Little Lulu Volume 12: Leave It To Lulu
Color Special(2006), consisting of stories picked from throughoutLittle Lulu's long run, hinted that the comic book just got better. Sure enough, the twelfth chronological roundup seems the best yet. "Twenty Thousand Leaks under the Sea" (the 1950s Walt Disney movie of Jules Verne's classic could be the title's inspiration) is a tip-top tale-told-to-Alvin (Lulu's pesky preschooler neighbor). It-was-all-a-dream scenarios get no jollier than "The Ghost in the Bottle," which anticipatesPirates of the Caribbean. Tubby's detective capers, as always complete with the revelation of the culprit as none other than Mr. Moppet (Lulu's father), attain an acme in "The Case of the Missing Perfume." The incidental sight gag in eight panels of "The Tinklebird" is priceless, and terminated by second banana Willy rather than leading man Tubby, who, by the way, gets top billing more often than in previous collections, including in a long story in pantomime whose mainspring is Tubby's diligence as a shoeshine boy. Get this, if none of the previous Lulu volumes (get those, too).Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved