburgh Book Shop | ISBN 978-1444958034 | AmazonUK (Affiliate Link)
• Follow Mark Bradley on Tumblr | Twitter
Joe has been a bookseller since the early 1990s, with a special love for comics, graphic novels and science fiction. He has written for The Alien Online, created & edited the Forbidden Planet Blog and chaired numerous events for the Edinburgh International Book Festival. He’s more or less house-trained.
Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Books, British Comics - Graphic Novels, Comics, Features, Reviews
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