Most of these are my favorites

Female protagonists in cartoons don't sell well?!

I can name a bunch of cartoons with female protagonists that sold VERY well!

MOVE TO DISNEY CHANNEL

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???

Unicorn on a Roll: more comics in the tradition of Calvin and Hobbes

The first collection starring Phoebe and her unicorn friend Marigold Heavenly Nostrils was the strongest new syndicated strip I’d read in years; with Unicorn on a Roll, Dana Simpson demonstrates that she’s got plenty more where that came from.

It alarms me to think that I almost skipped this series. The publisher sent me the first book and I stuck it in my daughter’s room, thinking we’d try it at bedtime. But it got shelved, and then every time I looked at the spine, I thought, “gah, not more dainty-girly stuff” and pass it over.

But my daughter rescued it (and me) because she’s smarter than her old man. By the time I noticed that she was reading it to herself, she was basically finished with it, but wanted me to re-read it to her at bedtime. Dubiously, I picked it up and started reading, and in seconds, I knew she’d found a winner.

Phoebe isn’t just a female successor to Calvin – I think I like her better than Calvin. Like Calvin, she’s precocious and funny and has this amazing imaginative internal life. But unlike Calvin, she’s not a jerk to kids of the opposite sex, and she’s introspective in a way that’s healthy without being mopey (and is the source of a lot of sweet humor that adults and kids can both enjoy).

Book two starts a year after Phoebe meets Marigold Heavenly Nostrils, freeing her from paralysis brought on by being unable to look away from the beauty of her own reflection (unicorns, right?). In that time, Phoebe’s parents and frenemies have come to grips with her new invisible (usually) friend, who can project a field of uninterestingness that allows her to mix with humans with impunity.

Phoebe is growing as a character (another satisfying departure from the usual kids’ comic formula), as is evidenced by the first major plot-arc of the book: her decision to free Marigold Heavenly Nostrils from her duty to be Phoebe’s best friend (naturally, Marigold rewards her by sticking around of her own free will). The amazing thing is that this piece of relatively moral philosophy manages to pull off a bunch of extremely funny gags in several modes – some aimed square at the grownups, some at the kids, and plenty that both can enjoy.

The book is a perfect mix of ongoing stories – largely about Phoebe’s relationship with her rival/pal Dakota, and Max, the boy she’s friends with and who acts as a kind of foil for her strongest characteristics – and one-off gags about things like nose-picking, rainbows, generation-gaps with parents, and how awesomely cool a unicorn looks on roller-skates (hence the title).

The ongoing stories – Marigold falls in love with a unicorn so humble he won’t let anyone see him lest he be admired; Phoebe competes with Dakota for a part in the fourth grade play; the other unicorns summon Marigold for an intervention to get her to unfriend Phoebe – cover some heavy ground, but always with a sprightly touch, and never without great comedy.

In case there’s any doubt: I plainly love this strip, and I love the books. The short intros (the first by Peter “Last Unicorn” Beagle; this one by My Little Pony rebooter/creator Lauren Faust) make it clear that there are plenty of others who can’t get enough of Phoebe and Marigold. And the aftermatter – glittery unicorn poo cookies recipes and tutorials for drawing Phoebe and Marigold – are great, too.

Unicorn on a Roll [Dana Simpson/Amp]

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

Read the rest

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

Was the guest of honor at Further Confusion last weekend, which allowed me the fun of drawing this con book cover!

Throwback

Marigold Heavenly Nostrils for @traditionalponies

That time my room needed more cool stuff on the walls

https://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn/2014/03/30

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!