The Cartoonists Club

The Cartoonists Club by Raina Telgemeier & Scott McCloud (Graphix) PB RRP $19.99 ISBN 9781761648304

Reviewed by Robyn Gillies

This is a graphic novel of 288 pages that tells the story of four young people who come together to create The Cartoonists’ Club in their local school. It is also a book about creativity, self-expression, friendship, and of the strength of coming together, of recognising each other’s skill sand of collaborating and supporting each other.

There is Makalya, who has an abundance of ideas but doesn’t know how to make stories from them, Howard who loves to draw but whose dad thinks comics are a waste of time, Lynda who thinks her artwork is full of mistakes and Art who is passionate about making things. Together, they learn about the artistic and technical skills of creating comics with the help of Ms Fatima, the school librarian.

Using the storyline, both the characters and the reader learn new terms about different elements in a comic such as speech and thought balloons, narrative boxes, sound effects and background language e.g. fonts and styles used on a shop front. Character development and visual impact such as colour palettes are also covered.

The story line is easy to follow and read and the pacing of the story is appropriate for the age group 8-12 years. It would be great for developing readers for transitioning into longer stories and reluctant readers who would feel they have read a lot in a short time.

The novel stands alone but there are free downloadable support materials from www.scholastic.com/cartoonistsclub  which could be used for educational purposes, fun classroom learning activities to develop students understanding of storytelling techniques using a combination of pictures and words, and for starting a cartoon club.

The illustrations demonstrated the essence of what cartoons and comics are about and depicted diversity. The language used raises the notion of gender-neutral pronouns. It was easy to imagine the key characters’ individual personality traits as typical of young people their age e.g. impatient, anxious, unsure.

There is a Glossary of terms in the back of the book (love the term ‘plewd’) and further information about the technical skills used for making the book.