UK weekly kids comics The Phoenix has given us some real gems over the years, traversing genre boundaries from slapstick silliness like Bunny Vs. Monkey through to the piercing social commentary of Patrice Aggs and Joe Brady’s No Country. But in all that time I don’t think anything in its pages has quite caught my attention like Neill Cameron’s Donut Squad. It’s a frantic, mischievous, form-pushing delight, and now this highlight of the UK kids weekly has found its way to book form with Donut Squad Take Over the World!.
It will obviously come as little surprise from the book’s title that Donut Squad follows the misadventures of a group of anthropomorphised doughnuts. Each of them has their own running joke-style schtick, with Cameron finding ever more inventive ways to elaborate on those set-ups. There’s Jammyboi who always turns up at the wrong moment to leave an inappropriate jammy mess. Anxiety Donut who is terrified of being eaten. Chalky the Ghost of a Murdered Victorian Donut (that one probably speaks for itself). The boring Dadnut always giving tiresome explanations to his oblivious son Li’l Timmy. A whole host of evil Bagels. And so many more.
The short comics herein will get the reader into the rhythm of those recurring gags and Cameron’s witty retakes on them while also seeing the Squad in action in (slightly) longer-form exploits. Cameron’s cartooning is vibrant, high energy stuff, supplemented by knowing visual characterisation that ensures every joke lands. One of the great joys of Donut Squad is that in all forms it embraces that idea of the genuinely all-ages comic. Work that has references that will doubtless fly over the heads of most younger readers but will appeal to the parents reading along. Conversely those cultural nods will not obscure the humour for the primary targeted readership.
To get the full Donut Squad experience the reader really does need to experience their strips in the home pages of The Phoenix. No book-style compilation can ever quite catch or replicate the sheer unbridled chaos of the meta nature of the material therein, with the characters making incursions into other strips, or being replaced entirely for a while by their enemies the Bagel Battalion. But Donut Squad Takes Over the World! is both a perfect entry point for new readers and a celebration of the spirit of the series for those already familiar with the characters. Genius! And obviously highly recommended as such.
Neill Cameron (W/A) • DFBPhoenix, £9.99
Review by Andy Oliver
