Cryptid Club

I really enjoyed Sarah Andersen's Fangs; a modern day werewolf/vampire romance with a Sex and the City vibe added to the mix. So I was really excited when I found this book just recently at my local library. 

Like Fangs, Cryptid Club is a collection of hilarious vignettes done as a newspaper comic strip. Unlike Fangs, this book doesn't have a linear plot to it. Though a couple of vignettes, like a budding relationship between two characters, do reoccur showing how things are progressing. 

Most of the cryptid characters are based on long-established legends such as the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot. You've got some more modern monsters too like Mothman. I'll grant that characters such as Slender Man and Alarm Man, which were created by artists, have taken on a bit of mythical status. But I take umbrage at ghosts being considered cryptids. Things that go bump in the night? Surely. But they should be in a totally different category other than cryptid. I don't care how funny their exploits were.

And no, I didn't confuse ghosts with the creatures on the cover. Those glowing-in-the-dark things that look like strolling molars are NOT ghosts! They're a fairly new cryptid called a Fresno Nightcrawler. They're kinda strange in the book. But from what I can tell, they're kinda creepy in real too! 

Cryptid Club was very fun. I probably should have waited until Halloween to read this. There are several Halloween themed laughs inside! But considering that this book was from 2022 and this was the first time I ever saw it on the shelves after countless visits to my local library over the years. I didn't want to risk getting to October and having someone beat me to the punch. 

It's also a super fast read. So give yourself a good half hour during a dark and stormy night. It'll make you into a believer. Even if spirits are misclassified as cryptids...

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.cryp

Bigfoot and Nessie: The Art of Getting Noticed (Family Comic Friday)

A delightful little boom that joins together two of the world's most well known cryptids. Although, this book should be called Bigfoot, Jr. and Nessie. That's because the title Bigfoot of this story is the son of the famed Sasquatch of blurry videos and off-center photograph fame. 

Bigfoot Jr lives in the shadows of his famous dad and his well documented family. One day when trying to make sense of his place in the world, Junior comes across a new friend. Wearing sunglasses and a scarf, Nessie is very secretive of her personal life. But she delights in the company of Junior because they both struggle with finding their way in life as part of a famous family. Though Junior doesn't know that his new friend is in fact Scotland's Loch Ness Monster!

This was a delightful tale, that begins a series of boost starring Bigfoot Jr and Nessie. Written by Chelsea M. Campbell with artwork by Laura Knetzger, The Art of Getting Noticed was a fun read. Obviously Campbell and Knetzger subscribe to the Clark Kent School of Disguise as nobody recognizes Nessie until her scarf and shades are accidentally removed in public. I also liked how Knetzger peppered in famous photos of Bigfoot inside Junior's house. Of course, they'd have a picture from the famed Patterson-Gimlin film supposedly of Bigfoot in their living room! It was subtle touches like that that made this such a brilliant read 

Recommended for readers ages 6-9, I did think that some of this 2023 book was a little too wordy for a younger reader. But someone aged 8-11 should really enjoy this opening volume that explores the hidden world of characters of folklore and legend! Aside from a couple of moments where Nessie feels that Junior is not being a good friend and she gets angry, the majority of this book is light-hearted and provokes a discussion about fitting in and being yourself.

Book #2, The Haunting of Loch Ness Castle is also currently available for sale.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

The Big Book of the Unexplained

Of the several editions of Big Books that I am reading during social distancing, The Big Book of the Unexplained was the one I was looking forward to the most. And it was the most disappointing. 

Written by the creator of Deathlok, Doug Moench, I was really excited to read this collection of accounts of the strange and unknown. I love UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and all that paranormal stuff that has us stymied. I'm the type of person that feels that there's got to big a hint of truth to these accounts. They may not be what we think they are or happened how we might recall the events occurred. But I am sure a lot of it was real events.

The host of this book is Charles Fort, a research of the paranormal and macabre around the turn of the 20th century. Had I not read within the past year or so a book about the Fortean Times, I probably wouldn't have any idea who he was. But I did and I appreciated his appearances throughout the book. Well, at first.

However, Moench keeps having Charles Fort talking about this cosmic trickster. And he keeps getting all whimsical and philosophical about this being. Maybe he's talking about God or gods. But that's beside the point. Moench devotes a lot of his time to this powerful being instead of focusing on what I was hoping for- lots and lots of accounts of the unexplained. 

While I appreciate the use of a narrator or host, they haven't seemed to really work in the Big Books. The 70s book had a host and it was the weakest part of that entire volume. I feel the same about Fort here. But unlike in the 70s book where the host was only at the beginning of each chapter, Charles Fort is at the beginning and ending of each section. Rod Sterling or even Jack Palance, he is not!

When it focuses on the unusual, it's good. But it goes off on tangents a lot!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

How to Spot a Sasquatch (Family Comic Friday)

School might be starting back but that doesn't mean that the Summer fun has to stop. For this week's Family Comic Friday we examine J. Torres' How to Spot a Sasquatch. It's about a young boy, his camping buddies and a Bigfoot named Sass!

How to Spot a Sasquatch
Written by J. Torres
Illustrated by Aurelie Grand
Published by OWL Kids

Jay is a Junior Ranger. He and the rest of his troop buddies are hoping to earn some badges during their weekend in the woods. Jay is also hoping to catch himself a Sasquatch.

In a hilarious series of vignettes, Jay's attempts to find and capture a Bigfoot are teased by his fellow Junior Rangers and they are thwarted by a girl Sasquatch. Sass and her forest buddies are very interested in the snacks and gadgets of the campers and hi-jinks ensues as they keep stealing from the camp.

I've been a fan of J. Torres for quite some time. His work on Teen Titans Go!, Brobots and Batman: The Brave and the Bold has just been fantastic. Torres has a great sense of humor and has such a way of making characters come alive!

I'm not so familiar with J. Torres' art partner, Aurelie Grand. According to the back cover of the book, Grand is a French illustrator based in Quebec. Works of the artist include a Ben Franklin biography and a young reader's picture book about the Olympics in French. She gives How to Spot a Sasquatch a very whimsical fee with her pens and pencils.


This 2018 graphic novel was very funny. It was also fun to read.  At only 64 pages, this is also quick read. But it's also one that you and the young reader in your life will want to read together over and over.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Hot to Spot a Sasquatch debuted in print and digital media in May of this year. It is recommended for readers aged 7-10, though it very well could be enjoyed by those a couple of years older or younger without objection by adults.

Arrgh! #3

 It's getting rare for me to find a Marvel or DC Comic book that I have never heard of. But it still happens from time to time. Case in point, Arrgh! From 1974-75. I just happened upon this issue in a dollar box not even a month ago. I thought this would make a great Halloween read and for the most part, I was right.

      This short-lived series devoted to horror with a comedic twist, only lasted a handful of issues but it's brief run is actually steeped in controversy. At about the exact same time, DC published a series called Plop! readers debated often in the letters page as to which book came first.

    Though Plop! hit newsstands a couple of months before Arrgh!, most comic book experts agree that Arrgh! came first. Why even series creator Roy Thomas writes in the letters section of this book to a fan explaining how he came up with this series in 1972 or ‘73, but production delays put Arrgh!'s release date after the first issue of Plop!

      This sort of thing happens all the time in comic books. Some fans think this sort of coincidence is a conspiracy to attract readership. I think it has to do with morphic fields.

     Sorry, I'm going to go off topic for a moment.

     The theory behind the morphic field had to do with how cultures in one side of the world were able to develop a technology at the same time another does without any way of communicating. The field is some sort of energy that affects how cells develop. I think it also affects creativity and can explain why Marvel and DC keeps coming up with the same ideas. (Either that or there's some serious industrial espionage going on.)

   Now back to the book…

   There were 3 stories in this issue. The first scenario is the classic monster falls in love with a beautiful woman. Here, Bigfoot develops a crush on a country gal whose hubby isn't to happy to be the third leg of a love triangle.

   Our next escapade involved a small time hood who gets turned into a giant rat. Every time he's hit by a bolt of lightning, the rodent grows in size until eventually he's the Big Cheese of the Big Apple.

   Last is an adventure involving Russian spies and the mummy of King Tut. This tale is supposed to be a reprint from the 1950s. But I don't know if this was part of the joke or not as no information as to which comic this was originally published is mentioned anywhere. With apologies made to certain Russian leaders by the editor, I’m inclined to think it’s a parody of EC’s horror books from the early 50s.

    Arrgh! was surely different than most horror titles from the 70s. For one thing, everything is tongue-in-cheek. DC was clearly better at horror, even funny horror than Marvel with titles like House of Mystery and Weird War Tales that featured great little yarns by Sergio Aragones and Don Martin. Horror was one of Marvel's big failures during this time period.

    Even with a couple of notable exceptions like Ghost Rider, Dracula's Tomb, and Man-Thing, the majority of Marvel horror comics didn’t last more than a dozen issues. Arrgh! didn’t survive past issue #5. I guess Marvelites just were ready for Abbott and Costello type horror.

  Worth Consuming.

  Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.