As the debut for Sellers's new comics line—Not-for-Children Children's Books—David Quinn and Michael Davis's The Littlest Bitch
makes for an odd kind of statement, and not one that is likely to catch on with either adults or the children who buy it by mistake. The titular protagonist, Isabel, is a preternaturally mature little girl who rules her family's house with the iron fist of the spoiled brat. Isabel is not just an overindulged child, she's also a kind of early-blooming corporate raider (she writes a note to herself to have a family holiday photo “incinerated before Business Week
profiles me on my first IPO”). Once she's grown up, Isabel doesn't manage to grow any taller. She does get even meaner and tougher, executing corporate synergies from a corner office where she sits like an evil little doll, her feet not even touching the floor. Isabel of course gets her comeuppance, but that's essentially what passes for satire in Quinn and Davis's heavy-handed tale, related with glimmers of faux bedtime-story charm. Although Devereaux delivers the full-page illustrations with the correct level of Grimmsian exaggeration, the perfunctory story doesn't live up to its dark comedic promises.(Apr.)
