Кролли

by Robert Goodin

Потерявшись в лесу во время загородной поездки, маленькая плюшевая медведица Салли отчаянно пытается найти дорогу домой. Во время своих опасных странствий она набредает на местечко под названием Кролльтон, где живут очень странные, ни на кого не похожие, но в общем-то добрые существа. Получив от новых знакомых обещание вывести ее к шоссе, Салли благодарит их за помощь, но тут же узнает, что на самом деле помощь нужна им.
Об авторе. Профессиональная карьера Роберта Гудина очень разнообразна. Он зарабатывает на жизнь, трудясь в сфере анимации. Ему довелось участвовать в создании таких популярных мультфильмов и аниме-сериалов, как "Дакмен", "Дикая семейка Торнберри", "Как говорит Джинджер", а в данный момент он работает над сериалом "Американский папаша"… По вечерам и в выходные дни он предается своей страсти - созданию комиксов. Среди его бесподобных творений в этой сфере есть такие, как "Человек, который любил груди" и "Бинибус Барнабус"… Также он пишет рассказы, публиковавшиеся в антологиях Mome, Project: Romantic и Bile Noire… Иногда он рисует иллюстрации для толстых журналов вроде McSweeney's Quartely Concern и Criterion Collection. Он живет в Лос-Анджелесе со своей женой Джорджиной и воспитывает двух собак - Иджет и Тостера.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fantasy, Childrens, Middle Grade, Animals, Graphic Novels Comics

60 pages, Hardcover

First published April 8, 2015

About the author

By day, Robert Goodin works in the animation industry (American Dad, Rugrats). By night, and on lunch breaks, he’s a comics artist/illustrator whose work has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Mome, and Project: Romantic. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Georgene.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

thank you to greg for buying me a book!! and such a fun, cute, weird book!!

the illustrations are wonderful:



and i loved the story as well.

sally the bear is owned by a real pill of a child



who throws her out of the car window and into the mud while tantruming



where she is captured by this giant bird!



she escapes using the "hit with stick" method

but then falls into MORE mud and is nearly captured by ANOTHER creature.

but no means no



and if no doesn't work, grab a rock.

sally is prevented from braining that puppy by a bizarre assortment of creatures.



a greaser unicorn named hank



pentapus the … pentapus. who changes colors and has a neat hat



and phineas who is maybe a scarecrow? or is maybe just a guy with a scarecrow hat and a triangle nose. it doesn't really matter.



sally wants to go back home (although why is beyond me), but this little group is having their own problem right now. they promise to help her out after their crisis is averted, and off they go to their home.

and that's where i stop telling you anything about the story, because it needs to be seen by your own two eyes. or one, if you've had an accident.

it's definitely not something i have ever encountered in a graphic novel before, and the solution to the problem cracked me up and was, as miriam notes, trippy.

one thing to note:



no, kid - THIS is how voice your desire for a giraffe without having a tantrum over it, jenny lawson-style

a wonderful present, and a super-fun book. i would love more adventures in this world.

come to my blog!

[Raina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rejected teddy bear finds a new home in the forest - which happens to be infested with hair.

Yeah, it's a little kooky. But this charming story is lushly illustrated and accessible. The provenance of the main characters isn't clear, but they quickly found their way into my heart. There is darkness here, but hope too.

Loved the full color illustrations, variance of panels, and large format of this edition. Great endpapers.

The main thing missing is length. We need more stories from this world!
In a time when some of us want to reject human society and run for the woods, this is a welcome story.
Masterful.

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but odd. No complaints about the oddness of the story/characters, but the pacing - well, not pacing exactly. This felt like a middle book in a series where I was meant to be familiar with this world and its inhabitants already.

[Maricruz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Precioso dibujo, coloreado con acuarelas por el autor. Una historia muy sencillita que parece un cuento infantil, pero con un no sé qué que contradice esa impresión (el unicornio que parece un rockero sexy, eso debe de ser, jaja). Espero que haya más aventuras de los Kurdles, y mi hijo lo espera aun más.

[Farel Dalrymple · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved this beautiful comic. an exquisitely told children's story in glorious watercolor on damn fine paper in the hardcover format. i am eagerly awaiting the next volume.

[Seth T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books for kids are a great idea. Comics for kids are probably even better. Highly debatable statements, ahoy. I will say this: while I was a voracious reader as a kid, quality comics were the best thing I could imagine. By fifth grade I was reading War of the Worlds, Dante’s Inferno, and The Odyssey (none of which were assigned reading), but my true love lay in memories of sitting on the floor in bookstores in second grade reading Tintin in Tibet and Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge. I never for one minute imagined that reading comics was some sort of gateway to reading better material. For one, I wasn’t naive. But for another, really I couldn’t imagine something better than the artful blend of text and illustration.[1] Comics are as much perfect for kids as they are for adults. And today, there are so many choices. For every kid, there’s going to be at least one perfect comic out there.

And that variety is one of the things I love. You’ve got the buoyant, adventurous danger of Zita the Spacegirl . There’s the epic and comic longform story of Bone . The whimsy of Hildafolk . The heroing of Leave It to Chance. The excitement for exploration and scientific discovery of Primates . The precious, friendly warmth of Owly . The deaths, murders, and horrors of Tezuka’s Twin Knights. The fanciful investigation of Japanese history in Usagi Yojimbo . Again, something worthwhile for everybody.[2]

The things children’s comics creators will do with their characters are always especially interesting. Generally, there’s some sense that the builders of these fictional realms are emphasizing particular kinds of things because they either think readers will benefit from the focus or because they think readers will find some sort of resonance with the world and characters that appear. In my own children’s book, I feature an unflappable, joyful, immortal girl who knows no sense of danger and encounters terrible terrors (like volcanoes and tsunamis and tigers) as opportunities for play—because I want kids to feel wonder and the magic of living through someone who is blissfully unaware of the trials of real-world living. Robert Goodin, in The Kurdles, aims for something very different by proposing characters who are sometimes sarcastic, sometimes reactive, sometimes clever, sometimes grumpy, and sometimes chill and helpful. And because kids can probably relate to all of that,[3] it works great.


[Stone cold]

Sally is a bear, a stuffed children’s toy. Abandoned on the roadside on a muddy, rainy night. She’s got a right to a cynical view on life. She fends off predators with a stick and nearly bashes a dog in the head with a stone before discovering he’s friendly. She regrets it but is more defensive than effusive in her apology. She’s almost even self-justifying. I loved that—it struck me as believable, even if not laudable. But who looks to literature for laudability? She then wavers between helpful, sarcastic, afraid, philosophical, and compassionate. I at all times felt a kind of verisimilitude in these characters. Even though Sally’s a teddy bear and Hank is a unicorn with stubble and Phineas is a scarecrow (probably) and Pentapus is… something else. These were characters I could believe in because I’ve met them.


[The remorse here is palpable]

Goodin’s illustrations are pretty and his colour choices are great. I don’t know if he paints digitally or with traditional watercolours, but in either case he gets mood and time of day right. Check out this full-pager of some night doings:



There’s this hazy, low-saturation vibe that extends throughout. I’m always a bit envious of artists who can pull that off and make it look good (my own work is all about bright bright colours because that’s where I’m comfortable). Goodin also performs these subtle colour changes (such as with Pentapus) that at first look like mistakes until you realize they’re intentional—and that was a pretty exciting moment for me.



The writing’s nice. A bit deadpan. It’s got that dry sense that will be funny to some but doesn’t destroy the flow for those who aren’t in on the joke. The kind of stuff that astute kids will pick up on and enjoy and the kind that will amuse parents whose kids still want them reading aloud. I don’t know whether your kid will love The Kurdles or not. (That gets back to there being the perfect comic for every kid and every kid being their own thing.) But it’s a good book and I recommend checking it out. It’s pegged at ages 6–9, but my 3- and 6-year-olds were amused by it.


_______

[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad.]
_______

Footnotes
1) Note: it’s unlikely that I composed my thoughts about comics in quite that sense in fifth grade.

2) The idea that there are great comics out there for every kind of reader is part of the raison d’etre for Good Ok Bad.

3) It’s a pretty fair description of my own children, if we throw in sometimes funny and sometimes sweeter than anything you’ve ever encountered.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. I didn't love it, but I liked it. At one point (I do not remember where I was in the book), I found myself thinking, "Wait, this shouldn't be in the children's area; it should be cataloged for adults." I went so far as to check another library system's catalog to see where they had it. And then I re-read the page I was on and could not figure out why it was so un-childish, but the impression remained.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

More a book for adults, its weird nostalgia is still compelling. The artwork is quite lovely as well. It will be challenging to know how to market it in any library collection, though.

[Kirt Callahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no idea what I just read but I'm glad I did.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet story about an abandoned Teddy Bear...

[Rabbit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Art⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Story⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was so strange and adorable. an oddly fun story with unique and creative characters, lots of bickering, and a wholesome ending.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how I feel about this. I know Sally Bear has no filter. It's weird and I liked it.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little sad and a little heartwarming, "Kurdles" by Robert Goodin, will make you smile and giggle at the weirdest, yet somewhat, common-place conversations Sally the Bear has with her new-found friends. Neglected by her brat of an owner - tossed out of a driving red Toyota Prius, Sally stumbles upon a Unicorn, a Scarecrow, a walking-talking Octopus(?) and their pet dog.

I thoroughly enjoyed this piece, both for its style in writing and drawing. I found myself looking at certain pages over and over (particularly the last page with its single talking bubble).

I don't know whether Goodin plans to continue this as a series or not, but with the way the story ended, I like to think that the characters in this book were so unique that it would be a waste not to go into some future backstory and adventures with this crew more than once.

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was adorably cute! I've always had a love for stories with stuffed animals and toys as main characters. Sally Bear's owner has a fit and throws her out the car window during a storm. Sally has spunk and wanders through the forest getting muddy, fending off an owl mid-flight and about to stone a dog in the grips of his jaw when she meets a forest community of other stuffed toys. Their house has been taken over by a furry disease and a funny story with lovable, quirky characters ensues. Kids are sure to have a good laugh and love this fun group.The colour changing Pentapus was my favourite.

[MariNaomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

So weird and creepy and cute. There's just enough darkness here to keep me entertained, and just enough whimsy for me to feel comfortable sharing this with a child. Recommended for lovers of "kids'" books like Where the Wild Things Are. (Also: Wow, the art!!)

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

PDF - The artwork is terrific, both as illustrations and as graphic storytelling. The story has a certain charm, but lacks for much depth or character growth.

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delight! Brings to mind the expert blend of lightheartedness and darker elements that marked the best of Jim Henson's work. Wonderful characters and very creative!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tossed away teddy bear enlists the help of some strange forest creatures to help her get home. But before they can assist, they need her aid in dealing with an emergency of their own.

Goodin's art is detailed and wondrous, bringing the story to incredible life. The little world he's built is amazing and the only negative thing I have to say about it is that I want another story set there right this very second.

[James Biser · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great story about home. In a few pages (designed for young readers) we are introduced to loss, friendship, and a new family. I recommend this to everyone because it is a small picture of what building family or home is all about.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A goofy tale told straightforwardly. The crazy randomness of setting and character is turned way up and never explained, but the narrative itself is easy to follow. It's an interesting combo for kids and their grown-ups to share.

[Kamal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprisingly charming story that didn't go in the directions that I was expecting it to go. By the end of the book, I was thinking about how much potential there was for these quirky, fantastical characters and how I regretted that there wasn't another book or two about their adventures.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't even know how to rate or review this. It's a weird little juvenile graphic novel. I'm still not sure what happened, and I read it yesterday. But parts of it were fascinating, and the illustrations were beautiful, so that's something!

[Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was cute. Short.

Some fun world building going on. The hairy house and their little quest to cure it. It’d make a cute kids’ show for sure. If every episode featured a quirky idea like the one here, it’d be pretty sweet!

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming, fantastical journey full of whimsy and strangeness.

[Rakan · Rating 2 out of 5]

الكاتب بدأ القصةمباشرةً بدون تقديم او تعريف عن عالم القصة
شخصيات غريبة مع منطق مايمشي الا في قصة مثل هذي.
مو سيء ابدًا

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only criticism is that it was too short.

[Jessica Kurdas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story, very beautiful illustrations though.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird and sweet but I wish there was a little more to it.

[Clare Snow · Rating 5 out of 5]

So strange and I love it