Review: THE POWERPUFF GIRLS: Power Up My Mojo

THE POWERPUFF GIRLS: POWER UP MY MOJO
IDW PUBLISHING – @IDWPublishing

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Haley Mancini and Jake Goldman
ART/COLORS: Derek Charm; Nicoletta Baldari; Phil Murphy
LETTERS: Andworld Productions
EDITORS: Sarah Gaydos; Justin Eisinger and Alonzo Simon
COVER: Chad Thomas
MISC ART: Derek Charm, Nicoletta Baldari; Ben Carow; Chad Thomas; Grace Kraft; Philip Murphy; Julia Vickerman; Ian McGinty with Meg Casey;
ISBN: 978-1631408717; hardcover 6” x9” (April 18, 2017)
76pp, Color, $12.99 U.S., $17.50 CAN

“The Powerpuff Girls” (1998 to 2005) was an animated superhero television series created by Craig McCracken for Cartoon Network.   The show centered on Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, who were three kindergarten-aged girls endowed with superpowers.  They were created by the scientist, Professor Utonium, who mixed sugar, spice, and everything nice and accidentally added “Chemical X.”  The professor would become the girls' father.  The girls and the professor lived in the fictional city of Townsville, USA.  The city's mayor frequently called on The Powerpuff Girls to help fight criminals using their super-powers against the city.

DC Comics published a number of comic books based on “The Powerpuff Girls,” including an ongoing series that ran for 70 issues from 2000 to 2006.  IDW Publishing started publishing comic books based on The Powerpuff Girls in 2013.  One of IDW's efforts was The Powerpuff Girls, a 2016 six-issue series, which was written by Haley Mancini and Jake Goldman, two staff writers on the 2016-2018 reboot of the original “Powerpuff Girls” series.

IDW collected issues #4 to #6 of that series in the 6” x9” hardcover comic book, The Powerpuff Girls: Power Up My Mojo.  [The first three issues of the 2016 series were collected in The Powerpuff Girls: Homecoming.]  Mancini and Goldman wrote issues #4 to 6.  Derek Charm illustrated and colored issue #4.  Nicoletta Baldari drew and colored issue #5, and Phil Murphy drew and colored issue #5.  Andworld Productions provided the lettering for all three issues.

The Powerpuff Girls: Power Up My Mojo features three full-length, full-color stories.  In the first (from issue #4), the mayor of Townsville asks the Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup to lead the upcoming bicycle race, “the Tour de Townsville.”  There is just one problem.  The Powerpuff Girls don't known how to ride bikes.  As luck would have it, they meet the mysterious Penny Farthing and her “Magic Time-Traveling Bicycle.”  Penny offers to teach the girls how to ride bikes, so what does that have to do with... Him?!

In the second story (from issue #5), the girls enter “the Townsville Soapbox Derby” with Bubbles driving a soapbox car, but Mojo Jojo has a diabolical plan to use the race to give him all the power.  In the third story (issue #6), the Powerpuff Girls take on their adversaries, Bianca and Barbie a.k.a. “The Fashionistas.” to recover a pair of “1000 carat diamond pumps.”  This time, however, the Fashionistas have something to stop the girls, the “sassy ray,” and woe be a town or a scientist father that runs afoul of three sassy superhero girls.

IDW sent me a review copy of The Powerpuff Girls: Power Up My Mojo about a year ago, but circumstances kept me from reading it until recently.  I really wish IDW would have sent me the previous book because...

I really like The Powerpuff Girls: Power Up My Mojo.  This is simply a fun comic book to read.  I was a fan of the original Powerpuff Girls animated TV series and of the series stars, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup.  [I have not seen the 2016-18 reboot.]  The three stories contained in this collection delight me the same way the TV series did.  I am sure that writers Haley Mancini and Jake Goldman could turn these stories into episodes of the series (if they are not already), because these three stories are pure Powerpuff – sugar, spice and all.

I am familiar with artist Derek Charm from his work on Archie Comics' Jughead and IDW's Star Wars Adventures.  Charm can draw comics in several media cartoon and animated styles, and he produces killer Powerpuff Girls.  Artists and colorists, Nicoletta Baldari and Phil Murphy, also draw illustrations that capture the sparkly, Powerpuff style.  Andworld Production's glittery lettering fits in perfectly with the sugary, effervescent art and graphical storytelling in this collection.

I could read two or three more books like The Powerpuff Girls: Power Up My Mojo.  IDW has produced at least two more Powerpuff Girls comic book miniseries since the 2016 series.  I hope IDW keeps them coming, and I need to look for the ones they already have published!

8 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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