PX! Book One: A Girl and Her Panda

by Manny Trembley, Manny (Trembley)

PX! is the story of a young girl named Dahlia who -- with the help of her giant and trusty Panda sidekick -- sets off on an epic journey around the globe to save her missing father. Unbeknownst to our heroes, Dad has been kidnapped by Pollo -- an evil goat mastermind bent on taking over the world, and it's only a matter of time before Pollo's twisted machinations will be unleashed. Paths will be crossed, alliances will be formed and ninjas will be punched. Will this unlikely band of misfits be able to stop Pollo in time, or is it already too late for Dahlia's dad -- and the world?

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics

162 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2007

About the author

Author, illustrator, father, and husband, Manny Trembley is a graphic designer for a game design company who spends his free time making graphic novels.

Manny has successfully funded 4 Kickstarter campaigns: Martin Monsterman, RGB, Under Where?, and Victoria Jr.

Before moving to self-publishing, Manny has co-produced "PX! Book One - A Girl and Her Panda", "PX! Book Two - In the Service of the Queen", "Sam Noir: Samurai Detective", and Sam Noir: Ronin Holiday" for Image Comics.

Reviews

[Violet Perry (Just a Bookish Blog) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm... I don't really know what to say. It wasn't exactly great, but it wasn't exactly horrible either.
What I liked the most was the vivid colors/color scheme.

[Mikey The Librarian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure this one holds up very well vs. the current comics that Image is producing in 2018. PX! Has a cool vibe for an older comic but the story seems rushed and full of dialogue filler. Not sure I’d recommend this one because even after reading volume 1 I have lite interest looking forward to reading volume 2

[Mehsi · Rating 2 out of 5]

My 4th book of my King's Day haul... and the first one that isn't a success. The story was weird and strange, the characters (well not Panda) annoying me greatly, at times I just got a headache with how the English dude chatted, and same for Wikkity. The art was gorgeous though, so that is why it is 2 stars.

[Jamar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a fun read, and I wish I could read it again and know where it’s going!

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too in love with its own quirkiness of characters to bother developing an original plot. And it has a terrible binding.

[Chriss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed PX!: A Girl and Her Panda.

The characters: a little girl named Dahlia who is about six years old and the daughter of a missing scientist; a nuclear-powered cyborg panda named Panda who was created by the missing scientist for his daughter, who rides around on its back; an anachronistic gentleman spy named Weatherby who is in Her Majesty’s Secret Service and gets so focused discussing the rules of pistol dueling that he doesn’t notice that his foe has fled; Wikkity, a hill-billy disco samurai on roller-skates who has an anti-ninja fixation; and a monomaniacal taxi-driving goat named Pollo (Spanish for ‘chicken’ and pronounced poy-yo) who has kidnapped Dahlia’s father as part of his plan for world domination.

I have a full review, with pictures, on my blog.

[trishtrash · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It's just like my momma always said... 'Wikkity... every time you punch a ninja, an angel gets its wings'."
"Your mother said What?"
"Momma said knock you out!!!"

Originally (and still) a superlative web comic, this first book details the story of Dahlia, who leaves home with her giant mechanical panda to find her father, held captive by the villainous goat, Pollo. Aided by Weatherby, an agent of the double-ought persuasion and Wikkity, the ninja hating, roller-skating disco dude, the trio battle evil robots on their quest to rescue Dahlia's dad.

The only loss is the absence of the webcomic's 'panda facts' - interesting little sidebars to every panel.

Ninjas, evil robots and giant, mechanical pandas. Words like 'good' are useless here. We have to work on a scale of 'pink' to 'whoa', with PX! achieving a solid 'unrivalled in its field'.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ha! I got the biggest kick out of this book. Yes, Kerry it was a little hard to get into, but once I did it was hilarious. The combination of a rollerskating bounty-hunter who hates ninjas, a royal secret agent hell-bent on saving the world from bad grammar, and a girl who rides a mechanical robot around town all setting out together to battle a terrorist goat - ha!!! The story is a little jumpy and disjointed at times, but I LOVED the characters.

[Candice M (tinylibrarian) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super fun, great characters and art (nice melding of manga-ish and western style graphics) BUT if you purchased this through Brodart and had it permabound (with the plastic-y cover) - BEWARE! I received it at my library yesterday, checked it out to read on the train today, and it fell apart by the time I got back to my library!

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much fun! So adorable! I hadn't read the webcomic before, but I am likely to do so now. But I picked it up, in part, for it's beautiful glossy pages.

[Kerry · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't do this one. The description of the book made it seem simple and cute, but the story is nuts and I had a hard time following it.