The Mighty Alice A Cul De Sac Collection3 star

 

 

Children Say the Scariest Things

By Richard Thompson
Andrews McMeel Publishing, $12.99, 128 pages

Children without a perspective make for some very insightful reading. The Mighty Alice reprints part of the Cul De Sac comic strip. Alice must deal with all of the usual childhood obstacles, as well as taking on a number of special projects, such as her brother Petey’s love life. She has to deal with high brick walls, bullying, and the adults that make life interesting whether they mean to or not. This book takes a blunt and thankfully almost objective look at childhood.

This is a great comic book. It captures the spirit of being young almost perfectly, and Thompson has a lot of fun with it. There are none of the usual “child used as perspective on adult world” jokes that tend to slow down a lot of comic strips featuring kids, and none of the pandering making it simple. It revels in the directness of most children, and Alice’s logic is brilliant and scary at the same time. Although told through an unfortunate art style, it sometimes works in the strip’s favor. This is a great book, and one you should throw at anyone feeling too nostalgic for their childhood; this will thankfully be the cure for that.

Reviewed by Jamais Jochim

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