Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Roche offers budding artists a new outlet with this tutorial on how to create their own comic strips. In seven chapters, everything from the basics of drawing and brainstorming ideas to layout, design, and publication are carefully described and supplemented with copious examples, including an original comic strip Roche created for this book. While the strip is amusing and well developed, it also features a small cast of characters, straightforward plotlines, and easy vocabulary, all of which are elements that will encourage rather than intimidate new artists. The book itself is visually appealing, with clear borders and ample white space, a mix of brightly colored illustrations and pencil sketches, and short blocks of text. Occasionally, Roche's focus becomes a little too broad or a little too narrow; for the most part, however, the instructions and humor are nicely geared to a middle-grade audience, who will be able to reproduce many of the projects described herein. An appendix includes an interview with a comic-strip editor and a brief recommended reading list; an index is included.