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Animal Jack


Le cœur de la forêt by Kid Toussaint 
Special thanks to NetGalley and Europe Comic for a copy. 

I am an affiliate with Z Publishing House. If you're interested in reading the works of emerging writers, see the link at the bottom of this post.

Animal Jack is a comic written by Kid Toussaint and illustrated by Miss Prickly. Toussaint is french comic writer with a variety of comics including the Magic 7 series and Holly Ann series. Miss Prickly is a french comic artist whose work includes the Mortelle Adele series. Animal Jack was originally published under the title Le coeur de la foret by Dupuis publishing in February 2019 and will be published in English by Europe Comics on April 17th, 2019.

Animal Jack is a cute story about Jack, a kid who doesn't speak and has the ability to turn into any animal that he chooses. He has trouble making friends because of his abilities, though no one is outright mean to him. Even if they were, however, he is more than capable of standing up to bullies, as seen when he and his friend Malek are walking to school. There is a lot of visual humor as well as funny dialogue in this story to get a chuckle out of the readers without distracting from the story.

Jack's parents pay him little attention, leaving him to explore the forest and play with the animals he finds there. Everyone is accustomed to his transformations even though he seems to be the only one with these powers. Everything seems normal but when kids start disappearing, Jack is left to track them down and discover the magical creatures that live in the forest. He saves the kids but has to also stop a logging company from destroying the forest.

I enjoyed this comic. It's simple, there is a lot of color and cute animals; the firefly acts as a little narrator and interprets a lot for Jack. Jack himself is cute and full of wonder and the fact that he doesn't speak really intrigues me. I liked seeing how the mystery of the missing kids progressed and I liked how the forest guardians are brought in. The "back in my day . . ." bit especially made me laugh. This is all in great contrast to what we see of Jack's parents, always pushing him out the door to go to school, always talking at him while looking at their phones-- the mother is even reading an article on how to talk to children-- but never really bothering to be there with him. When he's the only kid left in town, his parents suddenly become more attentive and even ask the police to escort them as they take him home from school, which seems a bit overkill.

The different animals, including the nymphs, guardian, and djinn are all interesting and uniquely designed.

I did roll my eyes when it got to the environmental bit. Because this comic seems to be aimed at younger kids, I understand the issue needed to be simplified, but the fact it appeared so quickly and was resolved within a few pages and there had been no mention of any protest about it beforehand, it had a very heavy-handedness to it that I don't enjoy. 

Overall, this is a cute story that I am curious to see progress. It seems like Toussaint and Prickly have more up their sleeves.

Special thanks to NetGalley for a copy.

Animal Jack will be available April 17th.

I am an affiliate with Z Publishing House. If you're interested in reading the works of emerging authors, this is a great place to start. Please note I do receive a small commission for any items purchased through this link: http://www.zpublishinghouse.com?rfsn=1831564.e6264
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