Ever since I first saw her adorable Marvel Cats a few years back, I’ve been in love with Katie Cook’s offbeat and too adorable to function approach to comicbookery. Frankly, the industry needs more lighthearted and playful approaches to super hero conventions and with a pin-up here and a variant cover there, Ms. Cook has proudly held up that side of the industry along with the likes of Chris Giarrusso and Art Balthazar. It was wonderful to have her paint for me at New York Comic-Con this year and even more wonderful was the first print collection of her Gronk webcomic that I picked up from her.
Click on down and get ready to “aww” your faces off.
To be quite honest, I had not been following Gronk online despite my appreciation of Katie’s work and to be perfectly frank I am kind of glad for that since I feel the reading experience I got out of absorbing Gronk the way I did is closer to how one should engage with the story of this adorable little monster. While it is not very often that I really make note of or am affected by the size of a printed comic book, I feel that not only was this collection being shaped like your average children’s picture book an intentional choice, but an inspired one at that as the subject matter is not too far off from that which we (or at least I) had read to me by our parents growing up. Plus, unlike the webcomic, this version of the story is told in full, vibrant color. In terms of sheer recommendability, this book is a slam dunk for parents looking to expose their younger children to some sequential art.
However, the book goes deeper than that. In some cases much deeper, and in the process manages to prove its worth on multiple levels. While on the surface this is a story about an adorable monster growing tired of monster-ing and being taken in by an adorable nerdy girl with an adorable dog and some adorable stuffed animals, there are enough very adult culture references in the book to provide this book with multiple inputs for a potential audience. Touching upon everything from Star Wars to Board Games to overcoming sadness and tragedy, this book’s ideal reader is someone like me: an adult who has not lost touch with the joys of their childhood and still has an immense love of cute things.
Have I mentioned that this book is cute? Because I’m not just throwing that around as a descriptor due to a lack of anything deeper to say. Rather, one can’t help but look at the book and smile instantly (unless you don’t have a soul in which case there are still plenty of issues of Hawk and Dove sitting on store shelves for you. I hear they will be punching someone and grimacing next issue). The very nature of Cook’s clean, sharp, animated style follows in a long line of cartoon excellence and if Cook ever did want to step into the realm of animation, I feel like her style could fit just about any children’s story you could set it with.
Ultimately, as far as heartfelt, slice of life stories that just make you feel good about yourself and the world go, this book is damn near unparalleled in today’s market. If one of the primary goals of the medium is to make people feel happy and entertained (which it damn well should be), then one should flip through Gronk on your next bad day. I guarantee it’ll make you feel better. And should you want more once you put the book down, head on over to gronkcomic.com where Katie updates the ongoing adventures of Gronk every week!
