© Dana Simpson, 2001

Unicorn Store (2017) by Brie Larson

Book title: Unicorn on a Roll: Another Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventure (2015) by Dana Simpson

Happy National Unicorn Day!

(yes I will be celebrating any and all ridiculous holidays until further notice) 

It will be a couple months until Unicorn Day is here but I thought I would give you a heads up.

Dana Simpson - 2002

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OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

LOOK!!!!! At this!!!

THIS IS A COMIC BOOK ABOUT A NINE YEAR OLD AND HER UNICORN AND I WAS NOT EXPECTING TO SEE A NONBINARY UNICORN WHO DOESN'T USE THEY THEM BUT!!!!!!

IIRC, the author is a trans woman herself

PHOEBE AND HER UNICORN???

FYI, @nostrilsketches is the trans author’s Tumblr. ==== @upandoutcomic @mindovermaddie

Heavenly Nostrils: If Hobbes was a snarky unicorn and Calvin was an awesome little girl

Phoebe and Her Unicorn is the first collection of Dana Simpson’s syndicated Heavenly Nostrils cartoons – it’s a book that I insisted on reading to my kid, because I didn’t want to miss a single strip.    

We almost didn’t read Phoebe and Her Unicorn; it sat on my daughter’s shelf for months, untouched, because it looked like something pink and princess-y, and that’s not really her thing. But the kid got it down and started reading it to herself – really reading it to herself, as in, we’d have to take it away from her when it was time to get ready for school. My wife glanced at it, and asked if I’d ever really looked at it: “It’s really funny!”

So that night, I started reading it to Poesy at bedtime. Even though she’d already read halfway through, she was very happy to have me re-read those early strips to her. And I was even more glad to do it. I quickly discovered that Dana Simpson was doing something wonderful with Heavenly Nostrils: telling a hilarious, sweet, and unsentimental story about a kid and her imaginary friend ripped straight from the Bill Watterson/Calvin and Hobbes playbook, but with new, lateral moves that are strictly her own.

Phoebe meets Marigold Heavenly Nostrils in the woods one summer vacation, coming upon the magical creature transfixed by her own reflection in a pond (being captivated by one’s own lovely reflection is the unicorn’s downfall). Phoebe throws a rock in the pond and is offered a wish for rescuing the unicorn: “to be my best friend.”

Unlike Hobbes, Marigold isn’t a toy, and unlike Hobbes, Marigold can be seen by people other than Phoebe. However, Marigold has an adjustable SHIELD OF BORINGNESS that she can dial up in the presence of Phoebe’s parents so that they find nothing remarkable about the fact that she’s invited a unicorn over for dinner. This is a great wrinkle on imaginary friends, a reversal of the Calvin and Hobbes world where Calvin sees the world as he wants it to be and everyone else contends with dull reality-as-it-is; in Phoebe’s house, she and Marigold alone are living in the real world and everyone else is blinded by magic and unable to see things as they are.

Like Calvin and Hobbes, Phoebe and Calvin’s adventures work on many levels – anarchic kid humor, snarky adult humor, slightly over-their-head jokes that kids enjoy once they’re explained. We read from Phoebe and Her Unicorn every night a bedtime and when it was done, we followed the directions in the appendix and practiced drawing our own unicorns and little freckled girls.

Peter “The Last Unicorn” Beagle wrote a tremendous introduction to this volume, and in looking it up, I discovered that a second collection, Unicorn On a Roll, is due in May. I’ve pre-ordered mine!