Kirkus Reviews QR Code
VELCOME by Kevin O'Malley

VELCOME

by Kevin O'Malley & illustrated by Kevin O'Malley

Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 1997
ISBN: 0-8027-8628-6
Publisher: Walker

A comic book in picture-book clothing, more akin to MAD magazine than to anything by Sendak, Macaulay, Van Allsburg, or other practicioners of the form. A heavy-lidded, mustachioed host in an armchair, wearing a Steve Martinstyle fake arrow through his head, introduces campfire stories and other old chestnuts, for example, about the man who ominously announces his impending visit on the telephone: ``I am the Viper.'' Of course, he turns out to be the viper who has come to vash the vindows. A section of bad jokes breaks whatever tension might be in the air: blood-drinking, bathroom humor, a lice joke. Most children will have heard it all on the playground, but none of it is worth immortalization in this format. Typeface mania, dialogue balloons, and droll commentary by a dog do not alter the book's low origins and utter lack of originality. (Picture book. 5-8)