The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo
by Drew Weing
2016
The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo is a kids' comic about a boy who moves to the city, discovers it's full of monsters, then learns that monsters aren't as scary as he thought.
Our viewpoint character is Charles, an aspiring journalist whose parents have just moved into a fixer-upper apartment in a former hotel. Echo City is on the coast; it's a bit economically distressed, though maybe things have recently improved. The titular Margo Maloo helps out other kids who have monster problems. Her main rules for helping are that the monsters were here first and have at least as much right to a peaceful life as the human kids do, and that you can't tell any adults about the existence of monsters.
Creepy Case Files has three chapters. In the first, Charles sees a troll in his bedroom at night. A neighbor kid, who really wants to set a world record for like hopping on one leg or standing on his head, gives Charles Margo's business card, and she shows up to help negotiate a peaceful resolution. The troll's annoyed that the hotel's getting remodeled, but he and Charles find common ground in their love of little stuffed toys that definitely are not Beanie Babies. In the second chapter, inquisitive Charles gets Margo to agree to let him tag along while she helps find a lost kid in an abandoned restaurant that's haunted by a ghost. In the third chapter, Charles is falsely accused of kidnapping a baby ogre. (He's been seen snooping around, and monsters have trouble telling humans apart!) Margo finds the baby and clears his name, with Charles taking on a Watson-like role.
Charles's parents dress like former Gen X alternative kids. They're excited by the DIY opportunities, and the fact that unlike in their old small town, the can get quinoa in the grocery store here, and carry-out from Korean restaurants. I feel like author Drew Weing included those details for parents who are reading with their kids to enjoy. Also for grown-ups' benefit - Charles's dad trying to explain the fraught ethics of gentrification to an disinterested 10-year-old, and dad clearly worrying that his White son isn't getting along with the neighbors before realizing Charles is talking about monsters, which are obviously just make-believe. The neighbor kid who wants to set a record is Black, and it seems like they will be friends. Margo looks Mediterranean to me. She's too much of a loner to consider Charles a friend, but by the end of the book, she might accept him as a partner in this monster business.
Our viewpoint character is Charles, an aspiring journalist whose parents have just moved into a fixer-upper apartment in a former hotel. Echo City is on the coast; it's a bit economically distressed, though maybe things have recently improved. The titular Margo Maloo helps out other kids who have monster problems. Her main rules for helping are that the monsters were here first and have at least as much right to a peaceful life as the human kids do, and that you can't tell any adults about the existence of monsters.
Creepy Case Files has three chapters. In the first, Charles sees a troll in his bedroom at night. A neighbor kid, who really wants to set a world record for like hopping on one leg or standing on his head, gives Charles Margo's business card, and she shows up to help negotiate a peaceful resolution. The troll's annoyed that the hotel's getting remodeled, but he and Charles find common ground in their love of little stuffed toys that definitely are not Beanie Babies. In the second chapter, inquisitive Charles gets Margo to agree to let him tag along while she helps find a lost kid in an abandoned restaurant that's haunted by a ghost. In the third chapter, Charles is falsely accused of kidnapping a baby ogre. (He's been seen snooping around, and monsters have trouble telling humans apart!) Margo finds the baby and clears his name, with Charles taking on a Watson-like role.
Charles's parents dress like former Gen X alternative kids. They're excited by the DIY opportunities, and the fact that unlike in their old small town, the can get quinoa in the grocery store here, and carry-out from Korean restaurants. I feel like author Drew Weing included those details for parents who are reading with their kids to enjoy. Also for grown-ups' benefit - Charles's dad trying to explain the fraught ethics of gentrification to an disinterested 10-year-old, and dad clearly worrying that his White son isn't getting along with the neighbors before realizing Charles is talking about monsters, which are obviously just make-believe. The neighbor kid who wants to set a record is Black, and it seems like they will be friends. Margo looks Mediterranean to me. She's too much of a loner to consider Charles a friend, but by the end of the book, she might accept him as a partner in this monster business.
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