Though I know they're coming this time o' year -- and I enjoy reading 'em -- I never seem to pick up Paul Dini's seasonal Jingle Belle funnybooks until after their holiday's passed. So when I actually managed to purchase this year's Dark Horse one-shot, The Bakers Meet Jingle Belle, on the Wednesday before Xmas, I couldn't help feeling unreasonably proud of meself. Look at me – buying a Christmas comic ahead of time!
This year's JB bash teams Dini's teenaged Elven heroine, the troublemaking daughter of old St. Nick, with the Bakers, the comic book version of cartoonist Kyle Baker's family. Baker handles the art, and I've gotta admit I enjoy his loosy-goosy proto-Sergio Aragonés penwork over previous artist Jose Garibaldi (who makes Jing's dad just a shade too grotesque for my tastes).
Dini's featherweight script follows both the Claus and Baker family as they scramble through a hectic Christmas Eve. When our heroine attempts to ditch her dad in the midst of his late-night run ("What I want is to be back in my nice cozy igloo, hanging with my friends on MySpace," the eternal teen grouses after Santa's grabbed her to help with deliveries), she's mistaken for a babysitter by the Bakers, who leave her in charge of their mischievous kidlets. Comic hi-jinks ensure after JB swipes poppa's sleigh so she can show the North Pole workshop off to the Baker brood.
In the meantime, daddies Claus and Baker both get pursued by the cops after the former mistakes a life-like reindeer/sleigh display for the real thing. (Scripter Dini and his magician wife Misty Lee make a cameo here – which leads one to believe that Kris Kringle's first stop is a wonderful town primarily inhabited by comics folk.) It's all straightened out in time, of course.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
2 - mela
wanna read this