Book Review: Little Wolf's Haunted Hall for Small Horrors by Ian Whybrow

 Here's a review of the third volume of this very cool and highy underrated series.

 

Little Wolf's Uncle Bigbad, proving that he won't let a little thing like death stop him, has returned as a ghost with many dark and spooky powers, and LW, along with his buddies Yeller, Stubbs, and guest pest Smellybreff, who plan to open a Scare School to help little critters get their scream on, persuade him to be their "School Spirit." Uncle Bigbad obliges, but, apparently being just as untrustworthy as he was in life, he makes things too scary, and ends up scaring the pants off of their students...

...literally!



 



 

Uncle Bigbad makes a wager with the group, promising to share his power of finding lost treasure with them if they can find someone who can stand up to him for five minutes. LW searches high and low, before coming across a bear cub named Normus who's super-strong, brave, and a bit of a bully. Normus proves to be more than a match for Uncle Bigbad's dark powers, but this endeavor may end up being more trouble than it's worth, because Normus spends most of his time bullying and bashing LW and his friends. Can Little and his crew get Normus on their side in time to win the bet?

Not only is that rude, but also very unsanitary! :-p

 

 

 

My thoughts: One of the more interesting books in this series with many exciting moments. This volume gives us our first in-depth look at the various denizens of the Frettning Forest(turtles, lions, bats, alligators, weasels et al.) as well as more of the various surrounding areas. Normus' briefly-seen family are good, well-written characters, as is, of course, Uncle Bigbad. I must admit that Mister Twister's unexplained villain status does still bug me a little bit, but other than this, I had no major complaints. All in all, an excellent and very enjoyable addition to this series, and a must-have for any Little Wolf aficionado.

 

 

Buy it on Amazon!

 



 

Building a Better Bear Trap

Trouble's bruin.

 

Here is a Care Bears fanfiction of mine, which is based on the comic "The Think Box Bollix" from the Donald Duck compilation A Christmas for Shacktown. In this story, little Wonderheart Bear(from the new Welcome to Care-A-Lot Tv series on The Hub.*) has decided to become an assistant to local inventor Brightheart Raccoon, which Grumpy Bear takes umbrage at, thinking that he's nothing but a loony inventor. Upon hearing about Brightheart's newest invention the Brain Booster ray, which enables animals to talk and think like humans(and Care Bears) Grumpy decides to trick Brightheart, hoping to thus expose him for the phony that Grumpy believes he is, and make Wonderheart feel less inclined to work for him, but when things quickly go awry, Grumpy may end up needing Brightheart's help! Please enjoy!

 

 

Inventing Trouble

 



 

BTW, here are some pics of the various OCs from this story:


The shopkeeper bear, who sells Grumpy the lion costume he wears as part of his plan. He's a bit sleep-deprieved because Grumpy gets him up in the middle of the night.

The mysterious bear that Grumpy meets in the woods, who turns out to be a lion affected by the Brain Booster in disguise, with a craving for...roast bear!

 

And finally, a monkey affected by the Brain Booster, who informs Wonderheart about the lion's capture of Grumpy, so she can save him.(I patterned her appearance off of that of the monkeys inhabiting the Forest of Feelings, such as Chai.)

 

 

Domo? Arigato!

Look out! Here comes Domo!

 

 

Domo:The Manga is an Ameri-manga produced by Tokyopop, starring Tsuneo Goda's iconic monster. The comic, which is drawn by several different artists(two of whom being Jared Hodges and Lindsay Cibos of Peach Fuzz fame), follows the adventures of Domo and his(super-cute!) forest friends: the wise old rabbit Mr. Usaji, the sensible weasel Tashanna, the mother and son bats Maya and Mario(No relation), who are little more than background characters, the shy, sweet Bear Boy, the fox trio, consisting of Brother Fox, the moody oldest sibling, Fox Boy, the easygoing middle child, and Esther, the prank-loving youngest, and Hungry Bear, who's uhm, well...a rather large, hungry bear! :-D

 

Much of the humor of these comics derives from Domo's tendency to overdo things, which often leads to a bigger problem than the one he's currently trying to solve.

 

The comic consists of six short stories:

 

Don't Try This at Home-Domo enjoys watching a samurai movie a little too much!

 

Hero For a Day-After watching a superhero movie, Domo decides to become a superhero...but ends up doing much more harm than good!*

 

"Fix, fix, fix, fix...FIXED!" Too funny! :-D

 

Soapbox Road Warrior-Domo and the others compete in a soapbox derby for the prize of a month's supply of delicious peaches. Who will win?

 

The Ultimate Beetle-Domo trains a beetle for a beetle fight, but as usual, things don't go as planned.

 

Life Is Just a Game-Tashanna invites a bored Domo over to her house to play video games; when he ends up breaking her video game system, he remedies(and we use this term loosely) the situation by having the other animals act out a "real-life" video game.

 

 

 

Living in the Now-Tashanna endeavors to improve the quality of everyone's lives by introducing them to cell phones...but will the animals ever figure them out?**

 

 

My Thoughts:This is a very funny, enjoyable, very well-written and well-drawn comic. The characters(especially Domo himself) are very cute, likeable and full of personality, and the storylines are very fun and entertaining. The book even contains a(very nifty) Domo Fanart section. All in all, a very nifty comic that any Domo aficionado is sure to love.

 

 

Buy it on Amazon!

 

 

 

There were several humorous short films(Which were briefly seen on Nickelodeon) made of Domo's escapades, which are now available on DVD:

 

Domo Volume One

 

 

 

"Domo? DOMOOOO!"

 

 

 

*Hmm, might this, perhaps, make him a "Less-than hero?" :-D

 

 

 

**Watch for cameos made by Hee and Haw, two flower pixies that only Domo can see, and a ghost simply named the Ghost, who appears and disappears at will, in this chapter.(Some humorous stuff is done here!)