Comics Features

REVIEW: Booyah!

When you see the cover for Booyah! by French writer and artist Loran you get the idea of how this is going to go, this is going to be bright, violent and, not at all suitable for kids as the art would have you believe. Booyah himself has more in common with The Happy Tree Friends, than he does his country mate Asterix. First published in France in 2009 by Petit A Petit Editions and released in English by Sloth Comics in 2011.

The book is cut into four stories about the titular Booyah, a large green monster who just wants to help small children and older ladies in spite of his anger problems and being incredibly accident prone. The first story is Happy Birthday in which Booyah in helping out at little Lizzy’s birthday party and after playing a little joke on her everything goes horribly awry. The next one up is Domino, when Booyah is trying to help an elderly lady in the supermarket things, obviously, don’t go so well so Booyah decides to she is going to need his assistance at home as well.

The third tale is Mr Sandman, Bring Me A Dream which features Booyah babysitting a brother and sister, and I don’t need to tell you that things aren’t going to go to plan after the the Sandman and his helper Bear(?) get tried to send the siblings off to sleep. At this point is the Interlude which I don’t want to ruin but it is delightful. The last story is the main even of the comic Night Of The Living Dead Scout Zombies From Hell, about a scout group accidentally waking Booyah in the woods and obviously things happen to said scouts that you wouldn’t really want to happen on your kids scout trip.

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Booyah! is a simple thing, it is the tale of this big green rage monster; I’m sure I’ve written that before about someone else before. The stories are all hilariously funny and the final story takes an unexpected swerve towards the end that it tugs at your heart strings totally out the blue. I think in any other comic this swerve might feel a little preachy but Booyah! has love at the fore front all the way through with Booyah just wanting to help and protect the vulnerable ones around him. The art is wonderfully bright like a Saturday morning cartoon that makes the blood and extreme violence all the more entertaining.

I certainly hope Sloth Comics can get more of Booyah’s adventures translated into the English language, I guess I could just learn French but that probably won’t happen and would most certainly take longer. Booyah! is one of the best, funniest comics I’ve read for quite awhile and I really want more of the big hearted, angry, overly clumsy guy.

You can pick up your own copy of Booyah! here, and when you have done that come tell us what you think of it, either in the comments or on Twitter.

About the author

Mark Warner