REVIEW: Everybody Loves Cats vs Pickles

This is a cute story. It reads more like a children’s book than a comic book, but nonetheless, it’s nice. It’s all about how Cats are afraid of pickles, but pickles are desperately trying to befriend cats.

Overall it’s nice, it’s aimed mostly at children from the way it’s written and whilst the art is very good, there is nothing too crazy to have you writing home about. It’s rather simple and relatively safe which for a children’s book it’s to be expected. It’s about 30 pages long, and I think that’s a wonderful length for a book like this. It features 3 different stories of about 10 pages each, which works great because it’s easy to read through and doesn’t get boring too fast. The stories themselves are pretty much the same thing but in different scenarios, cats are scared of pickles, and pickles want to befriend cats. Rather formulaic but I guess you could make 10 books like this and still have enough material for more; Cats vs Pickles Halloween, Cats vs Pickles Christmas, Cats vs Pickles in Space, and I’m sure many many more.

Where this book really excels is the character designs. Even though all the pickles have the same shape, each pickle is dressed differently and uniquely enough that it doesn’t feel like you’re looking at the same pickle character copy-pasted for 30 pages, and that is to be applauded. Same with the cats, they all have the same body shape but they are all very different from each other. My favorite cat has to be Sandy Cat, whose body is half beach and half ocean waves. I think that was a really neat idea and looks awesome on the one page it’s featured on.

The coloring is also very good and it features cell-shaded illustrations with no outlines and heavily textured brushes that make it very friendly for anyone reading. Especially children. It seems like it was all done by two people, so the lettering isn’t too spectacular in regards to it just being word balloons and narration text, and in that aspect, they could’ve added a few interesting sound fxs here and there to really make it pop, but other than that it’s good. Simple, safe but also easy to read and very cute which is great for their audience of children.

It also has intermission pages between the different stories that feature a “Did you know” section with fake cat facts. Like that “LumberCat” was the first cat to climb Mt.Everest, or that there was a cat named “George Washingself” that almost crossed the Delaware. It maybe could have been cool if it had real facts about historical cats like maybe Egyptian cats or cats from movies or something like that, but it’s a real tongue-in-cheek book. It’s more meant to entertain children rather than teach them anything, and that’s alright too. Kids need fun entertainment too.

The one thing I did not like is the empty pages where there is just text on them. I personally think the different illustrations could’ve perhaps been broken up so that no page was left blank. Perhaps they could’ve added a few more illustrations in case they didn’t want to break up the pages, but still make it so that no page was blank. One extra peeve for me was that even though it is simple, and fun dialogue. I think it could’ve had a few more puns here and there just to make it funnier in general. There was a chance for a “purrfect” pun that they did not take and for me, that was just too easy to have missed.

That all being said, if you are looking for a cute gift for your child that loves cats or pickles. This is a great gift for them. I hope they do make more books like this, because “Cats vs Pickles in Space” sounds awesome and I think they could really take this book to greener “pawstures” with a bit more work. All in all this children’s book is like a yarn of excitement, leaving readers “feline” fantastic!

Writing: 4 Stars
Art: 5 Stars
Colors: 5 Stars

Overall: 4.5 Stars

Written by: D.M. Farrell
Illustrated by: Gabriele Tafuni
Cover art by: Gabriele Tafuni
Published by Curiosity Books / Dynamite Entertainment

Reviewed by Antonio “Mabs”