Once upon a time, it was a dark and silly night… (Little Lit Roundup)

The Little Lit series is a set of comic compilations for kids, edited by the great Art Spiegelman. I have two of them, because I lucked out on new copies at bargain prices — Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies (from the NBS Book-sak sale, P200) and It Was a Dark and Silly Night (from the Book Sale warehouse, P170). I decided to read them for the 24-hour read-a-thon because they were easy to read and I wanted to get some variety in my read-a-thon books.

When I first saw the Little Lit books, I was literally agape at their visual impact — it’s a smorgasbord of creative juices from an amazing roster of top-caliber cartoonist and children’s book artists. Even now that I’ve had the books for some time now, I still thumb through the pages with reverence. It’s like holding an art gallery in your hands!

Revealing the actual stories would take away the fun from reading the Little Lit books, so let me just touch lightly on them, so you have an idea of what’s inside.

Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies (book #61 for 2009) showcases a humorous collection of old and new story selections from different parts of the world, told through comics.

Aside from Spiegelman this book includes the works of Barbara McClintock, Chris Ware, Kaz, J. Otto Seibold, William Joyce, Bruce McCall, David Macaulay, and many more.

My favorites from this book include Barbara McClintock’s leonine version of the Princess and the Pea, the reprint of Walt Kelly’s (of Pogo Fame) 1943 comic The Gingerbread Man, Art Spiegelman’s hilarious Prince Rooster, Claude Ponti’s The Enchanted Pumpkin and Chris Ware’s interactive Fairy Tale Road Rage boardgame.

My second Little Lit Book is It Was a Dark and Silly Night… (book #62 for 2009), this time a showcase of imagination, with different comic stories that take off from the starting phrase “It was a dark and silly night… .”

This time, the masterminds are not only comic book artists and children’s book illustrators, but also novelists such as Neil Gaiman and Lemony Snicket.

My favorite selections from this book include Lemony Snicket and Richard Sala’s hilarious story about a girl and the Yeti, J.Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh’s penguin treasure story, and Patrick MacDonnell’s moon story.

I still lack Strange Stories (my cousin Dianne has this one, though, I must borrow it sometime) and the Big Fat Little Lit collection. Hopefully I’ll get lucky and find bargain copies again for my Little Lit collection one day; they cost about P800 each at the bookstore.