Friday, June 11, 2010

Toy Story: The Mysterious Stranger by Dan Jolley

This volume of Toy Story comics includes four short stories, all focused on the toys' fears of being replaced. In "The Mysterious Stranger", Hamm and Rex let their fear take over when a strange new item appears in Andy's room. Woody and Buzz finally manage to calm them down, just in time for the surprise funny ending. In "Weird Science", the toys have to repair Andy's science experiment - and in the process, Hamm confronts his angst about technology. In "A Dog's Life", the toys face Andy's new puppy and finally figure out a compromise. The final story, "No time for sergeants" deals with the green soldiers' fears of abandonment and includes Woody's heartfelt tribute to imagination.

I'm concentrating on filling in our juvenile graphic novel collection with various offering from Boom! Studios this year. The Incredibles and Little Nemo comics we have are extremely popular, the Muppets a little less so. I think this one will fly off the shelves, especially with the re-release of the first two Toy Story movies and the third one coming this summer. Like all the Boom! Studios comics, these are much more than just tie-ins to the movies; they address deeper issues like growing up, imagination, and friendship while providing fun, intriguing stories featuring well-known characters. Personally, I never liked the Toy Story movies, but the comics are fun!

Verdict: These should be very popular and I plan to purchase additional volumes in this series


ISBN: 1934506915; Published September 2009 by Boom!; Borrowed from the library; Purchased for the library

No comments: