In Tor Freeman’s Boss of the Underworld Book 1, a girl called Shirley drops a pound coin into a manhole, and while attempting to retrieve it she falls into the Underworld, which is inhabited by a motley collection of mutant creatures. She soon finds herself embroiled in a quest to rid the world of a monster called the Green Menace. She is accompanied by a three-foot cockroach called George, who rapidly becomes her best friend.
In Boss of the Underworld: Book 2, George is kidnapped and taken to the Under-Underworld by a giant mole. Shirley sets off to rescue him, this time accompanied by an animated banana-skin called Peels.
In Book 3, Shirley and George are reunited, but George is trying to find his four lost sisters, and Shirley is trying to find her way home. This time, instead of being given a super-villain to defeat, Shirley and George are simply interviewed on arrival by border control officials, who want to know the purpose of their visit. When they opt for “Dangerous Quest” (an attempt to choose “non-dangerous quest” having been refused), they are informed that they will have to overcome Seven Deadly Dangers:
“I will now list the seven deadly dangers for you,” says the official, “and I’ll lean in closer with every one, to really impress on you how frightful they are!”
He does exactly that, leaning further and further across the desk towards Shirley and George while they cower back looking more and more intimidated. Then he straightens up with the words “Urgh, this job is a nightmare for my back pain.”
As you can tell from these exchanges, silliness plays a very important part in both the humour and storyline. Another important element is weirdness, which is probably most noticeable in a trippy section entitled ‘The Area of Weird Perspectives’. Shirley and George find themselves on the top and bottom of the same mid-air path – but each of them believes that they’re the right way up, and the other is upside-down: “I’m up here!” “Don’t you mean down there? I’m up here!” “Not from where I’m standing!” Freeman enhances this dialogue by turning all George’s speech balloons (and the text inside them) upside-down, which makes you want to turn the book upside-down to read them. The sequence demonstrates that not only does she like things which are silly and weird; she also likes to experiment with the comic-book format and play with our perceptions.
Freeman’s drawing-style is deceptively loose and cartoonish. It’s always got a very relaxed and improvised feel, which is enhanced by the fact that all the lettering is done by hand; but there’s a lot of skill in it if you look more closely, especially in the character design and facial expressions. At times it’s reminiscent of people like Janet Ahlberg and Babette Cole; at other times it distinctly resembles The Beano; and there’s one particular passage (where Shirley is slurping up a tornado) when it starts to look like one of Edward Lear’s limerick illustrations. The colouring deserves a special mention too, because it’s always distinctive without being glaring. Even though the dialogue frequently reminds us about how yucky and threatening things in the Under-Under-Underworld are, the colouring and drawing-style tell us that things there might be odd, but they’re always going to be fun and worth exploring.
As with the previous books in the series, if there’s a moral to the tale then it’s about the importance of friendship. George and Shirley stick together through thick and thin; they survive lots of perilous adventures; but more than that, they relish each other’s company. As George says, “Shirley laughs at my jokes and I laugh at her jokes”. In a world where online relationships are increasingly displacing real-life ones, this emphasis on the fun and value of spending time with your best friends feels welcome and timely. In fact what Tor Freeman gives us in these three books is a vision of childhood the way it ought to be – playful, adventurous, silly, funny, topsy-turvy and full of emotional warmth.
Shirley vs. Seven Deadly Dangers is primarily aimed at kids, but it’s sharp, funny and inventive enough to keep adults amused too. Highly recommended.
Tor Freeman (W/A) • Starboard, £8.99
Buy online from Gosh! Comics here
Review by Edward Picot
