96 pages, Us Mainstream sized trade, Softcover

£8.00 (includes £2 UK Shipping) from http://littleterrorscomic.com/?page_id=211
Out of Print, Available stocks limited.

Collection of strips from March 2006 on, with new material

Little Terrors is the British reasonably well-known webcomic about a group of child mutants, zombies, vampires and monsters. Protected from the abhorrent deviance of the city-as-plague by virtue of their age as innocence, they team up to survive attacks by mad monks and crazy monster bears. This sounds like it could be fun, but I'm unhappy to report a lot of this collection of run just doesnt do it for me.

One page parts from a larger whole are the method of construction for many webcomics. This may work for some readers as I was reminded: storing up parts for a long read. However, for the beginner cartoonist as in this book (composed when Jon was about 19), theres a constant offputting disruption in flow. You can feel the coding in the gutters. In the first third, Many of the sequences seem contrived to shoehorn in the plot, the dialogue is quite awkward. The characters and scenario lack depth.

The web is the definitive challenge to punk's DIY brilliance. It contests it the claim by submission, opens the floodgates. Education and Journalism (and other sectors) are at risk from the untrained, the barely professional in with the salaried. Thats general observation and not meant to imply that Jon Scrivens' Little Terrors has been crafted without thought. The drawings appear to make decent use of CAD, panels are often clearly laid out, a good amount of background scenery. He also brings a panache to the crafting of odd and unusual characters, shaping like a wee Picasso. It remains however with webcomic conventions - a number of scenes even mirror 80s and 90s platform game backgrounds. The originals seem to have been coloured and then reprinted in black and white, which yes works okay.

The final 15 page chapter splits from the ongoing narrative to prologue and is easily my favourite. Theres closer evidence of Jon's storytelling prowess with sequenced dialogue and more of a visual straight forward playful mood. I'm hoping this is the way Little Terrors Book 2 goes. The book itself is 6x9 in. professionally packaged and the author is a quite likeable guy who may throw you in one of his postmodern free sketches. In addition he churns out newer improved material regularly and its worth following him on Twitter, for he s always trying new shit like Live Internet Drawing sessions!