Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Zero's Journey, Book One

It seems that Jack Skellington didn't truly learn his lesson on that Christmas Eve when he became Sandy Claws. He's so obsessed with creating an automatic portal to all of the other holiday lands. In fact,  Jack has been ignoring his duties as the King of Halloween Town. 

He's also been ignoring his loyal ghost pooch, Zero. Feeling guilty, Jack decides to play a quick round of catch with Zero during a break. But Zero gets a little too excited for the sudden attention. So thrilled, that when he bumps into Jack's not-quite-finished portal, the ghost doggie disappears!

Zero finds himself transported to Christmas Town. It's a very exciting place for Zero- full of snow, lights and tasty treats. There's also some new friends, who help Zero feel quite welcome. But Christmas Town is just not home for Zero. Will the puppy find his way back to his master, Jack?

It's a personal rule of mine that I do not read any Christmas-time themed holiday comics until December 1st. But since this book was a fusion of Christmas and Halloween, I thought reading it smack dab in the middle of November was a fair compromise!

I loved this story. Like the original, this book has some songs in it. Usually, I have trouble enjoying comics with songs that don't have music added. But I didn't have trouble here. I really could sense a soundtrack in this.

What I did not like was how the book ended- with a 'TO BE CONTINUED!'

But really, this is my fault. I should have realized that with this volume being titled as a 'Volume One', that the story would carry over into multiple volumes. Yet, readers have been burned with this sort of thing before; being told that something is a volume one but a further edition never materializes.

I'm kinda worried about that here. There's only 3 volumes out thus far from TokyoPop. From what I can tell, there's been a total of 16 issues of Zero's Journey released. But I can't figure out if the series is over or not. I also cannot tell if or when a fourth volume is on the horizon.

Sadly, I also don't think that my local library has the second and third book on hand... So I have no idea how I'm going to finish up this series. Or when!

So I enjoyed the book. It's a great segue-way between All Hallow's Eve and the Yule Tide Season. It's only the first chapter of this epic. But, it certainly gets you in the spirit of the holidays.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.