Eisner-award winning Simpsons artists and Cloudscape contributors Ian Boothby and Nina Matsumoto recently published Sparks! from Scholastic, a young readers graphic novel about August and Charlie, two cats who meet as fellow prisoners in a secret animal testing laboratory and then build a mechanical dog suit to perform acts of heroism. Sparks has gotten a lot of attention from numerous reviewers, and the magazine Quill & Quire described it as “the kind of story that, despite its zaniness and hilariously overstuffed plot, makes you genuinely care about the complicated friendship at its core…. Boothby keeps a lot of narrative plates spinning without breaking a single one. Matsumoto’s bright, dynamic, and cartoonish illustrations, though vaguely reminiscent of a certain show about a dysfunctional Springfield family, are a perfect fit with the text.”
Sparks has been so popular that it’s #3 on the best sellers list for Canadian kids books this month! For more information on this compelling graphic novel, check out Scholastic’s Sparks page.