The King of Space by Jonny Duddle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Well, this is adorable.
Jonny Duddle’s perhaps best known for his Pirates books, and indeed that’s where I know his name from. My library didn’t have those in but they did have this. And this is ace.
The King of Space is brilliant. It reads a little like a hybrid of the Eagle comics I used to steal from my brothers, and a Pixar movie; its round, full-cheeked and distinctly filmic artwork meshes up with some superb little details that feel resolutely British somehow, as though they may have fallen out of a Dan Dare or a PC 49 comic.
Rex lives on a Moog farm with his mum and dad in the middle of the Gamma quadrant. He may be little, but he has BIG plans. He is plotting to become THE KING OF SPACE. I feel capital letters are justified, it’s that sort of a thing. As he himself states on the title splash, “Soon the whole universe will know MY name!”.
This book is such a smile. It starts with the wide-eyed moog of the moog (basically a cow in space, strapped in with sensible straps so it doesn’t float away and a bug-eyed headlight-caught gaze. Basically brilliant), and builds from that point. The robot (sorry, WARBOT) admonishing Rex’s audience to clap, the ‘all-powerful on your own planet’ conversation, and a particularly lovely reveal fold out page towards the end of the book.
There is a million and one things to enjoy about this book. Rex himself says it best, with the luscious little sf in-joke of: “Resistance is futile” Get your hands on this.
Daisy May Johnson 