Picnic Pigs by Derek Fridolfs
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This review is based upon reviewing a version of this book prior to publication via, the website, Net Gally. I kinda feel bad that I pan most I’m finding there, but gets to how poorly books are written these days than those from times past based upon the large bulk of books I read.

I guess the “wordless’ MaGuffin tossed about this series is for a purpose. What that is, is beyond me. Appears it’s just a gimmick to sell this to the illiterate and to pitch to the world market. Since the earliest sequential storytelling of over a century ago, there have been comics in pantomime. This part is nothing new. Unfortunately, the effort here is also nothing new ….and done very, very poorly.

As a long-time professional cartoonist, well trained by the likes of Joe Kubert, Dick Hodgins and so many others, I have a love and enormous respect for sequential storytelling. It’s not hard to do, IF you know what you are doing. The two tagged with this, do not.

Some would most complain that this is an over trod tale. Better done using animation and comic strips and comic books over the past decades. What’s really odd about the story is that few picnic anymore with red checkered coverings. How many can relate to this story. Especially children?

There is also a freakish effort that seems to indicate that the ants included combine themselves into various objects and beings. The blame for this goes to the writer, but the artistic implementation gets into the poorly drawn storytelling.

For instance, at one point there are 3 ants that appear to be marching towards Porky Pig. Then a panel of Porky about to bite a sandwich. Next panel is his head swinging around to look behind him. In this panel are 2 lumps from under his shirt. Lumps of what? Good story telling would show the 2 two lumps with the third ant shown in the process of going under the shirt.

The next page has a very odd panel that makes no sense involving Porky Pig pointing up out of the panel with half closed eyes and smiling. Have no idea what that is telling to move the story along. Sadly, this poor storytelling continues throughout.

An equal problem are the renderings of the characters. Porky Pig, Petunia Pig, a squirrel, the anys, etc. are inconsistently drawn. Worse are the legs of three mentioned as the length alters throughout. At one point Petunia is drawn and posed in a weird sexy model way. To accomplish this, her legs suddenly double in length to achieve the effect.Why is a sexy Petunia in a book for children is another mystery. The squirrels is all sorts of sizes through his part of the story. I got the impression the one drawing this wanted the characters to be human size and worked toward that any time possible. Also, the outdoor illustration give the impression the artist doesn’t go outside much.

As i reviewed a ‘Tom & Jerry’ version of this series about 6 months ago, I recommend not purchasing this and to do purchase collections of the far, far better comic book collections from decades ago.

Bottom line: i don’t recommend this book. 2 out of ten points.

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