Review: Princeless Book One: Save Yourself

When Super Goof Meets 'the Girls'

  My father bought me my first comic book, Super Goof Meets Super Thief. There is nothing nostalgic about this memory, which is to say that it has not been stored away all this time soaking in sepia. It is, merely, a fact. Other than what the cover looks like, I remember nothing about this comic book except that it was the first step in a journey that has led me to … well … here. So, there's that.

  Burdened as I am by this cursed Y chromosome in a house full of females, there is very little that I can share with my two daughters (aka 'the girls'). When it comes to sports, they always cheer for the wrong team and it's still too soon to introduce them to my favorite book, 'no, I can't read Gravity's Rainbow to you, honey, it's for grown-ups … sort of.' What I can do is meddle in their play. I am proud to say that I am quite deft at dressing dolls and allowing my skills for tag, hide-and-seek and kickball to atrophy in order to 'let the kids win,' at least, once in a while.

  A few years ago, I bought my oldest daughter a few issues of Tiny Titans and it wasn't before long that the cover was missing and the issues had become well-loved, but it wasn't her Super Goof. Then I read about Princeless on Kelly Thompson's blog. Ah yes, thought I, this is the perfect comic with which I catch the conscience of a certain princess; it was and is. Princeless is fun, whimsical and playful. Most of all, Princeless inspires. It spurs the reader to draw or to run around the house with an old Superman towel tied around his neck and act out scenes from the story. My daughter likes it too.

  I labored over this review (hold your laughter) more than some of the others I've written for Comics Bulletin because I wanted to 'do-right' by my daughter and make sure that the things she loved about Princeless got said. Inspiration is a two-way street or a cul-de-sac depending upon one's point-of-view. If Princeless turns out to be her Super Goof that would be cool and if not, that's fine too as long as she remembers (like me) that her first comic came from super goof.

  Thanks, as always, to Danny at Comics Bulletin and a special thanks goes to Mr. Jason Sacks, the publisher of Comics Bulletin, who asked me to expand an earlier draft of this review. So, blame him if you think it runs too long:

  Kids suss out sincerity mighty quick. They'll swallow lies, but children eat deceit for breakfast; it's belief that counts. So, it is with Princeless Volume 1: Save Yourself by writer Jeremy Whitley and artist M. Goodwin, an all-ages comic with integrity, verve and the best kind of earnest self-awareness … to read the other 2,552 words(!), hit the link, otherwise 'save yourself'