As readers of this blog know, I'm a big time fan of Bad Kitty. I like a cat with attitude. In his latest foray with this bad-tempered feline, Nick Bruel goes the how-to route, much like he did with Drawn to Trouble. In a nifty idea, all the pages are sized to fit on photocopier paper so kids can print out the various exercises without having to mark up the book. Whether or not most kids will have the patience to do so is another story.

The premise behind the book is that Kitty is bored until Strange Kitty shows up to teach her how to make comics. This Strange Kitty proceeds to do, taking Kitty (and the reader) through all the steps: from tools to panel frames to writing captions and sound effects and more. Each lesson builds on the next, with a funny ongoing comic strip featuring Bad Kitty and an octopus that illustrates whatever lesson is being taught. Strange Kitty is a thorough instructor--and a clever one too. The lesson on drawing starts small--very small--with just a dot on the page (an ant standing by itself in the snow). From there, he adds another dot (two ants lying on their backs looking at the cloud). Then another dot (two ants playing catch). You get the idea. Any kid can make a dot and so, by extension, any kid can make cartoons. It's a wonderful and freeing realization, one that is bound to get kids hunting for a pencil to start scribbling.

Bad Kitty Makes Comics...And You Can Too!
By Nick Bruel
Neal Porter  144 pages
Published: 2015

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