Christmas Stories: Jingle Belle
I recently came into possession of Paul Dini’s Jingle Belle trade from Dark Horse. I figured now would be the perfect time to check it out and offer up a quick review. I remember picking up the very first Jingle Belle one-shot from Oni way back when it came out in 1999. I don’t remember what I thought about it then, but I really dug this trade, which collects the four issue Dark Horse series. Paul Dini of Batman: The Animated Series fame, with art by Jose Garibaldi, J. Bone and Stephanie Gladden. The overall premise is that Jingle Belle is Santa’s daughter and gets into plenty of cartoony shenanigans, like turning a Santa-themed amusement park into a casino or trying to create her own. This book is an absolute blast. I’ve never seen static art look so animated. Everything drawn by Garibaldi is like liquid motion, it’s crazy. Even if you’re not a big Christmas fan, I highly recommend this book for you, especially if you’re a fan of classic animation like Looney Tunes. I actually wish this was turned into an animated series so I could watching something really great instead of some of the junk on ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas (Santa Baby is pretty terrible you guys, even WITH Jenny McCarthy’s hotness).
