French, Renee – The Soap Lady

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The Soap Lady

Well, I always said that sooner or later I’d get around to reviewing this, and it turned out to be much, much later. And even then it was mostly only because Top Shelf sold it for so very cheap. Oh well, at least now I get to see how Renee does with a children’s book. All I’d seen was the book above, which didn’t seem like it would be the kind of thing that children should be reading at all, so I had my doubts… which were crushed completely after reading this. It’s done as a children’s book, like I said, with one panel per page and the text beneath the illustration. It’s the story of a lady made of soap who comes up out of the lake and befriends a young boy who’s trying to win a bet with his mother by staying clean for a week. She cleans him up and then gets to work cleaning up the whole forest, but people have a tendency to fear things they don’t understand, and, children’s book or not, I don’t want to give away the ending or anything. Oh, and I also don’t usually mention the blurbs on the back of the book, but this one is notable because they’re from Penn Jillette and Arthur Penn (director of Bonnie and Clyde and Little Big Man), not your usual quotable for a comic. Great stuff, I wouldn’t hesitate at all in reading this to a child. it’s $19.95 at cover price, but I’ll bet you could find it for cheaper if you did some digging. Oh, and here’s her website!