Unicorn Boy | Review

Unicorn Boy
By Dave Roman
First Second, $22.99
Publisher’s rating: Ages 8-12

Astronaut Academy cartoonist Dave Roman’s new book Unicorn Boy stars Brian Reyes, a totally normal kid growing up in an unassuming suburban home where nothing particularly note-worthy ever happened. Until the day Brian discovered a small bump on the top of his head, of course, and that bump quickly grew into a unicorn horn that exhibited strange, probably magical properties (like its beautiful singing voice).

That is not the weirdest thing to happen to Brian though. The weirdest thing would probably be when he opened up his lunch one day to find a magical talking muffin, which would quickly become his confidante and mentor. (The muffin used to be a magician’s life coach named Wylit the Wisen before he was cursed into the form of a talking baked good, if that makes slightly more sense.)

It is under the muffin’s guidance that Brian goes through his first transformation sequence (“By the power of the moon and sun… When it comes to magical horns… he has ONE!”), during which his hair grows longer and more colorful and his clothes turn into an all-white uniform, and the new hero saves the life–well, one of the lives–of a careless black cat that is almost run over by a car.

By revealing his true magical self, however, Unicorn Boy attracted the attention of the forces of darkness, in the form of creepy shadows sneaking up on him (his horn sings a song about them). By the time he gets home, his neighbor and best friend Avery is captured by the shadows and taken into the underworld, where a new villain named the Skull-King has declared himself the boss.

It’s up to Brian and his talking muffin advisor and a few new allies to travel to the underworld, save Avery and the other captives, and defeat the Skull-King.

If this all sounds a bit random, and like a little kid telling a story, “and then this happened, and then this happened” style, well, it can certainly feel that way, especially in the opening pages as Roman introduces his large-ish, mostly pretty weird cast. The story begins to take a more formal, more put-together feel when Brian’s quest begins in earnest, and various dots are connected. In fact, Roman has an entire cosmology consisting of sentient shadows, cats, humans and the powers of light that is revealed as the story progresses. It may feel a bit disjointed at first, but Unicorn Boy reveals itself to be a fairly polished affair.

Roman’s artwork is design style is delightfully simple, and the proceedings are rendered in thick black lines. He has a way of making everything he draws seem cute, even those things that one doesn’t normally think of as cute, like parents, police officers, evil shadows, grim reapers and, of course, the Skull-King.

As frenetic as the events are, particularly at the climax–in which the non-binary Avery is brought back to life and gets their own heroic form, complete with transformation sequence–there is a great deal that is left unresolved, including the final fate of the Skull-King and the muffin still being stuck in the form of a muffin.

While not exactly cliffhangers, these events will almost certainly be picked up on in a second book. After all, there’s a big, bold numeral one on the spine of this volume, all but promising a number two in the future. It would be welcome, as Unicorn Boy and his new heroic partner seem to have a lot of potential.

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