I loved it, every little part of it!
The humor, the sarcasm, the friendship and the wide imagination.

A collection of comic strips in sepia tones that feature a boy and his wise companion snail’s adventures. Many of the comics in this collection feature the moon as well, thus the title.

This is a translation of a French comic strip. I’m sure some of the wittiness and humor has inevitably been lost in translation. The topics covered would appeal to a broad age range, from kids up to adults. The illustration style is whimsical and cute. It kind of reminded me of a cutesy Victorianized Peanuts in style while Pierrot and Mr. Snail remind me of a much tamer Calvin and Hobbes. Some of the strips made me chuckle and others were just sort of ho-hum. Those looking for cute, clean comics should give it a try. And French teachers and learners should go hunt down the original version.

This collection of comics doesn't have a continuous storyline, but little snippets of a boy and his friend the Snail, who dream of going to the moon. They watch the stars together, read books, dress up in costumes, and avoid schoolwork.

Most of the individual comics don't actually have a funny punchline. It's just sort of whimsical and random with no real point. It reminds me a little of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince" with the moon and stars and a dreamy child drifting along through an aimless plot.

The artwork is lovely with soft sepia tones and delightful details in clothing and facial expressions. There are books littered throughout the illustrations, sometimes being read, or in stacks on the floor, scattered across the grass, flying around in the air, and sometimes just sitting demurely on a shelf.

I really love the fanciful artwork, but the dialogue just doesn't hold up the non-existent story. I doubt this would capture a child's attention, although it might fuel the imagination of dreamy adults.

Disclaimer: I received an ecopy of this book from the author/publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts, and are not influenced by anyone.

The art is cute and sufficient. I don't mind a comic with no plot line, especially in one intended for children, but I think I just didn't get the humor here. I only barely got the joke about eating snails and I'm almost positive no child would get it. It's cute, but not terribly impressive to me.

Cute and gentle book. Fun and playful graphics.
---Ronb

Little Pierrot Vol 1: Get the Moon (Hardcover)
by Alberto Varanda
This is an adorable story of a little boy who finds his imagination and world expanded while he dreams of what he can do in life. The pictures are so sweet, the kids will be drawn to the bright and simple designs.

There’s no actual narrative here; each page is its own story, like a comic strip. But basically it revolves around a kid with a huge imagination who wants to go into space and explore the stars. There’s also a talking snail who’s like a snobby unappreciative guru, almost an evil Mr. Miyagi or Yoda.
It’s hard to get a sense of this. Some pages are philosophical, some are funny, some try to be funny but don’t make it. Just a kid with his snail going through life, or trying to. Nothing to grasp, and the earth-tone artwork doesn’t help. Except when he dresses as Batman or an astronaut—complete with Chucky T’s—the clothing is remarkably drab.
Wow, those kids are extremely studious; all except the protagonist paying attention to their work in class. The physics lessons are both funny and painful.
Right away before the story starts there’s a double page of kids walking a row, and they are drawn extremely cute. But that’s the highlight of the visuals. Worse, the font is not easy to read; there’s one page where I couldn’t make out the last word and missed the punchline.

Well this was a rum 'un, using a brilliant five-star artistic style with wonderful landscape art and character design, to give us the naffest funnies pages contents out there. A lot of the book promises much more than it can ever deliver, and a lot is just not funny. "I can't find my slippers" moans little kid; "Call them!" is the advice from his friend, who is a snail; the end. Yup, I did type snail - this is bonkers, as well as beautiful. Unfortunately it's just not appealing or clever beyond the artistry. All it is good for is proving you can indeed polish a t- sorry, snail.

Even trying to read this from the perscepctive that it was a children's book...it was odd. Maybe I was missing pages? But some of the pages appeared to come out of nowhere, punchlines to jokes I totally missed. No impetus for some of the events...or conclusions to others.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a billed as reminiscent of Calvin and Hobbes, and it is in some ways, but it is not as strong or as coherent as that. It's not even a story, but a series of very short sketches, which took some getting used to, yet once I did get used to it, it was a decent read.

Little Pierrot meets a talking snail on the way to school one day, and his life is never the same again. Everything that happens to him after that, every flight of fancy, every incident, the snail is there to wisecrack about it. Sometimes this is amusing, occasionally it's funny, other times it's annoying, but on balance I found it a pleasant read.

I think it would do well as a bathroom book or a waiting-room book, so that when you're detained there you can read a page or two without having to worry abut getting too deeply into the 'story' or about losing your place or losing the thread, since there isn't one!

Illustrated almost in sepia tones, but with some gentle color highlights here and there, the art work was interesting and agreeable. I recommend this.

The illustrations and premise behind this book are completely compelling but I struggled to follow the plot and wonder if this is more of an adult picture book then for kids. The illustrations though are noteworthy.

A book written in comic book style, sharing the story of Little Pierrot, the young boy who has a very large imagination and is endlessly curious and full of questions. It's a good starting point for young readers who are transitioning from early picture books with minimal text, not yet ready to progress to books without images. I was disappointed in the imagery, with very dull muted brown colours throughout, which didn't enthral me. I would have liked to have seen something a bit more lively, to complement the creativity and liveliness of Pierrot's imagination.

Gorgeous illustrations and thoughts - utterly beautiful illustrations, and I loved the Calvin and Hobbes-esque relationship between the characters.

The format (no story; just a selection of 'moments') was a little odd to begin with, and it might make slightly more sense if there was a line through - but this doesn't particularly detract from it.

Simple colours. Comic strips of an interesting boy and his wise friend snail.

This is a series of stripes of a boy and his best friend, a snail. Yeah, not sure if I missed something in the translation, but the two thoughts I had when I read this the first time was, how is he not accidentally stepping on him, and why a snail?

This is one joke where Pierrot is teasing the snail by prepareing a dish with garlic, that only someone who has ever eaten snails, would understand.

Otherwise, this is cute enough. One reviewer said it was a bit like Calvin and Hobbs, and it is, though not enough to make me want to seek more volumes of this out.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

This is a cute book, reminiscent of Calvin and Hobbes. It is a collection of vignettes or comic strips (no strict storyline), many of which involve the moon. I would recommend this for fans of Calvin and Hobbes, and fans of comic strips that are both humorous and sweet. Larger libraries and/or libraries with patrons that love comic strip collections may want to add this title.

ARC copy for review...I liken the "vintage" European cartoon styling of the characters and the colour palette is simple...earthen monochrome tones mixed with a magical realism atmosphere. The protagonists are interesting...the boy is go-getter with slight stubbornness/sarcastic streak, ready to take on the world but still has a child-like wary-ness of world requiring him to ask his snail friend. The Snail is very much a wise fellow whose is also very sarcastic in tone/manners.

I love this graphic novel. The balance of childish fun and math is brilliant. And gorgeous art work.

It is described as "Classic comics storytelling for young readers in the vein of Calvin & Hobbes", and although the characters have a relationship that mirrors that of Calvin and Hobbes, I feel the comic might be too inaccessible for younger readers. I enjoyed it mainly because I could appreciate the art (beautiful), but there's certain things like not defining Newton's 3rd law or the main characters using a photobooth (but it's not obvious that it is a photobooth) that I think would be lost on children. Similarly it is not clearly defined when a sequence is spread over multiple pages or just the one page, the only way to know is when a small snail appears in the bottom corner to signify the end, but it is not immediately obvious nor explained.
However I feel adult readers would enjoy this more as the story seems to have an aura of reminiscence and tries to capture the charm of a child's imagination as it transforms the world, and there are messages about cherishing this feeling and not growing up too fast (forever young) that might hit sentimental notes in people.

A very short comic with a very lovely sepia-toned palette with cute characters (both human and snail). This is not exactly a proper storyline, but rather tiny vignettes with Pierrot and Mr. Snail discussing the possibility of getting to the moon, the physics (or lack of) involved, and the wondrous possibilities of dreams. While I enjoyed the themes and the artwork, I wished that it was a more cohesive storyline that set in place the rest of Pierrot's adventures (this being Volume 1). It was pretty to read and look at, but I'm not really invested in the further storyline. I was also disappointed that there wasn't really much surreal imagery used, as the blurb suggests; while I'm sure further volumes will have more, this one was sadly lacking and was one of the main reasons I requested it.

In the end, it seems to be more of a melancholic French look at the nostalgia of childhood dreams--a book more for adults than for children. And even though that summary is incredibly on point with my aesthetic, it still just fell flat for me.