Wrapped Up #2
Dave Scheidt (Writer), Scoot McMahon and Carolyn Nowak (Art), Sean Dove (Colorist)
Lion Forge Comics
November 15th, 2017
Milo is your everyday preteen boy. His parents are divorced. He has a sister he struggles to get along with. He loves pizza. And of course, he’s a mummy. Mummies in Milo’s world are just a normal part of life, along with wizards and witches. Being a mummy is no difficulty at all when compared with being 12 years old.
In “The Babysitter’s Club,” the first of two misadventures in Wrapped Up #2, Milo experiences a quintessential teen humiliation: he is babysat by someone younger than himself. Milo’s babysitter for the night is Eleanor Kojima, a young witch. Eleanor tries to use her powers to babysit by referencing a spell book titled “Cute Spells 4 Cute Gurlz: A Spellbook for Pre-Teens” but her skills aren’t quite up to par yet. Cue disaster after disaster until Milo’s dad comes home from his date.
This first story is a situation all can relate to. Being told what to do by someone younger than you stirs up a particular sort of frustrated shame that doesn’t completely go away with age. And like kids, most adults can remember the sense of panic to clean up before a parent gets home. The art by Scott McMahon is bright, colorful, and just a tad spooky. The art, combined with the quirky content is reminiscent of the Golden Age of Nickelodeon cartoons.
Milo’s second misadventure, “The Ewww-y Decimal System,” calls him to the library to help his mom. Hoping to be sorting comic books, Milo is disappointed when his mom tells him to find the source of the nasty smell that is driving kids away from the library.
The second story is a third the length of the first, and as a reader one can feel this comparison acutely. “The Ewww-y Decimal System” end abruptly, without a chance to process the reveal of the source of the stench. It is meant to be short, but the quick wrap up feels hasty rather than calculated.
Issue #1 struggled to get off the ground. Both stories in it felt forced and a little too on the nose in their attempts to target the pre-teen audience. Issue #2, however, is fresh, subtler, and just weird enough to suck the reader right in.
Something the series has done well is representing a diverse populace. The first issue depicted a Muslim family, a demographic we don’t often see represented in comics. The second gave us Eleanor, a witch of Asian heritage. In a fantasy world where mummies can coexist with humans, it’s great to see the diversity in our own world reflected in the pages.
The series so far is a great book for younger readers who are interested in the spookier elements of fantasy and are future horror fans but who aren’t yet old enough for some of the scarier horror books out there.
