The Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly

The Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, a massive anthology of old comic book stories for kids, is a big hit around my house. My six-year-old loves it so much she reads it to herself. The oversize format and 350 pages make for a delightful reading experience.

Art Spiegelman (creator of Maus) and his partner Francoise Mouly (art editor of The New Yorker) selected 60 terrific stories from comic books published between the 1930s and the 1960s. Characters include Sugar and Spike, Dennis the Menace, Little Archie, Little Lulu, Pogo, Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Melvin Monster, Gerald McBoing Boing, and a bunch of others who are new to me. Spiegelman and Mouly picked stories that are smart, funny, and warm. Thankfully they didn't concern themselves with finding stories that are overly simple -- the have engaging plots and I enjoy the stories as much as my kids do.

In his introduction to the book, Jon Scieszka writes, "Wow, 'Treasury' is right. You have just entered the bank, the mint, the Ali Baba cave full of gold, silver, ruby, emerald, and diamond toons." I couldn't agree more.

The Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly

• [ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive]

  You’re thinking of the newspaper comic, PJCAMP. Pogo started out as a spinoff from Raggedy Ann & Andy comics doing versions of nursery rhymes. It was definitely a children’s comic in comic books.

• [arbitraryaardvark]

  “the have engaging pots”
  I stumbled onto a blog today of a hanabarberra cartoonist, http://powsley.blogspot.com/.

• [ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive]

  Walt Kelly feature in Raggedy Ann and Andy Comics

• [Shay Guy]

  Just English-language? Because Astro Boy would be cool.

• [superflippy]

  I was about to email Mark to ask for recommendations for comic books for beginning readers, when I thought, “He’s probably already done a post about something like this.” Sure enough, a quick search on BoingBoing turned up this post. Thanks!

• [pjcamp]

  Pogo!

  I love Pogo, but I would not call it a children’s comic. When I was a children, I hated it.