Ape and Armadillo Take Over the World

Armadillo has world domination on the mind, but buddy Ape is fed up with assignments that involve trudging through sewers and fending off robot armies. “Why do I have to distract the spitting serpent that guards the castle... while you sneak in with the princess to steal the wizard king’s wand,” Ape gripes as Sturm shows him getting tossed around by a monster that resembles an overgrown garden hose. (Yes, these plans for global takeover are strictly pretend, though Ape and Armadillo take them very seriously.) Armadillo pooh-poohs Ape’s idea of an evil plan (it involves scaring kids out of an ice cream shop and eating all the butter pecan), but after Armadillo imagines blowing up the Earth with a “space cannon,” Ape has had enough: “I don’t want to blow up the world. I like a lot of people in the world.” Sturm (Birdsong) captures the larger-than-life emotions and imaginations of these friends in crisply drafted cartoons as Machiavellian machinations give way to compromise. As a bonus, secondary comics run along the bottom of the pages, helping readers get to know these two big personalities even better. Ages 6–9. [em](Sept.) [/em]