Grown-Ups Are Dumb! (No Offense)

Kitchen is a veteran cartoonist, having been publishing her work for the past five years. That's not unusual. The surprising part is that she's 10 years old, and what she lacks in technical skill she makes up for in brio. Call her the real life Greg Heffley. It's fascinating to see which parts of a mature cartoonist's skill set she's just beginning to develop—proportion, observation, storytelling—and which are already pretty much there. She can compose a panel or a page at least as well as most cartoonists three times her age, and her gag writing has absorbed a lot from her older colleagues. (Matt Groening is a particular influence.) Unsurprisingly, Kitchen's protagonists Kathy Ford, Molly, Sharon and Hurricane Abby are all preteen girls a lot like her. Her sense of humor is unmistakably a 10-year-old's idea of what's funny—messy bedrooms (drawn with scribbly glee) and annoying siblings are reliable sources of comedy. But there are some unexpectedly calm, pensive moments, too, particularly a wordless two-page strip about the frustrations and consolations of art. As a look inside a very young artist's mind, Kitchen's work is pretty charming; aspiring preteen cartoonists may find it inspirational. (Sept.)